Jan 26

Jan 26 I Quit! My Advice for the Winter Quarter Blues

So I’ve gotten myself into a bit of a pickle. I decided to fill up my winter quarter schedule absolutely to the brim with classes, a research assistant position, and my few RSOs. My reasoning: winter quarter is filled with seasonal depression so, I might as well ride the wave and make myself extra busy now to allow for a freeing spring. Well, easier said than done. Why is it that I feel I need to fill up my time being productive to stave off the cold, miserableness of winter quarter? After polling my friends, it seems like this heightened winter workload is a common occurrence; our winter quarters are notorious for being busy. So we have this situation. We can do little to get ourselves out of it—I could drop out and quit my job, however that seems rash—but we can find ways to deal with it. Instead of the good ol’ college try, give it your best. college. quit.

I understand that suggesting we all just quit is preachy and tone-deaf. But what I’m talking about is a different kind of quitting: quiet quitting. I’m sure you’ve heard of “quiet quitting,” a controversial term used to describe doing the absolute bare minimum at your job. Verywell Mind explains the this workplace strategy as:

Saying no to tasks outside of the traditional job description
Not replying to emails or Slack messages outside of work
Leaving work on time
Being less emotionally invested
No more overachieving
Reduced interest in going above and beyond to secure a promotion at the company

These principles have been heavily ridiculed for their ignorance of a large portion of America’s workforce (laborers, students, healthcare professionals, etc.) that has no option but to work hard. The quiet quit is a privileged choice that highlights the unequal distribution of workers rights. Especially for students, you can’t just leave work or stifle your climb up the corporate ladder (first we have to get an actual job) because life IS work. There is no school/life separation; We all go to parties within blocks of where we grind out p-sets and essays. Thus is the American university. And, it’s important to take advantage of the opportunity to get a higher education in the first place. We all signed up for the UChicago slog, but we may need a reality check. In this microcosm I think our sanity could equally benefit from a strategy of micro-quits, especially in these gray winter months.

So what does that look like? Here are a few examples from my recent attempts to pull myself and my friends out of our winter grindset:

I scheduled my birthday celebration dinner on a Thursday night and am forcing everyone to take a break from their Thursday night studying. The rest of American college students take Thursday as a night of fun and why shouldn’t we? Now, we can’t take back all our Thursdays here at fun’s graveyard, but every once in a while let's sit back, relax, and take a weeknight as a time to socialize or take care of ourselves.
It was 12 A.M. I had just started my sosc reading. I was beyond tired. What did I do? I. Went. To. Bed. The only thing I would have achieved is a sleep deprivation induced headache the next day. Prioritizing my physical health at that moment was way more important than reading Durkheim. Sleeping then meant energy for the next day which means productivity for everything else. Your professor will understand—mine did!
Being the OCD UChicago gal that I am, I started off trying to fit in both work and studies everyday—taking four classes and picking up a research assistantship. What?! Absolutely not. So what did I do? Told my boss the days that I can’t work. After compartmentalizing my study days and my work days, life is easier! You don’t have to do it all, all the time. And guess what: she totally understood.

Just being here, taking a regular course load, and doing okay in classes is more than achieving. Give yourself a pat on the back! Expending unnecessary stress and time on assignments or classes that aren’t inspiring to you can only be detrimental to your mental state of being. In an NPR newsletter, Greg Rosalsky and Alina Sleyukh express that quiet quitting is “about divorcing your ego from what you do for a living [or for school] and not [always] striving for perfection.” But, for us it isn’t just about separating our ego from school; we also have to learn to distance what we think is expected of us—by the institution, by our parents, by employers, by society???—from what we actually want to work on. Yes, we have to at least get a passing gpa, but ask yourself: am I spending the most of my energy on things that I actually want to learn? Trust me, getting a B in a few classes won’t destroy you, but getting straight As just might. Let’s all take special care of ourselves while under the shadow of Chicago’s January cloud cover.