Two Weeks, No Full Night's Sleep How I Won - and Lost - Chasing My Goal

It was the final year of university, second semester winding down. My team and I were building a game engine for our group project. Half the team worked on the engine itself, while the other half built a game using whatever tools we provided. One month to deliver both parts.

Our team of seven worked well at first. Each person brought something useful to the table and progress felt steady. Then our grades for other modules came back.

I calculated my final grade trajectory that day and realised I needed a first-class mark on this project to secure an overall first-class degree. I asked my teammates about their targets and found that most of them only needed a 2:1 for their final result. I was the only one with a first at stake.

My grandmother had died earlier that year. I'd imagined celebrating graduation with her, sharing whatever achievement felt worth mentioning. Getting a first became my way of honouring her memory. Not because she asked me to, but because it mattered to me.

I couldn't ask my teammates to care more about the project than they already did. So I took on more myself: base boilerplate, rendering, positioning systems, editor UI work. As the deadline approached and the game still wasn't coming together as I wanted, I pushed harder.

In those final two weeks, I worked through the night most days, sleeping roughly six hours every two days. Cold showers to stay awake. Caffeine. Push-ups in my room. Sticking my head out of the window to let cold air hit my face. My teammates started asking if I was okay. I wasn't, but I kept going anyway.

The project was submitted with just enough quality for a first-class mark. The burnout that followed lasted months. I couldn't look at code without feeling sick. Applying for jobs felt impossible. Exhaustion masquerading as self-doubt.

University had already changed me over three years, taking me from someone who struggled to keep up academically to someone building virtual worlds with just a keyboard and finding a close group of friends along the way. Those two weeks taught me something else though: grief-fuelled effort burns out faster than you think. The fuel runs dry and all that's left is exhaustion.

During those sleepless nights, I told myself I was proving something. To my grandmother, to the world, maybe just to myself. But standing over her grave after getting my degree, I realised she would have been proud of me regardless of what it said on the paper. She never asked for that sacrifice.

The only thing that keeps you going long-term is actually wanting to do the work, not forcing yourself through pain to prove a point. If I could go back, I'd tell myself to find balance and let passion guide me instead of pressure. The moments of connection and joy matter more than any grade will ever matter.

Those two weeks are a vivid memory but they're only one fragment of my university journey. Most days I'm proud of how far I pushed myself. But I'll always wonder if it was worth the sleepless nights, the burnout, and everything in between. Sometimes the lesson isn't about pushing harder. It's about knowing when to stop.