25 and Renewed: From Quarter Life Crisis to My Next Chapter

From GMATs back in March 2009 to July 2010, much has changed in the Syposphere!  If you’d like to skip all the details, I suggest you scroll down to the TLDR – Too Long; Didn’t Read — section.  Proceeding…

2010 has been a big year for my fellow high school classmates — the year most of us turn(ed) 25. I’ve wished countless Happy 25th Birthdays on Facebook and received my share of quarter-century birthday love last month.  Frankly, it’s been kind of weird. Not to be mistaken with “old” as I’m aware many of my friends who are past 25 are reading this! It’s true though: 25 is the year it hits you where you start to wonder, “Am I where I imagined I would be at this age?” When we were 21, it was fun and games still. Most of us were in college and knew our goal at the time was just to find a full-time job once we were out. But once you get past that, work for a few years, what’s next? We are at a point in our lives where we have so much freedom and unknowns, that it becomes frustrating. Restless almost as we’re continuously reflecting on whether we are heading in the right direction.

All of our lives we had a next step that was pretty clearly defined. From elementary, you move on to middle school, then off to high school with the big kids. Graduate and get a piece of paper. Find a job. Some of us got married, some went on to graduate school.  We start to branch off and truly have the freedom to decide nearly every aspect of our lives.  We ask and re-ask ourselves, “Am I happy and if not, what am I doing wrong?”  It can drive you up the wall because there really are no solid answers.  You begin to question your job, your career, relationships, friends, hobbies.  You can’t help but compare yourself to your peers because they’re not ranting on about their issues so they must be doing something right.  However, I’ve found that this has been fairly common among my peers and learned through reading the Quarter Life Crisis, that a majority of 20-some adults experience this anxiety, but they just don’t openly discuss it.  There are different degrees of it as well.  Calling it a “crisis” is a tad extreme, but it can certainly consume you.

I started feeling this way for almost a year.  Becoming antsy with my daily routine and really wondering what I have to do to say I love my job and I love my life.  While I don’t believe a job should define who you are, it is a huge part of life obviously since you’re spending more time at your job than home during the week, so you better damn well enjoy it or you’re in it for the long haul!  I see our 20s as an exploratory time where we live mainly for ourselves.  It’s time to be selfish and pursue those things you’ve always wanted to, especially those hobbies we are so passionate about (READ: Paul Graham’s “How to Do What You Love.”)  While we do have our day job to feed our mouths and provide a roof over our heads, there is plenty of time outside to devote at least an evening or two to get excited about something.  For me, it is dance.

This past year and a half has been such a re-defining year for me.  I didn’t ever think I would join a female dance group, attend dance class twice a week at a community college, try out at dance auditions, or even professionally perform in front of huge audiences.  It’s been a humbling and also very educational experience.  Pursuing this hobby as actively as I did was enough for me to get myself out of the emotional rut I was in to feel alive and happy enough to consider the different parts of my life with a level head.

I discovered that while dance makes me feel renewed, it is not a career I envisioned myself ending up in.  Dance scratches my creative itch.  It challenges my brain in such a way that software engineering just can’t even come close and of course, dance physically keeps me well.  However, I couldn’t fathom giving up the comforts of my life that I’ve worked so hard to earn: a steady paycheck and copious amounts of free time after work.  Not to mention, the prestige of working in the fairly respectable software development industry.  So if not dance and if not coding, then what?  Initially, I thought I would shift into the business side while still staying in a technical company, hence my GMAT pursuit.  Though after 8 months of serious introspection, I realized an MBA was not for me (at least not this early in my career).  This deserves a post on its own simply because I’ve repeatedly explained my point of view to those considering the MBA, but in a nutshell: MBAs were a thing of the 90s.  It does not hold the same value as it once has and quite frankly, I couldn’t see myself managing anything without a solid background in a certain discipline.  After all, don’t we naturally judge our own managers by their backgrounds and experience?  Why would any technical subordinate trust a 20-some that has only had two years of professional software experience and a degree that’s purely for networking?  What do I have to prove myself?  Sure, I could have pursued a corporate leadership development program, but at the end of it all, I’d gain knowledge very specific to the processes of one company.  Let’s face it: I was not looking to be a lifer in my current company, nor the defense industry.

Unlike many other professions, software engineers don’t require a professional exam or some kind of residency to prove you are capable and certified to perform on a job, so really all we have to rely on is a portfolio and hands-on past experience.  RIT co-ops were a great start, but not enough.  Eventually, I would like to work as an entrepreneur or at least a fairly young company and most startups will not hire a candidate without an incredible portfolio or proven experience.  I could try to teach myself the skills necessary to build a portfolio, but if I were to do this, I’d want to completely devote my attention to it and come out a rockstar.  Honestly, I don’t have that much self-discipline while working a full-time job.  So I sought a field and degree that still remained technical enough to keep my Computer Science background valuable but would allow me to tap into my creative juices.  Enter: Master’s Program in Human Computer Interaction (HCI) at Carnegie Mellon University.  Let’s go down the checklist here:

• Could potentially lead to a job where I can be more creative than I am now: CHECK!
• Allows me to work with and learn from others with diverse backgrounds, both peers and experienced professors: CHECK!
• Work with real clients on real hands-on projects that could result in an impressive portfolio: CHECK!
• Offers enough change of scenery to keep things interesting (moving cross-country and across the world!) and a short enough investment period (1.5 years) that doesn’t lead me astray from my goal: CHECK!

It appeared to be the perfect program.  Plus, I was lucky to have been introduced to this program by a friend/ex-coworker of mine who quit his job to pursue this degree.  It couldn’t seem more attainable.  After vicariously living through my friend’s experience thus far, it became clear that it was the path I wanted to take.  Two GRE attempts later + countless drafts of my Statement of Purpose + nagging a professor to submit my last recommendation earned me a seat in Carnegie Mellon’s MHCI dual-degree program with the University of Madeira in Portugal.  It was official: I found my next step in life and naturally, it has felt like the right decision rather than trying to mold myself into a cookie cutter MBA student.  EUREKA!

TLDR: Life will take on a new chapter in the upcoming weeks. I will embark on a week-long cross-country road trip, a bucket-list item I can soon cross off. I will temporarily retire my software developer hat here in San Diego and hope to transition into becoming a designer after my graduate studies. And finally, I will leave behind all I’ve known in San Diego for a completely different lifestyle to renew myself as a student. It’s exciting, scary, and overwhelming all in one, but I am ready. My goodbyes are in queue and boxes are being packed. Time to look forward and embrace a new challenge!

* * * *

Not to get all “Chicken Soup for the Soul” on you, but I feel that every post should have some kind of takeaway.  Now that I’ve shed some light on my own life, I encourage those who have felt similar anxiety to really allow yourself time to understand who you truly are, minus the opinions of everyone in your life.  It took me about a year and I’m not sure if I’ll ever completely figure myself out, but obviously there is no defined time limit.  Proactively create new, exciting experiences for yourself.  You best believe opportunities won’t just come knocking.  Seeking and achieving even small feats that are not related to your end goal will help to empower yourself and can lead to accomplishing even bigger things.  Most importantly, don’t limit yourself unnecessarily.

Finally, I’ve included in this post inline links to recommended reads, but the following is a semi-complete list of literature that has inspired me to write this post. I hope they can be of help to others who have experienced similar anxiety (did I just turn into a Prozac commercial?!) :

• “How to Do What You Love” by Paul Graham
• Quarterlife Crisis by Abby Miller and Cathy Stocker
• The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch
• Live the most exciting life possible, and your dreams will come true by Jessica Mah
• There’s no speed limit. (Lessons that changed my life) by Derek Sivers

Advertisement