

Ask HN: I'm Exhausted - xyz88

Currently i&#x27;m a full time nodejs&#x2F;frontend js developer at a company, while studying part time for my computer science degree. Juggling these two along side with side projects, social life and everything else has made me extremely exhausted<p>I have 2+ years to study until i get my degree, if I study part time. I don&#x27;t think I can cope with this amount of stress for 2 years. What should I do?
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mswen
One of the goals of a CS degree might be to secure a well-paying position
doing exactly what you are currently doing in as your full-time job.

What are your particular goals in completing a CS degree?

Also is your exhaustion coming from the sheer amount of work load or is it
coming from stressful relationships or dissatisfaction with one or more
elements in that life mix?

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pedalpete
First question I'd start with is, what do you enjoy doing?

Do you prefer your job at the company? Or are you really keen on your studies?
Do you think it is more important for you to have your degree? Or is the work
experience your getting going to be enough for you.

Whichever you like less, is there a chance you can do it part-time? If you
don't enjoy school, is there a chance you may not need your degree?

I can almost hear rebuttals about how you may need both, and that it entirely
possible. But you're going to have to learn to prioritize. The reason I
suspect you could do part-time is because as a software developer, you're
hopefully making enough to cover your costs during college.

I also suggest that not everybody needs a degree in computer science. I don't
have one, and I do fairly well in this industry. HOWEVER, I think there are
some very specific jobs and people who benefit from a CS degree. Those people
are way smarter than I am, and understand every data-structure, algorithm,
etc. etc. However, I find it rare, in this day and age, that we actually use
these advanced techniques. But if you want to be using that stuff later on, it
may be best for you to stay in school.

Lastly, I want to disagree with your thinking about coping with the amount of
stress. There are people who have been under much less stress than you. Stress
can be a good thing, and I sure wish I had learned to deal with it when I was
younger. Meditation can help, exercise is very important, so is keeping a
perspective on things. When you're stressed realize that you are putting that
pressure on yourself at this stage. You're not building life/death mission
critical applications, you're (hopefully) not working so hard while putting
yourself into debt trying to keep up with the medical bills of a loved one in
a country without poor medical insurance, etc. etc. There are people who are
struggling with these very issues, luckily you're not them.

Talk to your boss, and let him know how you feel, maybe he'll have a solution.
But I'd suggest you can do it, you may just need to find a way to make it work
for you. Stress can be good, you just need to learn to handle it.

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jacalata
Prioritize: Drop the side projects, or limit them to e.g one hour a week.
Reduce or dual-purpose the social life - are your friends interested in
joining you at a code night where you do homework and they do side projects,
instead of wasting precious time at a bar? Drop down to part-time work, could
be 4 days a week, or even 4.5 (take every second Wednesday off for schoolwork?
Or every Monday morning?) Quit school, or just take a semester off. Get a
cleaner in once a a week. Allocate money and some upfront planning time to
reduce food prep time (but don't just drop the quality of your food).

Pick at least one of the above. If it's not enough, pick another one too. Keep
going until you can cope. Also, slightly counter-intuitively, add some time
scheduled for exercise and make sure you get a good minimum amount of sleep
(varies between people, start by aiming for 6-8 hours and if you're still
tired, aim higher). Keeping yourself healthy will increase your ability to
cope with stress.

All this assumes that you actually are overloaded, and not just disorganised.
If you can't guarantee that you are spending all your time on useful things,
then try keeping a journal of what you do every 15 minutes for a week, look
over it at the end of the week and pick out lost time like watching tv, then
cut those activities. Schedule yourself down to half hour blocks, or fifteen
minute blocks if you can, so you know you're not losing time everywhere.

