Am I Playing the Woman Card?

Contrary to literally everyone’s expectations, I got into a summer program! I am super shocked, and excited (I can’t sleep because of the excitement, I think, which is why I’m up right now, at 6:51AM on a Saturday), and so, so conflicted. Maybe I’ll make a pros and cons list and then plea for help from someone, anyone, who is not invested in my life.

Pros:

• It’s a summer research fellowship, and it’s from a relatively selective program. I want to be a scientist one day I am pretty sure, and this is a super valuable experience to teach me how to research, and give me some research opportunities, which I haven’t really had.
• Stuff like this is the “success breeds more success”: if I go to this, I’m more likely to get another research fellowship later, because I’ll have experience and hopefully some good connections/recommendations. Research experience is really important. For grad school.
• The research I would be doing looks super interesting, and I’d be able to develop an independent project as well as working in a lab. I could also be going to seminars and the like.
• I’m super unqualified so this is a really good opportunity to get less generally unqualified.
• It’s PAID! Plus, room and board are covered, and they have a gym. If I were to get an internship at home, and a job, then I’d probably have to work more for the same money. I’d also be very, very worried about getting a paid internship for this year.
• It’ll probably get me back into an academic groove before college.
• It’s kind of hard to find jobs when you’re overseas and this is a bird in the hand.

Cons:

• It’s not in a field that I really think I’ll go into. This being said, I haven’t even started college yet and things like this could potentially have a large impact on that.
• I’ve been told that working/doing an internship with a Yale professor would be more prestigious/probably pay just as well, and I’d get to choose my field of choice by choosing my professor.
• (I’m tired of organized cultural activities and this program does have some of that)
• This is a 10 week program, so I’d have 3-4 weeks out of it to get ready for college and see all my friends.
• I’ve just been on a year long trip in a foreign country, leaving behind everyone I love, to better my future. My boyfriend, and quite possibly my parents and brother although I haven’t yet fully discussed it with them, feel that they’d like time to see me, and I don’t think that this is an unreasonable wish. Doing this program would make it much more difficult to see all my friends and family who I’ve missed the past year. That makes me sad. I’m pretty worried I’ll end up ruining relationships because I’m too busy to make time for them because I’m too focused on work. Personal relationships make you just as happy as financial success.
• I’ve also been indirectly told that “the US will nuke Korea, spiraling into global thermonuclear annihilation” is a feeling my friends have about this decision.

That being said, I am so, so conflicted. I don’t know how to balance work and life in a good manner. I’m going to lose something. I care so much about my family/boyfriend/friends, and I don’t want it to seem like I just got back and I want to leave again because I don’t love them. On the other hand, if I don’t do this, I’m very much not doing it for a few people, and is that a decision I want to make? What if I make a decision to save a relationship and then the relationship falls apart? What if I make a decision to do this for my work and then the relationship falls apart? At what stage should you be making decisions for a relationship?

Then I also have the nagging thought of whether I’m more expected to give this up because I’m a woman. I don’t really have any reason that I should be thinking this, and it’s definitely not pressure because of that that I am feeling from the people important to me in my life, at least not consciously. I can’t help think about the societal expectation that girls tend to give up their careers and education for their families, and that’s not something I want. How much is that ingrained societal expectation, and how much actually is because people in relationships need to compromise?

Or, in other words, “wow. She took a year away from you in a different country and, immediately on coming back, wants to leave again?” Which is FAIR. It is fair. But that year is mine, isn’t it? I’m not really taking years away from anyone. Am I? I don’t think so. Am I?

This will likely not be the last angst-y post I write about this, but basically what I’m saying is: I need help. Please. Especially if you don’t know me and thus are slightly more objective on the personal relationships thing.

Please click here to vote about my life, or reach out to me. 🙂

Okay, and now it’s a very much more normal time (i.e. 7:58 on a Saturday) so I guess I will go join the world of the living.