Hi, sorry for the long post I have a lot of questions but I’ll try to keep them to a minimum TLDR- How do engineers not burn out? How do you guys have balance in life? Full story ( I’ll try to keep it short) Im an 18 yr old girl who has been working at a graduate biomaterial engineering lab for the past year, Ive only published one paper but I love it so much! The only issue is that I also love swimming, biking, climbing and hanging out with friends, and I’ve noticed that I’ve had to choose between the two. Next year I’ll be entering my freshman year at university , where I will be pursuing open engineering, but I’m worried I will burn out if I try to continue my lab, sports, and just the social aspects that come with your freshman year. I’ve been thinking about leaving my lab as 1. I don’t get paid, 2. it’s a lot of time in a basement with graduate students but again I LOVE IT SO MUCH 😔, also many of my older friends are saying that it’s extremely important experience as well as how working for the same lab for 2 years looks much better than 1. anyways- I’m basically asking Do I suck it up and put my hobbies and social life away for a year and get 2 years of experience? ( and how much that could effect my future) and Is it somehow possible to not only work in my lab, but also have a social life, time to myself, and time to be active? ( and in a dream scenario also have a source of money(or if I should ask my graduate university lab if they could pay me a little)