The great thesis crash out of 2025

I lasted 713 days without crying over my thesis

17 days before the thesis for my Master’s degree was due, I had a major crash out. 

I hadn’t cried about my thesis until that afternoon. I had certainly felt annoyed and stressed about it at times over the two years I’d been writing it, but I’d lasted a whopping 713 days without crying over it. 

At first, I dismissed it. I figured it was just a bad day. I took it easy for the evening. It wasn’t until a few days later, when I still couldn’t shake the feeling, that I knew something was seriously wrong. 

Academic failure 

I grew up in a culture that valued academic perfection above everything else. There were two sorts of results: 100% (success) and anything else (room for improvement). 

A common joke in my community was: ‘What do you call a B+? An Asian fail!’

Because it takes a lot of work to achieve perfection, I started attending tutoring classes in addition to school when I was still a child. By the time I was seventeen, I’d done multiple years of North Shore and James An and private tutoring for English, Maths, Japanese and French. 

By the time I got to the end of Year 12, I’d given up on the hope of getting a good ATAR. I knew I couldn’t live up to those impossible standards anymore. 

I decided I would be happy enough as long as I got an ATAR which would get me into the university course of my choice: Arts/Law at ANU. 

That is exactly what happened. By the standards of those around me, my ATAR was deeply average and nothing to brag about. It was not a 99.95; it was a failure. There had still been room for improvement. And I had not improved. 

But it got me into ANU. Good enough. Unfortunately I must be a glutton for punishment because even though I had full choice over where I ended up after high school, I picked a college full of geniuses. 

I loved ANU and I was very proud of my extra-curricular achievements there but never really of my studies.  

The crash out

Fast forward to the great thesis crash out of 2025: I felt completely immobilised by the voices in my head reminding me of my failures during high school and undergrad and that it was silly to imagine that my Master’s degree would be any different. Essentially, I felt crushed by the realisation that I was immensely stupid. 

I wrote about it in my diary:

I got stuck on the fact that I am stupid, I’ve never been happy with any major academic result I’ve ever received and I’m being naive for thinking that this is going to turn out any differently. And it was kind of hard to convince myself of anything else. 

I tried so many things to snap out of it. I tried to combat it with truth: I got accepted into university. I did well in some areas. I hadn’t encountered any issues during my Master’s degree. If I was too stupid for it, someone would’ve told me by now. 

None of it worked. I had around two weeks left before my submission date. I knew I needed to quell this distraction as fast as possible so I could get back to work. 

Radical acceptance

As a last resort, I tried something called ‘radical acceptance’. I knew it could only be a bandaid solution but I was getting desperate. 

I accepted the bad thoughts. I said to myself: I’m right. I am stupid. I am probably going to get a bad grade on this thesis. But all there is left to do right now is put my head down and do the best that I can. And what will be, will be. 

It worked. I was able to finish my thesis. I submitted it a day early. 

Long term thinking

As I suspected, it was only a short term solution. Despite my hopes, the horrible feeling came back right after I’d submitted and I was forced to start unpacking it for real. 

Was I a stupid person? Had I ever been smart? Did being smart matter? Why did it matter so much to me? Is it even possible to be smart in the arts?

It was like living with a highlight reel of all the negative things people had said to me: an English literature degree is a total waste of time. I am a bad writer. I’m not doing the right things to pursue my dreams.

Trying

I tried so many things to snap out of it. Some helped. 

Highly recommend giving a five-minute presentation about your thesis and forcing all your friends to watch.

I threw a party to celebrate my thesis submission (co-hosted with my lovely thesis-partner-in-crime Leah). 

I took several genuinely nice holiday photos but I feel this one of me cackling at the sight of a bánh xèo best represents me.

I went on an overseas holiday with my family. 

Myuna Farm is wonderful.

I went to pet cute animals with friends.

I told myself what was happening was very normal. I read a lot of online graduate student support forums. They helped sometimes. They helped me know I wasn’t alone in what I was feeling.

It’s not like I’ve never had a creative-related mental breakdown before. I once made the bone-headed decision of watching Tick, Tick… Boom! in the middle of writing the first draft of a book in one month (the movie is about Jonathan Larson writing a musical) in my mid-twenties right before my birthday (the movie is about Larson being depressed about turning thirty) while I had a heart condition (Larson died of heart failure before seeing Rent debut on Broadway). Needless to say that did not end well (however I can highly recommend the movie).

Writing

I hate the long term solution almost as much as the short term one. 

The thing that finally snapped me out of it was starting to write again. 

I find this annoying because I didn’t want work to be the solution. But it’s the truth, in the end. The solution was to keep doing what I was already doing. 

As I began to write again, I felt good about myself once more. I enjoyed writing. I knew I had at least some skill. I knew this because writing is at least a little bit easier than it used to be. Hence, I must have learnt something along the way.

After such a long time focusing on the one project, it felt nice to try new things and be creative again. I started several short essays in March. I’ve finished a couple already. They are a completely different kind of writing compared to what I did for my thesis. 

The result

I got my thesis grade back on a random Wednesday. For the first time ever in my academic career, I got a mark I was happy with. I got what I was hoping for.

There was still a voice in the back of my head which told me it wasn’t 100%. 

I told that voice to shut up.