Grad School Diets

Today I noticed that my bank puts out a yearly spending report based on things charged to your credit card.  Most of my expenses are pretty consistent (about the same amount of gas per month, for instance), but one particular category stuck out to me.

For some context ahead of time, last year I completed my M.S. at Auburn.  In the process, I took 12 hours of graduate engineering classes in the Spring while also writing and eventually defending my thesis.  All in all, it was probably too much to do at once, and I just barely got out in one piece.  The stress of all of this is now clearly demonstrable, thanks to some data.

This chart shows the ratio of dollars spent on fast food to dollars spent on groceries.  At it’s peak in the lead up to my defense, I was somehow consuming almost 2x as much fast food as real food.  My body is probably pretty thrilled I decided to forgo the PhD.