Redefining Education by Leaving Physics, Brown, and Home
November 7th, 2018: the day I commonly refer to as my “epiphany,” which would quickly result in my decision to take a personal leave the following semester — the hardest and most rewarding decision I’ve ever made.
Well before I arrived at Brown, I knew my life plan: major in Mathematical Physics, get a Ph.D in physics, and, after a few postdocs, become a professor of physics at a university where I’d find daily joy exploring the frontiers of physics and training the next generation of physicists and problem-solvers. In my first two years at Brown, I took only two courses outside of Math, Physics, and CS. I helped lead the Physics DUG. I had two research experiences under my belt. By my sophomore year I landed a summer internship at the prestigious research institute of my dreams. All of it never felt 100% right, but it didn’t feel wrong either, and I thought that this upcoming internship would finally be everything I hoped for. It was not.
I could not connect with my work or my coworkers, and I felt increasingly isolated and unhappy. I left that summer feeling like a failure, let down by the work of my dreams and questioning what I should do next. In the following semester, I nonetheless continued in physics. I took three courses in the department and nearly began research with a new physics professor, all the while questioning whether my dissatisfaction the previous summer would be unique to that institution or an indication that I would never be happy in physics research. On November 7th, I seemed to get an answer.
I was attending a physics research conference on campus, perusing dense poster boards with new theories of gravity, new experiments to detect dark matter, and a multitude of other “interesting” research. But the more I wandered through the crowd, asked questions, listened to the conversations around me, and felt the pace and tone of the room pressing into me, the more I felt like a pariah in what had been my closest community for two and a half years. Nobody excluded me in any way, but somehow I felt not only as though I did not belong, but that I did not want to belong. Picturing myself as one of those professors talking about new spintronic devices or astrophysical modeling suddenly filled me with such dread and terror that I immediately left.
I tried to push it away, but the feeling of terror would not leave. It only continued to build, crescendoing to a full-scale anxiety attack in a parking lot off of Wickenden street, the first anxiety attack of my life: my “epiphany.”
It was shocking, terrifying, and isolating. It took me two more days and two more anxiety attacks to connect the dots and realize that my future in physics was the trigger. I began to see that the life path I set for myself might make me incredibly unhappy, and facing that reality filled me with the most intense anxiety I’ve ever experienced. The idea of taking leave from Brown first occurred to me as a necessity to confront this new challenge of anxiety in my life. Thankfully, once I understood its cause, the anxiety was gone in days and has never since come back. Still, it was a wake-up call; I was left questioning what I was doing with myself in ways I never had before.
My “epiphany” taught me unequivocally that I needed to make serious changes, and I had to break my fixed conception of self that had gone effectively unquestioned for almost four years. My realizations that semester in UNIV 1110, a fantastic class that helps students to analyze their own learning, also taught me how my education especially had to change; with my narrow use of the Open Curriculum, I had entirely neglected a Liberal Education, and this was a disservice to myself.
Even though I knew I had to drastically reorient my education and path, I did not know what that meant to me and how to do it correctly. I needed more time to figure these things out. I needed perspective outside of academics and academia, outside of physics, ideally even outside of the U.S. Exactly a week after my “epiphany,” I emailed a Dean to declare leave for the following semester, which would have been my Junior spring. I had no idea what I would be doing in just two months, but I knew that I needed to do it. I remember walking up Angell Street the next day feeling more empowered than I ever had before. I felt that I was finally taking control of my life. Whatever came next, bitter failure or sweet success, it would truly be mine to own.
The next month was a frenzy of internship applications, sending me to CareerLAB nearly every day. I was fortunate to get an internship teaching at an education startup in Hanoi, Vietnam, where I am currently living and will be until the end of May. My experience here has been everything I hoped for. I’ve met wonderful people, gotten priceless exposure to both entrepreneurship and education, and learned lessons that can only be learned when living and working in the Real World (and in a vastly different country). Most importantly, I’ve developed the guiding principles by which I will make the most of my final three semester at Brown, taking control of my education with new vigor and focus which would not have been attainable without taking leave. I now wear my “.5” class year with pride, knowing that taking this step off the standard track has taught me more than being at Brown these months ever could have.
My Advice for Students Considering Taking Leave
My main piece of advice is to reach out to people who have taken leave and talk to them about their experiences and your own current situation. Everyone has different reasons for taking leave, but when I spoke to numerous leave-takers while considering my own leave of absence, I sensed a fierce individuality in each one. Whether they lived with friends in California doing research, lived at home working in bakery, trekked through Nepal while teaching, volunteered on farms in Europe, or did nothing much at all, every leave-taker had a powerful sense of purpose and drive that stood out to me, even among the Brown student population. This is a large part of what gave me the confidence to take leave: every leave-taker I met had so clearly benefited in unique ways from taking time off, and I could see that I was looking for the same thing they found during their time away. I encourage you to begin reaching out (I’m always happy to chat, as are the wonderful Leavetaking Coordinators) and I hope you will find the same thing.
My other piece of advice is summarized in a wonderful quote I heard recently: “Fear Means Go.” Leave-taking is not standard; if you feel drawn to it, it’s most likely for a good reason. It might feel scary, but don’t let fear hold you back. If anything, the fact that you’re still considering a scary idea means something else is very powerfully drawing you towards it.
