On being a graduate student

I have been really consumed with my life as a student. I wanted to share some thoughts on grad school, thus far. 

As some of you may know, I am currently in a dual degree program. I was on the MPH track (Masters of Public Health) and I am currently switching to the MScPH (Masters of Science in Public Health). It has been a little bit of a headache, but I am getting it done. The MScPH is pretty much the same degree with more biostatistics, more research methods courses, and I don't have to to do an internship nor pay the professional fee ($7,000 per year) since it is an academic degree. 

I am currently in a program planning class which is a sort of "rite of passage". You work in a group the entire quarter (and, in the same group next quarter for the program evaluation course) and you produce a grant for a specific intervention with a specific target population. It sounds pretty cool upon hearing about it, right? And it is - we learn and do a lot. However, the amount of time and energy this class requires is just heinous - I can hardly believe it. 

And this leads me to my main point of writing this. Yesterday I was filing my taxes with the UCLA tax assistance volunteers who are mostly undergraduates. My helper was a really nice kid, 2nd year, studying economics and political science. While we were waiting for someone to check his work, he was telling me that most of the people coming in are graduate students, and that all of the volunteers try to ask them a lot of questions about life, grad school, etc., because they seem to "have it all together". Anyways, I kinda got deep with the kid, cause I could tell that he wanted to go there. And here is what I came up with:

Grad school is a scam. School is a scam. Life is a big joke; we are all going to die. 

Ok so that's not really what I said. However, what I did talk about is how when you're in grad school hopefully you really like what you are doing because you simply spend so much time in it. If you take it seriously (which, for the most part, you kind of have to), your life may be entirely consumed by it. And if you lose perspective, you stop enjoying the most precious and beautiful things in your life. Such as: a good night's rest, a delicious cup of coffee, your dearest friends, your parents and family, enjoying the beautiful campus that we walk on everyday. 

Every time I tell someone on the bus or in the world that I am a grad student at UCLA, I am bombarded with comments on how beautiful the campus is, or how wonderful it must be to be a student. When you are living it, it's really hard to see, because we are simply too busy. Or, because you simply cannot see the beauty of working on a project/studying on a Friday night...then Saturday night...and then your day of rest becomes the day of doom. 

I suppose this is what came out of our conversation: 

1. If you go to grad school, choose something you adore, or can at least adore parts of. 
2. Surrender to what is...what you can do...want to do...don't/do do. Be late, don't do all your readings, skip class if you're burned out or sick, own up to it all if it helps you savor the little treats of life. 
3. Call at least 1 friend or family member who you care about, weekly, no matter how busy you are.
4. Cause in the end, all we have are the moments and connections. Moments of pain, joy, love, engagement...connections with people who we love. 

So enjoy your coffee, sit on the grass on campus, love yourself and others, and just sit in each moment.