I Thought I Was Smart Enough for College—Until Burnout Hit Me in My Second Year in New York City

I used to believe burnout was something that happened to other people. The ones who didn’t plan properly. Those who skipped class also contributed to burnout. The ones who weren’t “serious” about their education.

Then my second year of college arrived—in the middle of COVID.

In this story, I’ll call myself “R.” R is a computer science student in New York City who thought hard work was enough. He filled his schedule with classes that sounded impressive, stacked part-time work hours on top of them, and told himself that sleep was optional. When the pandemic pushed everything online, he convinced himself it would make life easier.

At first, it did.

No commute. Recorded lectures. He wore pajamas during class. It felt like the city had finally slowed down for him.

But what COVID really did was erase the lines between school, work, and rest.

My bedroom became my classroom. My kitchen table became my lab. My phone became my professor, my boss, and my calendar all at once. The days stopped having edges. Every assignment felt urgent because nothing ever truly ended.

Midterms came, and I barely noticed.

The semester blurred into Zoom links and Canvas notifications, and burnout didn’t arrive loudly. It crept in.

It started with little things—forgetting simple syntax I had mastered the semester before, rereading the same paragraph five times without understanding it, staring at my screen while the cursor blinked like it was mocking me. I blamed it on “Zoom fatigue,” like that phrase could explain why my brain felt empty.

Then tired became permanent.

There was one afternoon when I sat at my desk for four hours and produced nothing. I didn’t scroll. I didn’t nap. I just stared at a blank file named final_project_v3_REALTHISONE.cpp and felt my thoughts evaporate. Outside, ambulances passed more often than usual. The news kept reminding us how many people weren’t making it. Somehow, we were still expected to care about deadlines.

In New York City, there’s no space to fall apart quietly—not even during a pandemic. The subway still ran. Bills still arrived. Family still needed help navigating unemployment websites and vaccination appointments.

By the time finals week arrived, I wasn’t just stressed—I was numb.

There’s a moment in this story where R skips a Zoom class and leaves his camera off in the next one.

Not because he’s lazy—but because he can’t stand seeing his own face looking back at him from the screen.

He mutes himself while his professor talks about “flexibility during these difficult times” and wonders why it still feels like he’s failing at something he can’t even define. That exact scene didn’t happen in real life, but the feeling did. COVID didn’t just take away campus—it took away the illusion that college was something separate from the rest of life.

Burnout isn’t dramatic. It doesn’t look like giving up. It looks like showing up every day while quietly disappearing.

What pulled R out of it wasn’t motivational videos or productivity apps. It was honesty. He finally admitted that the pandemic had changed everything—and pretending otherwise was costing him more than a bad grade.

He dropped one unnecessary commitment. He asked for an extension he was ashamed to request. He let himself sit in silence without turning it into a to-do list.

The world didn’t get easier. COVID didn’t magically go away. But he learned that survival is not weakness.

That’s the lesson hidden inside this story.

College didn’t break him in one moment. It wore him down slowly—through Zoom screens, sirens in the background, and the constant fear that time was slipping away.

And then, one day, he finally let himself breathe.

If COVID changed the way you experienced college, what was the hardest part for you?