I came to college believing the grind would carry me through anything. Now, halfway through junior year in Boston, I’m exhausted in a way sleep doesn’t fix. Between internships, research, and trying to build a résumé that would impress someone like Elon Musk, I feel my actual learning slipping. Has anyone else hit a point where ambition starts undermining education? How do you know when pushing harder stops being admirable and starts being self-destructive?
I hit that wall senior year at UCLA. I was juggling a part-time job in Santa Monica and a brutal course load, and I started googling things I never thought I would, including pay someone to do assignments. I even looked at a site advertising a professional essay writer after pulling three all-nighters in a row. At my lowest, I typed do my homework for me into a search bar and just stared at the screen. What stopped me wasn’t morality, it was fear of hollowing out my own degree. A Gallup poll once said most grads feel unprepared for work; I realized outsourcing my stress would only prove that stat right. I scaled back, dropped one class, took the financial hit, and my GPA barely moved. My sanity did. Ambition is loud, but burnout is quieter and more dangerous.
