<p>Dear parents,</p>
<p>I'm incredibly frustrated with my current situation and I was hoping I'd be able to get some advice from individuals that have already lived through the college experience.</p>
<p>I'm currently overwhelmed and overworked. In addition to a fairly rigorous course-load, I'm also working as a research assistant and in the process of starting my own club.</p>
<p>The committment as a research assistant is manageable (3 hours a week), but the creation of the club has been the most stressful, demanding, enlightening, yet academically detrimental thing I have ever undertaken. This along with intensive preparation for summer internships has driven me to near breaking point.</p>
<p>The club's goals (which seem overambitious in retrospect) aims to serve as a network for students interested in working in China by creating student-alumni connections, throwing events, and maintaining communication with similar chapters at other universities. This is great and complements potential career goals, but I'm doing way too much of the work on my own. I understand that the founder/President should be doing most of the work anyways, but I feel that this is less and less of a team project and more me just doing everything.</p>
<p>Admittedly, this has been a very educational experience as up until this point my actual leadership experience was minimal to none. However, it has taken a psychological toll on me and I've been forced to drop a class just to retain my GPA. Speaking of GPA, I'm really worried about it this this semester at this point. I don't know if I can make it till the next time I can see my counselor.</p>
<p>With that said, what should my priorities be at this point? Should I continue with the club? How can I communicate that this club will cease to exist if no one can commit to anything? Is this simply the difficulties of being a leader?</p>
<p>I know one shouldn't live life with regrets, but I know that my grades would be substantially higher if I had done a better job of managing this club. Sigh..</p>
<p>How “substantially higher” would your GPA be? Is this a club that you really want to see get off the ground? Is it something you’d like to see longstanding at your school? Were you taking a course overload to begin with? </p>
<p>Too many unanswered questions to be able to help.</p>
<p>Drop the club if you don’t feel that it’s worth your while. Concentrate on finding a balance between academics, research, and social/fun outlets. </p>
<p>If you’re considering grad school in the future, focus more on your research, professor recommendations, and a strong GPA. EC’s do not come into play to the extent that they did when applying to undergrad schools. Thus, dropping the club will not be a factor in any future grad school process.</p>
<p>Your grades need to be your priority. Second priority: research. Drop the club. Grad schools won’t care about it.</p>
<p>But is this club something that is part of your social time at school? Is it the one break you HAVE from your coursework and GPA concerns? OR are you otherwise happy and socially involved at your school?</p>
<p>I worry about kids who do NOTHING but study study study…and nothing else…at any point in their lives. Yes…their school work should be a priority, but there should be time for some balance there too.</p>
<p>" How can I communicate that this club will cease to exist if no one can commit to anything?"</p>
<p>If you’re the only one who cares about the club, you simply are wasting your time with the club. You can’t have a club with only one member who’s involved. You can’t force other people to care about an issue.</p>
<p>I agree with NSM.
You dropped a class to retain your GPA, but are even thinking about trying to run the club on your own?
You don’t need a club for a social life & it sounds like it isn’t very social anyways.
;)</p>
<p>Drop the club for now. </p>
<p>If you ever start or restart something like that again, remember that ‘leadership’ is about motivating others to work, not doing all the work yourself. Sure, you need ideas, time, enthusiasm, and commitment, but it can never succeed unless you can cause others to want to take part.</p>
<p>Part of your education is learning what to prioritize and to make sometimes difficult decisions. This is what you need to do now. From what you’ve written it seems to me that the first priority is your classes, next is the research, and the club would be last but it’s really in your court to evaluate how your time is spent, order your priorities so you can best achieve your long term goals, determine the bandwidth you have to perform all of your tasks and how you might need to adjust, and then act on it.</p>
<p>"Your grades need to be your priority. Second priority: research. Drop the club. Grad schools won’t care about it. "
Nuff said. Drop the club commitment pronto. Grad schools care ONLY about grades and research.</p>
<p>I think you need to prioritize…and I am betting getting into a college of your choice will be top priority/goal #1 what do you need to do to achieve this goal?</p>
<p>Then what is the second most important area - something you would ENJOY doing? college prep seems to have so many many “have to do”…remember to balance the long “to do list” with things you enjoy doing or it will all seem to stressful…</p>
<p>hhmm agree with a recent post…if you are the only one invested in this club at this time…you may be better off putting all that time and energy elsewhere - for now…you can always revisit this in some way later on…</p>
<p>best of luck!</p>
<p>Agree with NSM and most everyone. Decide to do the club another year, delay it. It sounds like it is sucking up too much of your life. No matter what, your #1 priority is to keep healthy and stay alive. That is the most important goal that you need to keep in mind for the rest of your life. And if it involves dropping clubs, classes, research assignments, internships…so be it. Overwhelming stress can destroy you.</p>
<p>When you keep that as your goal, it puts the rest into perspective.</p>