My Education Trap

Growing up, school was my way out.

At a young age, I had figured out that by putting a few extra hours worth of effort into my studies every week, I could advance through the year’s material faster than my classmates. If I worked even harder still, I could move on to the next grade before the academic year was over.

I envisioned escaping to university, leaving my oppressive hometown behind, making new friends, and reinventing myself into the outgoing butterfly I was meant to be. I was the smart kid, destined to do great things.

At fourteen, an opportunity to move to the city arose. I had already skipped a grade, but this opportunity would allow me to start university while simultaneously completing my high school diploma. The plan was to finish grade ten at this new school so I could qualify for the accelerated program at the start of the next academic term. Come September, I was enrolled in university classes full-time at fifteen years of age.

From then on, all my classes were done at university, counting towards both high school and college credits.

At age seventeen, I graduated high school with two years’ worth of university credits under my belt. I could have stayed at that university and earned a Bachelor of Science in another two years, but I wanted a new challenge.

I wanted to get even farther away, so I moved across the country.

In some of the best years of my life, I worked arduously in research labs and conjured up detailed notes; all of which culminated in a graduation with honors and a teaching scholarship for a doctoral program in chemistry before the age of 20.

Reality sunk in when the next academic term started. Graduate school was not like its undergraduate counterpart. Less important were tests and good grades, more important was independent research and weekly check-ins with my supervisor.

I felt wholly unprepared.

Each week, I would fill with dread at the thought of having to walk into my professor’s office knowing I had made very little progress. So many tiny roadblocks snowballed into a big mass of no work being completed. My mind got fuzzy with the stress and soon I didn’t even understand what my research was. I felt I was wasting everyone’s time including my own.

Teaching did little to ease my anxious nerves. I was the same age if not younger than the students in my teaching laboratory. How was I supposed to be the authority in a lab that I hadn’t even done myself?

Feeling like an imposter, I desperately wanted to leave. After one year, that’s exactly what I did.

I moved to another city full of hope that I would find a role that was both challenging and fulfilling. What I did find took five months to land. I attempted to teach — middle school this time — and again felt like an imposter. I had no teaching license, I wasn’t formally trained in education. How was I supposed to make lesson plans and help my students through their teenage dramas?

Overwhelmed, exhausted, and defeated, I submitted my resignation. I was going to go home.

Then, I got accepted to a far-away graduate program I had applied to on a whim months earlier. Having been accepted unexpectedly, I thought academia truly was my calling. I was excited to return to a world I had always felt accepted in — university.

The condensed version of that story is that exactly one year later, I was back home, having dropped out of yet another graduate program. The mental block was the same, only this time compounded by a physical injury I had sustained while overseas. This time, I felt truly broken.

I knew that by leaving, I was shutting the door on ever returning to academia again. It was time to move on to higher paying jobs using the degree I already had.

It took me eight months to find another job.

I had been rejected by every technical company I could find. Running out of money, I finally marched into a local business with my resume and asked if they were hiring.

The work was monotonous and easy, but I felt like I was atoning for my failure in academia. I worked hard to prove to everyone that I was happy with this new role. I was tired of being bothered about “wasting my potential”, but eventually I realized just how unfulfilled I had become.

I started applying to technical jobs again in the hopes of increasing my annual income, but faced rejections at every turn. The advice everywhere was to get this certification, that training, have this qualification. I have a degree with advanced studies in the physical sciences and mathematics for goodness sakes! Surely the hard work I put in over the past decade would mean something!

The need for more qualifications had led me back to considering academia again. I loved the material I was working on when I first attempted graduate school. Truthfully, I miss it. Academia, for me, has always held a promise of something better to come. I miss that sense of hope.

I want to go back but am scared I will run away again. What will finishing that degree really get me? Am I too far removed to even be any good if I do return?

Mental doubts aside, returning to school is expensive. Having blown any bit of savings I did have on the last foray, I cannot afford to take on more loans for school.

When I was younger, my hard work had a purpose and it took me somewhere. The path was clear then.

I am prepared to work hard now, I just can’t see the path or the destination this time to know where to focus my efforts.

As an adult, what is my way out?