Earlier this week the MHA directors sat down with one of their own directors and conducted a small Q&A session with them. Awn Duqoum shares his story about how his obsession with proving himself made him forget what was happening around him.
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Q: Why don’t you start off by telling us about yourself?
Well, I’m not sure what there is to tell. My name is Awn Duqoum, I’m in Mechatronics Engineering (TRON) and I’ve done a few things during my time here at UW.
Q: Where does our story start?
I remember before 1A I heard everyone say that I should enjoy university while I could, because it was over sooner than I thought. I’m not going to lie I always thought they were exaggerating, but today it hit me that I was interviewing for my fifth coop, and that I was already in 3A. I don’t quite know how it happened so fast, or where I was when time was passing? I passed the halfway point, and it’s scary to think how much my life has changed. I was so busy trying to catch up and stay on top of everything I didn’t notice I was changing, a lot.
It kinda bothers me, that so much could happen without me being able to take a step back and take it all in. It’s almost like I’ve climbed this huge mountain and then once I reached the summit I decided to turn around and head back instead of taking it the view. I like that analogy because I honestly think climbing a mountain might be less tiring then these last few years have been.
Q: So is this story a self reflection of sorts?
I guess it kinda is, maybe it’s time I turned around and set up camp at the summit and appreciated where I am now. Let’s look at the start of 1A. I got into Tron with a not-so-great average and no real involvements, so you can imagine that my self confidence tanked when I learned what the average application looked like. Orientation week rolled around (back when it was an entire week) and it put me in a really good mood, I started term off not worried at all about university and much more confidant about the term in general.
Well that all changed by the time the second week of classes rolled around. It became quickly apparent to me how little I knew, and how ahead everyone in my class was. I didn’t get involved in 1A, all I did was study and attend class, and somehow I was still always behind. When rankings for that term came out my confidence plummeted when I found out how poorly I had done. Throw in a pretty bad coop into the mix and you get a good idea of how broken I was going into 1B.
Nearing the end of that coop term I made a vow to myself to do better, to try harder, to stop being the sad excuse of a person that I was. So that’s what I did, I started getting involved. I took on a few positions and made an effort to get better marks. I got a pretty good coop that term, and when ranks came out I didn’t feel as bad about myself.
I thought I had it figured out, I was forming good study habits, meeting a lot of cool people and getting to plan fun events. Life was getting stressful, I had less and less time to work on school things and the constant worry of going back to how things were in 1A started to make life harder. So I ignored it, I put my head down and kept going forward. I knew if I ever stopped to look around at where I was, the fear of failing out would be too much for me to bear and I would stop being involved.
I didn’t do so great during my second coop term, so, like before, I set out to prove that I could do better (now mind you, who I was hoping to prove that to is still not quite clear to me). So when I went back to the same company for my third coop, I was more than eager to prove myself. I stated to develop a really bad work-life balance, normally staying at work for 12–13 hours a day and often working through the weekend. Which isn’t ideal but would’ve been fine had I not also been very involved with donning, EngSoc, RAK, and trying to piece together the orientation website. Which is when I started to get little sleep and rely on coffee for survival.
I was smart about it though. I knew my body had limits and I knew I couldn’t push myself beyond them. I did my research and set up a daily limit of caffeine, and if I ever hit that limit I would stop give my body a break. So even though I was in a constant state of tired I got though that term and did more work then I ever thought possible. I honestly felt really good about myself after that term, things were going well!
Then 2B happened. It was not a pretty picture. When all the upper years warned me about getting too involved in 2B I was too focused on getting work done I never payed attention. Not only was the term challenging, but I kept stacking on involvements and the hole I was digging for myself just kept growing. So I went back to what I did during coop, I planned out a caffeine limit (which was a lot higher then my coop dose) and tried to dig myself out of that hole.
Well, I wasn’t as good about stopping when I got to my limit as I was during the coop term. The stakes were higher this time, a work project could manage to be a few hours behind schedule, but I couldn’t afford to let my group down for any of our school projects. Turns out living off of CnD coffee and Monster was not a healthy way of living. The amount of caffeine I was ingesting just to stay awake was enough to keep me sick for the rest of that term.
At the end of that term I gained a reputation for being salty, because of how rough those four months were. But did I learn? Of course not, my head was still down and I was still plowing along. Stress became my natural state of being, I couldn’t sit down in one place for longer then 5 minutes without feeling guilty for not doing work. It got so bad that earlier this term I exploded, I was so nervous that I couldn’t sit in class without feeling like I was wasting time. I couldn’t start doing work because I felt bad that I wasn’t doing other work and my mind was racing at 100 miles per second. That was my lowest point.
Q: So where do you go from here? You had your lowest point, what happened after?
I stopped, I put my head up and looked around. I didn’t understand how I got here, why I became so addicted to work and proving myself. I was the most involved person I knew, my marks were good at this point, and I was getting good coops, but I still felt like I needed to prove something.
I’ve always known that I was a passionate person, and I mistook my hunger for improvement for passion. Passion fueled me to be the best I could be, it helped me do what I never thought possible. Passion is satisfied when the work is done however. You can be happy with passion. I could never be happy with my hunger. No matter how much I did I needed to do more.
I spent years being stressed, worried, and salty for no reason. I let things get so bad because I thought that if I took a moment for myself I would be back to that broken little boy in 1A who was going to fail. I destroyed my psyche and my body for what seems now like no reason. I climbed the mountain and then did it again and again.
It was a weird place to be in when I had my epiphany, I was sitting there unable to think straight and all of a sudden it clicked in my mind that I had no idea what I was doing. Almost like a switch that I turned on back in 1B reset itself and I was suddenly a normal person again.
Q: So what’s happened since?
Well for starters I am not nearly as stressed as I was a few weeks ago. I’m still doing the exact same amount of work, but now I know I have a pressure valve. In short I learned:
- Taking time for yourself to relax and ensure your mental health is intact will not be the end of the world.
- Being a little late on things that have no deadline is fine.
- Knowing when your body needs sleep is huge.
- Not trying to cheat sleep by consuming a stupid amount of caffeine
I think I’ve set up camp on the summit and even built a small fire, because it was hell getting here you can bet I’m going to enjoy it for as long as I can. I know there will be larger mountains to climb in the future and I think I can handle them all as long as I learn to enjoy the summit whenever I get there.
In closing, I think I am a richer person for the experience. It sure was a bumpy ride and I feel bad I missed a lot of it, but the appreciation I now have for life and hardships makes it all worth it.
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