First week of classes

Yesterday marked the official first week of classes. Due to the holiday we started classes on a Tuesday. How can I summarize the first week?? Well, I have cried every single day. Yup, every single day, sometimes twice and three times a day. I've also woken up at least an hour before my alarm every day, worrying worrying worrying.

If you are a long-ish time reader of this blog you might remember a post I wrote after taking the GMATs. I believe I said something like "If the content on the GMATs is required to succeed in business school or to succeed in a job afterwards, then perhaps I am not a good candidate for business school." I actually don't think I said that in the blog post, but I sure was thinking it. And it looks like it is very very true.

I'm taking 6 classes this semester. One of them is a one credit required class that will be over mid-October. The other five are hardcore business classes. Three of them are very heavy in math, graphs, equations, probability and/or statistics. This is math that I have never ever grasped and don't even know how to read a question, much less discuss the concepts in any meaningful way. My classes meet once per week for 2 hours and 40 minutes. About half way through the class the professor gives a break. At the break in my economics class I walked out of the classroom and all I could think was "I am screwed." Less than two hours into the course I was already completely lost. Graphs, equations, math. I didn't get it. I tried to do the reading for the class over the weekend and I couldn't get past the first page. The two other quantitative classes - accounting and supply/demand - are similar, but have better professors and are set up in a way that I think I might be able to be pulled along into sort of getting it (although the supply/demand class requires a math self-placement component. I took the pre-test last night and apparently only understood 17 out of 77 of the concepts and after two hours of tears and frustration I only improved that to 20 out of 77. And I have until the end of the semester to bring the results up to 77 out of 77 and its not a multiple choice system. Yup, I am screwed.) There is no tutor available for the economics class and my professor hasn't returned my call or email. I am meeting with my advisor this afternoon to drop the class. My advisor already warned me not to get of track to graduation and economics is a pre-requisite to all the rest of the classes I have to take.

The thing is while I do think business school is a good idea it was also something of a lark. I was so totally miserable at my last job that I had to do something, and going back to school seemed like a good "something." I picked business school because it seemed like a good degree to have and because I didn't know what else to do. I have a lot of interests and I have a lot of skills but I have absolutely NO IDEA WHAT I WANT TO DO WITH MY LIFE. Everything interests me in a vague way but there's nothing out there that sparks my passion and makes me think "I can't wait to get up every morning and do X!" And when I say this I am referring to both a job/career but also hobbies and interests. Long ago I was into triathlon and sports in a big way. Now I'm not and I don't really miss it. But nothing has ever taken its place. So here I am blindly fumbling around for something to do with my life and have absolutely no idea what I'm interested in or have anything else that gives me joy that I can focus on so the career stuff can work itself out. So I am ridiculously stressed out on many levels and just feel so lost. Like I am making one ginormously expensive mistake where I am going to graduate and still be lost.

After my first economics class I told myself that at the end of this semester I will re-evaluate whether business school is right for me. It might not be and I am willing to accept that (I don't know if I can accept the amount of debt that I've already accrued to test this theory). Or it could be something that I should be doing on a more part-time basis where I spend the rest of my time seeking joy. In the meantime all of it is completely eating me up - the lack of career goals, the completely insane workload. I am also really hard on myself and put a ridiculous amount of pressure on myself which isn't helping. I can feel my thyroid spinning out of control and I've already lost weight. The MBA diet is not a good look for me - I actually think I've dropped a pants size in a week. Stress feeds my thyroid which feeds the weight loss. Add in no time to eat/cook and not feeling like I can take 30 minutes out of my day to go grocery shopping and you've got one unhealthy mess on your hands waiting to explode. And it's only been the first week of classes.

So, yeah, I'm dropping the economics class. If this screws me over for the rest of my program, so be it. If I was really passionate about business or knew exactly what I wanted to do at the end maybe I would push through, but killing myself just to get it all done in two years just doesn't seem worth it.