Living Life Like a Project
Reflecting on my 1.5 years in the Doctor of Public Health (DrPH) program, I realize it did more than develop my critical thinking about programs, policies, and leadership. It also taught me to approach life as a project, balancing scope, time, and budget.
I learned this the hard way, mostly through survival. I survived managing group assignments where everyone had different priorities, faculty expectations that pushed us to achieve perfection, daylight savings time confusion, and so much more. As an international student, adjusting to a new environment and culture while balancing academic responsibilities, professional roles, and personal obligations was rough. Over time, I realized that if I didn’t start managing my life, my life would end up managing me, and usually not in the way I wanted.
The first lesson was about scope. In project management, we talk about defining scope, avoiding scope creep, and staying realistic. But in my 1.5 years, I was the definition of scope creep. I said yes to almost everything: extra coursework, volunteer work, research assistantships, and teaching roles. Every opportunity felt like a door I was afraid to close. I was driven by both excitement and fear. Fear that saying no would make me look unambitious or incapable.
It didn’t take long for the consequences to show. My inbox was filled with unread emails, I had more and more to-dos piled on top of the previous ones, and sleep became a luxury. This has made me realize that I came here to learn to design feasible, sustainable programs, yet I was treating my own life as if it had unlimited time and energy. And this has brought me to the second lesson about time management.
The realization that I only have so much time and energy in a day, week, and month has forced me to change. I began choosing tasks within the scope of work that were necessary to achieve my goals. I came to understand that saying no isn’t laziness or weakness; it’s scope control. Though it’s difficult to say no, I became proud of doing so because each no protects the quality of my yes.
The next lesson was budgeting. The program taught me that a budget is not just a table of numbers. When you plan a program budget, you decide what is essential to achieve the project goal and what is unnecessary. When I applied that to my own life, I also learned that money isn’t the only currency. There was a thing called as emotional budget. Some tasks cost more energy than others. Some commitments foster growth, while others drain it. Thinking in terms of budgeting helped me make smarter choices about where to invest my time and energy. And although I’m still learning to put that into practice, life has started to feel less like a constant race to meet deadlines and more like a series of achievable milestones.
Along the way, mentorship from my faculty advisors and through the Emerging World Leaders program was crucial for providing support and clarity. The conversations didn’t just guide me academically, they also helped me reflect on my decisions, prioritize what truly mattered, and stay grounded in moments of pressure and self-doubt.
Slowly, I started to feel more in control. I stopped trying to do everything and began asking myself, “What matters most?” I stopped comparing myself to others and focused on my own goals. Goals that can be broken down into realistic milestones. Treating life like a project doesn’t mean that you have to turn everything into a checklist. It means creating a manageable life.
My DrPH taught me public health. But more importantly, it taught me how to manage my life. It showed me that I can design not only programs and policies, but also the way I live. And that realization might be one of the most valuable lessons I’ll carry forward.
