Memoirs of A Healer/Clinical Social Worker: Autobiography of Bruce Whealton

Chapter 6: Getting Through Georgia Tech with Bragging Rights

Intellectual and Academic Challenges to Overcome

Having discussed in the last chapter the challenges I faced upon arrival in the big city and beginning college at Georgia Tech, I want to talk a bit more about the other challenges that go along with making it as a student at Georgia Tech and/or graduating. We are all entitled to bragging rights if we make it at Georgia Tech. The engineering and related majors are particularly challenging. That is such an understatement that I will need to illustrate this during this chapter.

This information is important in understanding part of my character, intellect, judgment, planning, and time management skills in life. Science is important as a guiding principle to rational reasoning even in the human services field. This book is about my experience as a Clinical Social Worker. Of course, I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life, as I mentioned previously.

Any time I have doubts about my competency in life, I think back to what I accomplished at Georgia Tech. While it might seem like just an academic challenge there is more to it than that. Pacing is important!

To stay sane, I tried, like others, to take Friday afternoon through Sunday mornings off from classes and forget all about the homework assignments, the concepts being taught, the formulas, the calculations and just put it out of my mind. The best analogy was to think of pacing yourself for a marathon or some other endurance exercise. Only this exercise was mental - an ongoing exercise of your brain. When I say I was trying to stay sane, I mean we needed balance in our lives - entertainment, enjoyment.

The dangers of excessive stress and lack of balance in life...

I will tell anyone to this day that the more stressful your life is the more you MUST take time to include non-stressful leisure activities, time with friends and family, and so on. Balance. Self-care! Some people speak of burnout. I think a new term is necessary to describe what happens under excessive stress. This is something that I will discover many years later.

Before long, every student would develop a certain respect for one another, whether they were enrolled as a Mechanical Engineering major, Electrical, Chemical, Nuclear, or some other form of engineering or related majors.

Your social connections were very important as well. You needed to know people who know others who can help you plan how you are going to get through all your required courses.

It's also important to understand that there were "weed out" classes that everyone must take in their first year and a half roughly. They were called "weed out" classes because many students flunk out early and never return to Georgia Tech.

We were all required to take six sequential Calculus courses. Yes, six! Plus, there were several courses in physics and a course in chemistry that were required.

The years I spent in these science and engineering classes are a blur of blackboards filled with mathematic formulas.

Before I made it to my junior year, I had a sense of self-confidence for the accomplishments that got me this far. It was boring though and I would struggle to stay awake often. I kept thinking, what's the point of this? Why does this matter to anyone? How will it bring anyone happiness or meaning? I know it is necessary and technology does provide great things, but this was so dull.

I did have classes in the humanities as required electives. And I discovered psychology and I was fascinated by those classes. I even got a minor in psychology.

Looking back, I should have majored in English with a specialization in creative writing, which would have meant going to another school. Of course, I had no idea who I was and what interested me. This was a period of self-discovery. Late in my junior year, I thought of changing to majoring in psychology. I was in counseling for shyness, as I mentioned but eventually, I'd question my decision to major in engineering.