I’ve been contributing old-timer columns to my college paper. Here are some excerpts from one of them:
Work Life Balance: It’s OK, even here.
I never fully signed onto a full-time job at the Massachusetts Tool or Die Company (a nickname we used in the early 70s). Sometimes, I even went entire Sundays without doing any tooling, not even a problem set. And I was fully invested in my student activities: The Tech and the MIT radio station (then WTBS, now WMBR).
You are not going to turn to your relatives on your deathbed and say, “I wish I’d spent more time doing problem sets.” Feel free to take the path of least resistance. You will still learn, as I did, methods of learning and analysis which will stand you in good stead no matter what you end up doing for a living.
…
In my case the Massachusetts Tool or Die Company came close to turning me into a disc jockey. But as it happens, an optimal work life balance at MIT produced an optimal work life balance in my life as a journalist – one of the most unlikely careers an MIT student can end up in. It could happen to you, if you let it.
I should note that a 50/50 academics/activities split would have been a literal balance and would probably have been better for me.
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