An honest confession from an overworked undergraduate

Like any aspiring undergraduate, I was geared towards working in any capacity to reach my intended goal of financial independence. However, in 2019, I decided to take a break from university and work for a full year to properly figure out what I want to do. In the midst of the hiatus, I realized that I have made too many sacrifices for little gain personally. This post is not about me telling others what to do, but rather a recollection of harsh lessons that I have learnt at personal costs.

I didn’t give myself enough credit.

Ever since my first internship in May 2017, I have constantly been working. I took very little breaks during semesters, constantly juggling school and work. I was interning at Xwapp, a remittance start-up that aimed at spurring financial inclusiveness for the under-banked. It was my first exposure to the budding start-up scene in Singapore, and the prevailing hype surrounding “Blockchain” (I don’t like this term nowadays; I prefer to call it by its technical namesake DLT).

I worked for close to a year in the start-up, breaking my back constantly trying to make end meets at a measly $6/hr. At that point in time, my naive self didn’t prioritize the pay-to-work ratio and I was more obsessed with gaining experience. Indeed, I learnt so much during my tenure but the constant juggling of school and work have sent me into several episodes of self-pity. To make matters worse, I immediately interned at OCBC at the Open Vault the following summer, along with taking on several ad-hoc gigs.

During the day, I will work at OCBC and commit most of my weekends and nights towards working on ad-hoc gigs. These gigs mainly consist of procuring business documents for seed stage startups (highly discounted labour) from the Business Plans to Whitepapers. I actually went into depression once, breaking down publicly after alighting from the bus having had a hectic day of work. This continued even after I finished my internship at OCBC, juggling several gigs with a hectic semester that saw me break into more episodic depressive states.

While this might seem like an incapability on my part to handle multiple commitments, I was, in all honesty, chewing on more than what I can take. I experienced burnouts several times, and had to give up precious time with family and friends. The point is; I just didn’t give myself enough credit as I was always chasing the dollars. There is nothing wrong with that but a balance should be struck between career and life. To this day, I feel that I didn’t make the most of university as I was too obsessed with work to recognize that I should appreciate the current state that I am in now.

I didn’t make the most of my university life.

Which brings me to my next point, I foregone many opportunities in university for the sake of work. My original plan was to intern in Palo Alto, Silicon Valley for a year to work at a start-up or company. I initially passed the first round of interview but I declined at the crucial moment to focus more on prevailing projects. To this day, this is my biggest regret in university as I now know that such opportunities won’t present itself to me the next time.

Beyond just internships, I too foregone many events in university. I did not go for camps or school events after my orientation during the first year. At that time, again, I was so focused on work that everything I do in school must be “related” to my career that I want to carve out. In all honesty, that was not a healthy mentality for me to adopt as I was not open to many opportunities that the university has to offer. As a result, most of my days in school were spent mandatorily going through lessons without making much meaningful connections. In short, I was not alone but I felt alone for most of the days.

I didn’t network enough.

Lastly, I didn’t make meaningful connections. Work and school commitments made me jaded most of the days so I tend to keep to myself for most of the days. The university did well enough to recommend several networking sessions with peers and industry experts but I was too caught up in my own commitments to make time for this aspect. In school and life, networking is an important aspect not to be taken granted for, but my naive self didn’t recognize this importance, not until it is too late.

For all of these musings, I am still grateful for the numerous opportunities that I have had during those years. However, if time can rewind, I will probably change some aspects of that life to include more time for myself to immerse properly in university before going on to the working world. At the end of the day, it is all about how much trade-offs one can handle, but I think that I have bitten on more than I can chew. Success looks good on the surface but masks the trials and tribulations one went through to make ends meet.