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Stress and Work Apathy
TheRhythmMethod
LondonRegistered User regular
LondonRegistered User regular
Hey everyone. This may end up a bit of ramble so thank you to anyone who takes the time to read it.
A bit of background, I'm a third (and final) year UK university student. I'm studying physics, mainly because it was what I was best at the time of applying. It's not so much that I dislike it, I've just never been particularly interested in it, or any other subject of study for that matter. I'd say my main hobby and passion is drumming. My roommate and I are in a band, and are working on material at the moment so we have original songs to play at gigs (tiny bars and the like). I've found this immensely more fulfilling than anything in my degree so far.
In terms of grades and stuff I'm doing okay but not great. I definitely got lazy around the end of high school but managed to get my insurance choice for university. My first year was decent, I got a borderline 2:1 (not sure what the US equivalent would be, but if it helps the mark I got was 60% overall then) but my second year went pretty poorly. I've always had difficulty caring about work and putting the most effort in that I can, but for my second year exams I genuinely believed (and still do) that the work I did for it was my absolute best. I felt like it was going to be a turning point, that all these times before where I've had average to decent grades were when I wasn't going all out. It probably sounds cocky but I thought, you know, if I could achieve this normally, imagine if I did everything I possibly could! Then I ended up with bad marks and it felt like a kick in the teeth; what I was doing before (which I wasn't entirely happy with) is actually my best and also that I'd have to put an enormous amount of work in just so I could not do badly. That probably sounds like I want my degree to just fall into my lap but I found it really discouraging to think my best is basically going to be "you managed to pass".
I've never really known what I wanted to do after uni. I know this isn't a unique position even for a third year, but everyone I know is applying for jobs, or graduate schemes, or is planning on travelling and this and that. I've looked into this stuff before, but I always end up giving up. Either I get scared because employers are asking for work experience, internships etc and I have nothing of that to speak of, or I get partway through and decide the idea of working as a <profession> sounds awful. Teaching, doing a PhD, going into industry, hell stuff that has nothing to do with my degree such as marketing or HR. I just don't care about any of it. When it comes to my degree, aside from my little burst of inspiration for last year's finals, I'm never bothered either. Weekly assignments (that count towards my degree) I sometimes don't bother doing, or try some of just to say I've done it rather than trying to get marks. With revision for midterm exams (again, they count) I do what probably amounts to 3 or 4 days of staring at notes and blindly writing stuff out without actually thinking about it, then when I get poor mark, I get angry but also I feel kind of... I'm not sure how to put this, vindicated I guess? I expect it to go badly because I think I'm bad at it, then when it does go badly I feel proven right. So when people, say my girlfriend, tell me that if I put the work in it'll all be fine, I'm always pessimistic about it. Then I feel like I've validated my worries about the exam, because it did go badly as I expected. The last thing I got a genuinely good grade in was a multiple choice test where 37 of 40 questions were available (with answers!) on the course website. I think the entire class got at least 90%. Even that I used as proof, I thought, look the only time I do well is when it's pretty much impossible to fail! Even the people that don't turn up to lectures got amazing marks.
Even now I have a deadline on Friday, this big report. I've been working on it, but I just don't care about it. I feel completely numb to the idea of graduating. I feel like there's nothing to look forward to, that there's no point looking at jobs when A) my work is going badly and
those jobs sound awful anyway. I feel like whenever I do work, it's because I know I should. I never feel any motivation. Even after awful grades I just sorta think, well it's going to go badly anyway. I'll just do as I do and see what happens. I never concentrate properly, unless it's to finish something as quickly as possible. As I said with assignments, I do them just to hand something in. I go to all my lectures, and copy down all the whiteboard notes while barely thinking about them, just waiting for it to finish so I can go home. My friends tell me I just have to try, I just have to put the work in. But I never understand how. It's like they flick and switch and suddenly they can just concentrate. They can just work. I'll be looking at the notes and the assignment, trying to figure out how to do some question. On the rare occasion I do actually put the time in, I'll spend 5 or 6 hours on something my coursemates do in about 30 minutes. Then I give up on the rest or I'll have run out of time by that point. Once I hand in it it's out of my mind, I've stopped caring. Right now I'm looking at the wall of text I'm typing and can see in full how horrible this is as a work ethic but I'm not particularly bothered. At best I have no feelings either way about what I'm doing.
I suppose what I'm looking for here is a bit of a vent and want to know if I sound like I really am just lazy and what I need is a kick up the ass from a few strangers. I talk about my problems with friends and my girlfriend but not really this. Not the fact that I don't care about my work or planning anything for the future. That I'd rather just not think about it because it all sounds terrible anyway. I don't feel like I can because they're in the same boat as me when it comes to work, I feel like I'm complaining about something every other person just does and I need to man up and do it. What's stressing me out lately is normally this kind of attitude would be confined to work. But lately I don't feel like doing anything. With this report I must have spent about 5 hours on Sunday staring at the same half a page and not actually doing anything, not even procrastinating. It's not like I was too busy playing video games, or on facebook or whatever. When I'd stop to do something else, I'd end up doing nothing anyway. I used to love playing WoW, as an example, but over the past few weeks I'll tend to open it up, stare at the character select screen for 5 minutes trying to decide what to do, then think screw this and exit. Then do no work again. This happens with other games and hobbies. I haven't even been feeling band practices, I just think what's the point, we're never gonna make it. Or going out with friends, I tend to have a good time but I never look forward to going, I just think I may as well plus it'd look bad if I just stopped seeing everyone. I do enjoy myself when I'm with them, but on the rare occasions I organize something I'll feel anxious about it happening up until the actual event, then it's all fine. Beforehand I'll think, I wish I wasn't going, I wish I could just stay in and play Call of Duty, or whatever. The opposite can happen with games too, I'll spend all day thinking I can't wait to get home to play X, then I actually get in and start playing, after about 10 minutes I just don't care and stop.
This stuff has been happening over the past 3 or 4 months, and I feel like I'm at my limit. I have mood swings occasionally, and I don't get how to deal with it. One minute I'm excited for / dreading something, then it happens and I stop caring. I don't feel any inclination towards it. My best friend (and link to a lot of my social circle) is a very get up and go type of guy and if it weren't for that I doubt I'd see people outside of class that much. Not because I don't want to, or dislike any of them, I just feel completely apathetic about it. My girlfriend is normally very open and communicative but she's a very hardcore academic and her family has always pushed her very hard and she does incredibly well. I've scratched the surface of this a bit with her but she doesn't relate at all and sees it as a very black and white, you work and do well or you don't. Which is probably true, but I always think how do you do that? And "You just do" isn't a response I get anything from...
I wish I could care about stuff, even my leisure activities would be a start. Does everyone feel like this from time to time and it's that I'm just being a wimp?
Thanks in advance.
A bit of background, I'm a third (and final) year UK university student. I'm studying physics, mainly because it was what I was best at the time of applying. It's not so much that I dislike it, I've just never been particularly interested in it, or any other subject of study for that matter. I'd say my main hobby and passion is drumming. My roommate and I are in a band, and are working on material at the moment so we have original songs to play at gigs (tiny bars and the like). I've found this immensely more fulfilling than anything in my degree so far.
In terms of grades and stuff I'm doing okay but not great. I definitely got lazy around the end of high school but managed to get my insurance choice for university. My first year was decent, I got a borderline 2:1 (not sure what the US equivalent would be, but if it helps the mark I got was 60% overall then) but my second year went pretty poorly. I've always had difficulty caring about work and putting the most effort in that I can, but for my second year exams I genuinely believed (and still do) that the work I did for it was my absolute best. I felt like it was going to be a turning point, that all these times before where I've had average to decent grades were when I wasn't going all out. It probably sounds cocky but I thought, you know, if I could achieve this normally, imagine if I did everything I possibly could! Then I ended up with bad marks and it felt like a kick in the teeth; what I was doing before (which I wasn't entirely happy with) is actually my best and also that I'd have to put an enormous amount of work in just so I could not do badly. That probably sounds like I want my degree to just fall into my lap but I found it really discouraging to think my best is basically going to be "you managed to pass".
I've never really known what I wanted to do after uni. I know this isn't a unique position even for a third year, but everyone I know is applying for jobs, or graduate schemes, or is planning on travelling and this and that. I've looked into this stuff before, but I always end up giving up. Either I get scared because employers are asking for work experience, internships etc and I have nothing of that to speak of, or I get partway through and decide the idea of working as a <profession> sounds awful. Teaching, doing a PhD, going into industry, hell stuff that has nothing to do with my degree such as marketing or HR. I just don't care about any of it. When it comes to my degree, aside from my little burst of inspiration for last year's finals, I'm never bothered either. Weekly assignments (that count towards my degree) I sometimes don't bother doing, or try some of just to say I've done it rather than trying to get marks. With revision for midterm exams (again, they count) I do what probably amounts to 3 or 4 days of staring at notes and blindly writing stuff out without actually thinking about it, then when I get poor mark, I get angry but also I feel kind of... I'm not sure how to put this, vindicated I guess? I expect it to go badly because I think I'm bad at it, then when it does go badly I feel proven right. So when people, say my girlfriend, tell me that if I put the work in it'll all be fine, I'm always pessimistic about it. Then I feel like I've validated my worries about the exam, because it did go badly as I expected. The last thing I got a genuinely good grade in was a multiple choice test where 37 of 40 questions were available (with answers!) on the course website. I think the entire class got at least 90%. Even that I used as proof, I thought, look the only time I do well is when it's pretty much impossible to fail! Even the people that don't turn up to lectures got amazing marks.
Even now I have a deadline on Friday, this big report. I've been working on it, but I just don't care about it. I feel completely numb to the idea of graduating. I feel like there's nothing to look forward to, that there's no point looking at jobs when A) my work is going badly and
those jobs sound awful anyway. I feel like whenever I do work, it's because I know I should. I never feel any motivation. Even after awful grades I just sorta think, well it's going to go badly anyway. I'll just do as I do and see what happens. I never concentrate properly, unless it's to finish something as quickly as possible. As I said with assignments, I do them just to hand something in. I go to all my lectures, and copy down all the whiteboard notes while barely thinking about them, just waiting for it to finish so I can go home. My friends tell me I just have to try, I just have to put the work in. But I never understand how. It's like they flick and switch and suddenly they can just concentrate. They can just work. I'll be looking at the notes and the assignment, trying to figure out how to do some question. On the rare occasion I do actually put the time in, I'll spend 5 or 6 hours on something my coursemates do in about 30 minutes. Then I give up on the rest or I'll have run out of time by that point. Once I hand in it it's out of my mind, I've stopped caring. Right now I'm looking at the wall of text I'm typing and can see in full how horrible this is as a work ethic but I'm not particularly bothered. At best I have no feelings either way about what I'm doing.I suppose what I'm looking for here is a bit of a vent and want to know if I sound like I really am just lazy and what I need is a kick up the ass from a few strangers. I talk about my problems with friends and my girlfriend but not really this. Not the fact that I don't care about my work or planning anything for the future. That I'd rather just not think about it because it all sounds terrible anyway. I don't feel like I can because they're in the same boat as me when it comes to work, I feel like I'm complaining about something every other person just does and I need to man up and do it. What's stressing me out lately is normally this kind of attitude would be confined to work. But lately I don't feel like doing anything. With this report I must have spent about 5 hours on Sunday staring at the same half a page and not actually doing anything, not even procrastinating. It's not like I was too busy playing video games, or on facebook or whatever. When I'd stop to do something else, I'd end up doing nothing anyway. I used to love playing WoW, as an example, but over the past few weeks I'll tend to open it up, stare at the character select screen for 5 minutes trying to decide what to do, then think screw this and exit. Then do no work again. This happens with other games and hobbies. I haven't even been feeling band practices, I just think what's the point, we're never gonna make it. Or going out with friends, I tend to have a good time but I never look forward to going, I just think I may as well plus it'd look bad if I just stopped seeing everyone. I do enjoy myself when I'm with them, but on the rare occasions I organize something I'll feel anxious about it happening up until the actual event, then it's all fine. Beforehand I'll think, I wish I wasn't going, I wish I could just stay in and play Call of Duty, or whatever. The opposite can happen with games too, I'll spend all day thinking I can't wait to get home to play X, then I actually get in and start playing, after about 10 minutes I just don't care and stop.
This stuff has been happening over the past 3 or 4 months, and I feel like I'm at my limit. I have mood swings occasionally, and I don't get how to deal with it. One minute I'm excited for / dreading something, then it happens and I stop caring. I don't feel any inclination towards it. My best friend (and link to a lot of my social circle) is a very get up and go type of guy and if it weren't for that I doubt I'd see people outside of class that much. Not because I don't want to, or dislike any of them, I just feel completely apathetic about it. My girlfriend is normally very open and communicative but she's a very hardcore academic and her family has always pushed her very hard and she does incredibly well. I've scratched the surface of this a bit with her but she doesn't relate at all and sees it as a very black and white, you work and do well or you don't. Which is probably true, but I always think how do you do that? And "You just do" isn't a response I get anything from...
I wish I could care about stuff, even my leisure activities would be a start. Does everyone feel like this from time to time and it's that I'm just being a wimp?
Thanks in advance.
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Also, go outside. Take 15 or 20 minutes during the day to take a walk around the block or something. It's not a panacea, but the exercise will help, and I've found that getting out of my apartment and walking around helps me calm down and organize my thoughts.
With regards to the homework, is it that you don't know how to do the work; or that you know how, but can't make yourself focus/actually care?
You should be excited about your future, and college should be the thing that helps you get to where you want to be.
This. Also, it's one thing to suffer through a class to get a grade. But, it's another thing entirely if all your classes are like this. You either have to tackle the root of the problem, which is whatever is causing you to be depressed. Could be chemical, lack of exercise, etc. Or you're in the wrong major, which could also breed depression.
This is perfectly normal. A lot of people take time to figure out what they want. Are there any electives you can take to test the waters?
@heybabykannibal The structure of my course is fairly rigid, it's modular but we are required in our final year to take at least 5 of the 7 Physics options they give us (we do 8 in a year, dissertation counts as 2 and there's one mandatory). I've taken what I would be interested in most within the confines of my degree... if I had to pick a favorite it'd be astrophysics but unfortunately there's only a single module offered for that this academic year, although the module starts this semester at least. I see your point, and there are extra classes you can take for the sake of interest, so I will look at what's offered in that regard.
@k-maps It's all of my classes really. I wouldn't even say there's one I hate more than the others (for non-superficial reasons, say its timetabled poorly). I guess the above answers your second point, partially at least. I'll speak to the student advice services about this as well.
On the subject of depression, I'd never really thought about that. I've got this counseling session booked already but is that the sort of thing you'd see a doctor for an opinion on or? I feel like my problems aren't really worthy of that, if that makes sense.
Thanks for the advice so far. Also just want to apologize for somehow posting the same thread 4 times! I'm a goose.
So, TLDR: you be depressed, go get help.