Double Major

There’s an accelerated masters program at UCF available for computer science majors, and I, a computer science minor and digital media major, was nearly sucked into changing that minor to a second major. It would certainly be useful, and as more and more jobs are requiring graduate school from their employees, being able to complete a master’s program in just one extra year seems like it would be a very good idea.

Well, a good idea except for the fact that I would never have time to see my friends again.

This semester, I took six classes that totaled nineteen credit hours. I had to get an override in order to do that, since UCF normally limits a semester to seventeen hours. I was also active in the Robotics Club and the College Republicans, and I have a boyfriend who goes to UF and who visits regularly. Throw friends and hobbies into that, and I have no time to breathe. Well, I like breathing, so I more or less put my friends and hobbies on hold.

All semester long, I told myself, it’s just a semester. Come winter break, I’ll have time again. Come spring semester, I’ll take fewer hours and everything will be okay. It’s just this one semester.

Then I found out about the accelerated BS to MS program. Oh, how tempting, how useful! And I do love being busy, and I love taking on unnecessary challenges “just to see if I can,” and I love computer science. However, I would have to take many extra classes, and I’d have to take graduate-level classes in my junior and senior year, something for which I was wholly unprepared. I dithered for days. Should I do it?

Well, I made my decision. Were I to double-major and do the master’s program, I wouldn’t do it because it is “useful” or even because I enjoy computer science; I’d be doing it because I am addicted to being busy, to having every second of my life too full to think. I like the feeling of accomplishment when it’s over, and I’m arrogant enough to feel special while I’m in the thick of it, telling people “I can’t, I have a lot of work to do.” Sometimes, the work itself is fun. Calculus seemed like a game sometimes, a series of puzzles, and for history I took pleasure in writing an amazing piece on H. L. Mencken. Learning logic in discrete structures was positively delightful.

Yet, I let important things fall to the wayside when I am busy. My friends call me “stranger” and ask me where I’ve been. I wish I weren’t three months behind on Vogue and Elle. I bought an Ironman comic book many weeks ago, read a few pages, and it’s been woefully neglected since. By firmly deciding not to double major, I am allowing myself a healthy amount of free time in future semesters, something I know I desperately need.

I haven’t even had time to write anything that wasn’t required for a class until now. Good grief.