In the Fall of 2020, I started a Computer Science master’s program at Princeton. By January, I’d decided to step away from it. Because the weeks leading up to and directly after the decision were a whirlwind, I’ve never committed to writing exactly why I made it. So, here’s an attempt at finally doing just that.

I was disillusioned with tech.

Crypto enthusiasm was beginning to reach its fever pitch. It felt like the culmination of almost a decade of watching my contemporaries buy into a technology that I believed to be inconsequential at best and fraudulent at worst¹. The Trump era had put a tight microscope on the dangers and failures of the social media tech titans. Facebook/Meta was starting to pump up the hype of the “metaverse,” another technical investment that, while initially attractive, I questioned the actual value of. All around me, the drawbacks and absurdity of the 2010s tech world were being laid bare. I felt a genuine disinterest in the field, and I couldn’t help but question what the actual worth of the work I had done in the past was and what the value of the work I would do in the future would be if I remained in a computing role.

Zoom University was exhausting and isolating.

I went from living immersed in the frenetic energy of New York City among friends to being alone in the suburbs of Plainsboro, New Jersey. Most of the time, my fellow Princeton classmates appeared to me as empty black boxes in a Zoom lecture. We were still in the pre-vaccination age of COVID, so I didn’t feel comfortable venturing onto campus to participate in the handful of in-person gatherings my master’s cohort coordinated. It was the perfect capstone to a dismal year spent alone, and I had legitimate worries about my ability to soldier on.

I couldn’t commit to a particular research area.

I viewed the masters as a stepping stone toward a Ph.D. At no point during the application process of writing personal statements, looking up research labs, soliciting letters of recommendation, etc., did I feel the kindlings of a research interest that seemed strong enough to warrant throwing myself at it for years. Nor did such an interest materialize during my time as a new student, taking my fall courses or talking one-on-one with professors.

I realized my career decisions were driven by the pursuit of recognition.

And focusing on external motivations meant ignoring my internal wants and desires. This contributed to all the struggles and angst I’ve listed thus far. In particular, it was a massive part of why I felt so burnt out by tech; I’d lost sight of my intrinsic interests in the field and computer science more broadly, with all its concepts, rich ideas, and exciting applications. Is it any surprise that I felt so uneasy, undirected, and unhappy? I mused on those feelings and reflected on what my heart wanted, which led to the next factor…

I felt a gnawing hunger to draw.

Art has been an on-again-off-again passion since I was young, and I retreated to it for comfort at the start of the pandemic. My excitement for it starkly contrasted with my dejected attitude toward tech. I wanted nothing more than to study art, and the fact that if I did decide to step away from graduate school, I would have the means and opportunity to focus on that entirely was too compelling to ignore.

How I feel today.

We’re coming up on the second anniversary of my decision, and I’m happy to say that I don’t (yet) regret it. In the nine months immediately after, I spent time with family and rested, the sort of rest that reaches into your soul to uplift you, the kind you can only get by truly stepping away. And I took online drawing courses from artists I had long admired, a practice I’ve fortunately been able to maintain after picking up a new job.

Speaking of the new job, I’ve been there for a year now, and while there have been a few lows, it’s helped me rediscover what it was about software engineering that initially drew me in.

Leaving graduate school was scary, but I did it. It was the right choice.

  1. Others have already written perfect explanations of what about crypto left me disillusioned. Two examples: Tim Bray’s AWS and Blockchain and Stephen Diehl’s The Haskell Elephant in the Room.