Part-time studying
I've been enrolled in graduate school for half a semester. Midterms are over, but the results aren't out.
I have actually been "juggling" "school" and work since second semester of last year. I started my new job in November and found it quite light, given our four-day work week, so I attended my boss' DE 292: Impact Evaluation classes every Saturday. It was an intuitive subject, so I could catch up even without much background, but it was also difficult, because this is the real thing: impact evaluation is studying programs like the CCT, you know, the studies we usually just hear about. But I only listened in class, and I didn't have to do assignments, so "juggling" was mostly incorporating a school life into my schedule. And I did it, so by the time it ended, I was on my way to a degree in Development Economics.
In the summer, I took refresher courses that frustrated the heck out of me. In hindsight, I shouldn't have taken them, as I am an economics undergraduate and I generally live with economics. I read everyday, and I work in the field. Refresher classes were frustrating because it was going back to basics: positive and normative economics, supply and demand, even limits and probability. I enjoyed microeconomics and macroeconomics classes, of course, but math and statistics were just taxing. And it happened every Saturday, from 8AM to 5PM. I dozed off in math and statistics, because I just knew that we wouldn't use limits in graduate school anymore and honestly, I hated statistics since Math 12 (even if I did quite well in it, from studying in the library, hard). I was actually disappointed in UP, in my classmates: I would quietly sigh with exasperation when someone would ask something so basic, I didn't even know the answer to it anymore. I thought UP selected students? A lot of my classmates didn't even have economics backgrounds.
None of us took the final, diagnostic exam after refresher courses ended, which was hilarious. But we all went on, into the first semester of the first year of graduate school.
And here I admit that it was difficult. The past few weeks have been really horrible: I was studying for my exams, first, practicing math when I could, and also I was working. I was finishing up data templates for CHED, and I was also running the existing datasets, and I was supposed to be reading related literature. And those weeks I also got sick. I remember that one day: I gave a workshop, and at 6PM I went to class, shivering like a poor kid to take a practice exam. In the two days I was too sick for work, I was also too sick to study, and my brain was rejecting any new information. I couldn't even read current events in economics, which was horrible, because I read them everyday.
Last week, I was prepping for my macroeconomics exam, while running datasets and attempting to write the review for related literature. I had also signed up for an e-learning course on Policies and Growth at the World Bank (which explains previous blog entries), which just started. So I was reading their lectures and notes and papers while also reading and attempting to write about the economics of higher education, which was my job, and I was supposed to be studying macroeconomics. I was also supposed to be practicing finding derivatives, since in math classes I played staring games with exercises before actually doing them.
Needless to say, I became a sort of irritable robot, declining all social events, declining friends, without so much as a "sorry." The only good thing about last week was that my readings in my e-learning course quite related to what I was supposed to study in macroeconomics, so I focused on the e-course, which was more enjoyable. I loved it because it was current and relevant, and yes, because it asked for my opinion. Macroeconomics classes were again all about the basics, you know, deriving the IS-LM model, money supply and central bank motives. God, listen to me. I whine so much about basic things but I can't even really explain them. But World Bank, on the other hand, asked what I thought of the measures of poverty, and about fiscal policy, and aid--the course combined all my work experiences, even my current work, and my student life, in a sense. I love it. It's four weeks long!
Anyway, we had the exam last Saturday, so I'm a bit better now. And here I say that while graduate school isn't exactly what I hoped it would be, I was neither exactly what I hoped I would be. It's hard being a student and working, and being yourself: by this I mean it's hard to study and work and read up on economics. I haven't even factored in being my social self, because I'm on the verge of letting that go and telling my friends I'll come back to them as soon as I get my degree. They might not like that so much.
But see, when I envisioned graduate school, I imagined being like my idols, John Nash and Adam Smith and John Maynard Keynes: genius, and solitary. I vowed to be like them. I didn't like going out like my peers did, anyway, so I figured I might as well go all out and just devote myself to economics. It's pretty cool the way my life is all about economics; last week I just felt happy that my stresses were all related, bonded by economics.
I guess what I was trying to say was that being a part-time student isn't what I imagined, but I ended up saying that being a part-time student, full-time researcher and full-time the-economic-person-I-want-to-be isn't really open to having friends. Wow. You want to say one thing, you end up writing another.
Not that I don't have friends, I mean, my officemates are hilarious and I love hanging out with them. But my friends, my longtime friends, I feel like I don't have time for, and I feel like I don't even want to bother anymore. It makes me a bad friend, but honestly, if it takes too much effort, I'm out. This is weird because I'm usually the one making the effort, but I guess I've had enough and I'm done. I'm going on with my life.
So that's why I hate practically everyone lately. I'd really just rather read Twitter updates from economists (my new favorites are Noah Smith and Justin Wolfers and Mark Thoma) than see my peers' night at Aracama. What the hell is Aracama, even? I have a problem set to do, chapters to read, literature to review, and lectures to watch and write about. Do you pity me yet? Because I don't, and I'm wondering if I should. Am I wasting my youth? Is youth supposed to be spent partying? Can't youth be spent enriching oneself? Because I just really want to become an economist, as soon as possible, whatever it takes, whatever I have to lose.
I have actually been "juggling" "school" and work since second semester of last year. I started my new job in November and found it quite light, given our four-day work week, so I attended my boss' DE 292: Impact Evaluation classes every Saturday. It was an intuitive subject, so I could catch up even without much background, but it was also difficult, because this is the real thing: impact evaluation is studying programs like the CCT, you know, the studies we usually just hear about. But I only listened in class, and I didn't have to do assignments, so "juggling" was mostly incorporating a school life into my schedule. And I did it, so by the time it ended, I was on my way to a degree in Development Economics.
In the summer, I took refresher courses that frustrated the heck out of me. In hindsight, I shouldn't have taken them, as I am an economics undergraduate and I generally live with economics. I read everyday, and I work in the field. Refresher classes were frustrating because it was going back to basics: positive and normative economics, supply and demand, even limits and probability. I enjoyed microeconomics and macroeconomics classes, of course, but math and statistics were just taxing. And it happened every Saturday, from 8AM to 5PM. I dozed off in math and statistics, because I just knew that we wouldn't use limits in graduate school anymore and honestly, I hated statistics since Math 12 (even if I did quite well in it, from studying in the library, hard). I was actually disappointed in UP, in my classmates: I would quietly sigh with exasperation when someone would ask something so basic, I didn't even know the answer to it anymore. I thought UP selected students? A lot of my classmates didn't even have economics backgrounds.
None of us took the final, diagnostic exam after refresher courses ended, which was hilarious. But we all went on, into the first semester of the first year of graduate school.
And here I admit that it was difficult. The past few weeks have been really horrible: I was studying for my exams, first, practicing math when I could, and also I was working. I was finishing up data templates for CHED, and I was also running the existing datasets, and I was supposed to be reading related literature. And those weeks I also got sick. I remember that one day: I gave a workshop, and at 6PM I went to class, shivering like a poor kid to take a practice exam. In the two days I was too sick for work, I was also too sick to study, and my brain was rejecting any new information. I couldn't even read current events in economics, which was horrible, because I read them everyday.
Last week, I was prepping for my macroeconomics exam, while running datasets and attempting to write the review for related literature. I had also signed up for an e-learning course on Policies and Growth at the World Bank (which explains previous blog entries), which just started. So I was reading their lectures and notes and papers while also reading and attempting to write about the economics of higher education, which was my job, and I was supposed to be studying macroeconomics. I was also supposed to be practicing finding derivatives, since in math classes I played staring games with exercises before actually doing them.
Needless to say, I became a sort of irritable robot, declining all social events, declining friends, without so much as a "sorry." The only good thing about last week was that my readings in my e-learning course quite related to what I was supposed to study in macroeconomics, so I focused on the e-course, which was more enjoyable. I loved it because it was current and relevant, and yes, because it asked for my opinion. Macroeconomics classes were again all about the basics, you know, deriving the IS-LM model, money supply and central bank motives. God, listen to me. I whine so much about basic things but I can't even really explain them. But World Bank, on the other hand, asked what I thought of the measures of poverty, and about fiscal policy, and aid--the course combined all my work experiences, even my current work, and my student life, in a sense. I love it. It's four weeks long!
Anyway, we had the exam last Saturday, so I'm a bit better now. And here I say that while graduate school isn't exactly what I hoped it would be, I was neither exactly what I hoped I would be. It's hard being a student and working, and being yourself: by this I mean it's hard to study and work and read up on economics. I haven't even factored in being my social self, because I'm on the verge of letting that go and telling my friends I'll come back to them as soon as I get my degree. They might not like that so much.
But see, when I envisioned graduate school, I imagined being like my idols, John Nash and Adam Smith and John Maynard Keynes: genius, and solitary. I vowed to be like them. I didn't like going out like my peers did, anyway, so I figured I might as well go all out and just devote myself to economics. It's pretty cool the way my life is all about economics; last week I just felt happy that my stresses were all related, bonded by economics.
I guess what I was trying to say was that being a part-time student isn't what I imagined, but I ended up saying that being a part-time student, full-time researcher and full-time the-economic-person-I-want-to-be isn't really open to having friends. Wow. You want to say one thing, you end up writing another.
Not that I don't have friends, I mean, my officemates are hilarious and I love hanging out with them. But my friends, my longtime friends, I feel like I don't have time for, and I feel like I don't even want to bother anymore. It makes me a bad friend, but honestly, if it takes too much effort, I'm out. This is weird because I'm usually the one making the effort, but I guess I've had enough and I'm done. I'm going on with my life.
So that's why I hate practically everyone lately. I'd really just rather read Twitter updates from economists (my new favorites are Noah Smith and Justin Wolfers and Mark Thoma) than see my peers' night at Aracama. What the hell is Aracama, even? I have a problem set to do, chapters to read, literature to review, and lectures to watch and write about. Do you pity me yet? Because I don't, and I'm wondering if I should. Am I wasting my youth? Is youth supposed to be spent partying? Can't youth be spent enriching oneself? Because I just really want to become an economist, as soon as possible, whatever it takes, whatever I have to lose.