The first final paper of my MBA program loomed over me like a dark cloud, a storm I’d known was coming but hadn’t fully prepared for. It wasn’t for lack of trying—I had dutifully collected all the readings, highlighted important points, and even made a solid outline weeks in advance. But the actual act of sitting down to write a comprehensive, academic paper was a challenge I hadn’t faced in years. Eight years, to be exact. And, as it turned out, those eight years had done a remarkable job of eroding my essay-writing skills.
When the time came to start writing, I turned my room into a fortress of concentration. My phone was set to silent, notifications muted, and the only outside influence allowed in was the steady stream of takeout containers accumulating in a sad little pile on my desk. I locked myself away, as if the physical act of closing my door could somehow shut out the mounting pressure. The world shrank to the size of my laptop screen, the blinking cursor a relentless reminder of how little I’d written.
At first, I tried to maintain a sense of calm, telling myself that everything was under control. But as the hours ticked by and the words didn’t come, panic began to seep in. By 2 a.m., I was spiraling. My mind raced with a thousand unhelpful thoughts: What if I can’t finish in time? What if I’m the only one who can’t figure this out? What if I don’t pass? The late-night anxiety was a familiar old friend, one I’d hoped I’d left behind in my undergraduate days. But here it was, back with a vengeance, feeding off the stress that was rapidly taking over my brain.
Out of desperation, I opened the MBA cohort’s main group chat. It was like plunging into a shared ocean of stress. People were posting frantic messages, lamenting their lack of progress, sharing memes about academic despair, and asking existential questions like, “Why did we choose to do this to ourselves?” Oddly enough, it was comforting. I wasn’t alone in my misery. Everyone was panicking, struggling, and trauma bonding together. It was a mess, but it was our collective mess.
Bolstered by the realization that everyone else was floundering too, I turned back to my laptop. The hours blurred together, an endless cycle of writing, deleting, rewriting, and staring blankly at my screen. My old academic habits were rusty, and I quickly realized how dependent I’d become on modern technology. I couldn’t imagine writing this paper without the help of ChatGPT. Every time I got stuck on a particularly thorny paragraph or needed help organizing my thoughts, I found myself typing out a desperate query: How do I explain this complex concept in a way that makes sense?
Without being able to use ChatGPT as my writing buddy, I realized I don’t remember how to proceed, like the memory before ChatGPT was erased from me. But even with that extra support, the process was brutal. Each section of the paper felt like climbing a mountain, only to find another peak waiting just beyond. There were moments when I was sure I’d never make it, that this paper would be the undoing of me. But somehow, minute by minute, word by word, it began to come together.
Thirty-eight hours later, I emerged from my writing cave, exhausted and bleary-eyed but clutching a finished paper. It was far from perfect, but it was complete, and in that moment, that felt like a victory. I couldn’t be sure if it was good enough to pass—I’d been too immersed in the writing to have any real perspective—but I was proud of it. I’d poured every ounce of effort I had into those pages, and that had to count for something.
Sitting there in the aftermath, with my brain fried and my hands aching from typing, I felt an unexpected surge of accomplishment. I’d done it. Maybe I’d made some mistakes, maybe it wouldn’t be perfect, but I’d faced the mountain and made it to the top. And as I returned to the cohort chat, seeing everyone else sharing their own tales of struggle and relief, I knew that no matter how things turned out, we’d all been through it together. We were bonded now, forged in the fire of that first final paper, and somehow, that made the experience a little less daunting. With a sense of hard-earned pride and a mind too exhausted to think straight, I finally let myself rest, knowing that in this whirlwind of stress and deadlines, I’d survived my first real MBA academic test.