This post resonates with exactly how I feel at this moment. Although I’m not attending an Ivy league school, I am still a graduate student at a University, working with high impact people. I’ve spent much of my life working towards this and have made many sacrifices to get here.This was something I thought would interest me. It did at first, but now I feel extremely burn’t out and almost on the brink of failure (although I’m almost done). On one side I feel I should be blessed to recive a funded graduate fellowship and earn a great degree with no cost, but on the other hand I feel extremely unsatisfied and am longing for something different. An issue is that I can’t decide whether I am unhappy simply because I’m burn’t out, or if this is not really the path for me.

What I reccomend is that you try to sort out why your unhappy. Is it because you feel stressed out or uncomfortable around certain people? Or is it because you’re not interested in your current path and want to try something new. This is often difficult. When feeling stressed you feel hopeless. It could be you would very much enjoy the subject matter you are learning under different circumstances, and may even enjoy a future career in your field, but you are unhappy because you are over-worked and not feeling smart enough. This distinction is important and requires much introspection to fully understand. In my situation I’m unhappy because I’m overworked, and not too interested in my current research- but I feel if I worked under different circumstances and on a different project I may enjoy academics. So in my circumstance it is not that I don’t enjoy doing science and research, it is just he present environment I don’t like. This means that once I’m finished I can pursue something similar, but it a better environment, or study a different topic.

If you genuinely don’t like what your learning and feel future careers in this field are of no interest than that is ok. If you are smart enough to make it to an Ivy league school, you are surely smart enough to do whatever you want. The key in life is your intent and creativity. If your smart, have a strong drive, you can achieve anything. Try researching other things you want to do in life and see how you can achieve them.

Afterall, no one really knows what they want until they try it out. If this is a failure, rest assured that you can live your life knowing you have tried this path and are not missing out on anything. You won’t ever be wondering “What if I really took that Ivy league opportunity?” Live with no regrets and do what you want. It is your life and no ones elses.