should i hide my medical diagnosis from law schools?
Law school has been on my mind as a potential for my future for a year now, though I didn't have an interest during my undergrad. Recently, I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, and I was wondering how that may affect my application. Should I keep it a secret? Could I potentially use it to get scholarships? Are there law schools I could go to part time as health insurance (and therefore working) is obviously important to me? I'll take any advice or resources you may have for someone in my position. If I don't go to law school, I don't want it to be because of MS.
- Anonymous
First of all, you should absolutely not feel pressured to keep your diagnosis a secret. At the same time, you should not feel pressured to disclose your diagnosis, either. There are plenty of lawyers out there who have fulfilling legal careers with MS. If you feel comfortable doing so, I would reach out to the lawyers and law students featured in the links above to talk with them about their experiences and advice. You should certainly look into scholarships for students with MS and inquire with a part-time law program (like GW's) about how health insurance works for part-time students. Law school may not be the right choice for many given how expensive it is nowadays, but having MS should certainly not stop you. Best wishes!
how do i overcome burnout?
How can I (a young adult overachiever) overcome a long period of burnout after the pandemic isolation?
- Camilla
You are not alone in feeling this, Camilla--this is indeed the million-dollar question that so many others are also struggling with. For me, I always thought of burnout as one of three things: (1) doing too much of something that you don't want to do; (2) doing too much of something that you do want to do; or (3) paradoxically, not doing enough of something that you want to do (as that can often make the activities that you are doing feel more arduous and burdensome, as your mind is elsewhere). Ask yourself which category of burnout you're feeling and if there are any ways to say "no" more to the things you don't want to do or are doing too much of and say "yes" more to the things that are higher-value in your mind. Last year, AOC sent out a fundraising email with her tips for burnout, which turned out to be incredibly insightful, as well, and is certainly worth checking out.
I would also add some of my own observations from these past few months:
Set at least two weeks to do nothing. Overachieving is hard because it's like a drug. When you're not doing it, you're thinking about it. When you are doing it, the dose always feels lesser than you would have thought. If you're able to, I would start saving up the financial and time resources to take at least two weeks off with nothing--and I mean absolutely nothing--on the agenda. The first few days will be frightening.
Take notes on what you naturally gravitate towards. As you ease into this baseline state, jot down what you naturally desire to do--read a book? call a friend? take a walk outside? What do all of these activities have in common--are they all about the same subject? do they all make you feel one set of emotions? are they all social? Writing these things down can help you identify a throughline between what you enjoy--and that throughline is incredibly important. After you figure out what this throughline is, list these out somewhere that is easy for you to find, and whenever you're starting to feel burnout, pick one of these burnout combating activities to engage in. Think of this as your "Burnout First Aid Kit"--like a First Aid Kit, it needs to be easily retrievable and contain easily actionable fixes.
Commit to daily journaling. I've begun a 5 minutes or under daily journaling practice that I'm finally sticking to, after years of never being able to stick to journaling because it always seemed like a "waste of time." Each morning, I write five sentences only: (1) one thing I am grateful for; (2) one thing I am excited about; (3) a virtue I want to embrace; (4) one thing I'm avoiding; and (5) one thing I absolutely need to do that day. Each evening, I write three sentences only: (1) a win; (2) a realization (i.e., lesson learned); and (3) what's on tomorrow's agenda. I've found that this marriage between gratitude/mindfulness and productivity helps me actually commit to being aware of how I'm feeling and solve the problem of my reluctance to do something unless I feel a strong productivity tie-in. And yes--limit yourself to one sentence only, because I know that the overachiever instinct is to write ten sentences on what you need to do.
Consider outside help or a larger break. Burnout can come in so many forms, and the steps I've outlined above may not be enough. Maybe the issue is larger, and that's when outside help may, in fact, be extremely helpful. For me, a combination of therapy and career coaching has helped a lot, once I found the right therapist and career coach. Keep options like those in the back of your mind, as well as potentially saving up for a longer break. Fighting burnout is a little like the studying that presumably got you into this overachieving feedback loop in the first place--it takes time and effort to figure out what methods of combating burnout works for you. After so many years feeling burned out, you owe it to yourself to discover what truly makes yourself happy and fulfilled. I'm rooting for you.
Have a question for Cece? Submit it here.