It looks like I am going to survive the semester! My last class is tomorrow night and I'll hand in my last group project. As far as I know, class-wise, everything else is done. Unfortunately, work-wise, I'm still in the thick of things. I'm working at my internship until the end of December and I still have about a million hours of my research assistantship left to complete, starting with a grading marathon that begins on Tuesday. Some thoughts on the semester, in no particular order:
- In retrospect I think I can say that 4 classes and 3 jobs was a little too much to take on. Things started to get really rough in November when my Saturday class started. I got it all done, as I always do, but not without a lot of tears and many sleepless nights.
- I did make one big mistake that I feel like I would not have made had I not been juggling 7,000 things all at once, trying to do each and every one perfectly. There's a lesson here that I need to have tattooed on my forehead.
- This was the first semester where I've heard my classmates really complain about other group members not pulling their weight. I don't know if everyone was on their best behavior during the first year or if its because now that most of us are taking electives where we're more mixed with part-time students who don't seem to care as much about the program (many of the part-time students' companies pay for their MBA). At least three of my friends let loose a stream of fury over a group member's lack of performance and my friend K told me that two guys in one of his groups skipped a big group meeting because the Patriots were playing (and no, these classmates weren't actually in the game)!
- This was my first semester taking two back-to-back night classes. Last spring I had two Saturday classes and three 4-7pm classes. It made for a long week, trudging into school all the time so I thought I'd try having 6 hours of class (4-10pm) back to back on Monday nights. I should have known better! My 7-10pm class was deadly boring and awful and my brain really doesn't think very well past 9pm, and frankly getting home at 11pm sucks. In all my classes we get a 10 minute break about half-way through the class. After one break early in the semester, I sat back down in my seat and realized it was only 8:30pm and we still had another hour and a half to go. That was a really really long night!
- Over the course of the semester I have graded 97 2-page case analysis essays written by undergraduates, nearly 70 graduate marketing midterms and nearly 70 graduate marketing finals. Grading is so unglamourous and really tedious! Grading sucks even more when you haven't been in the class all semester and you can only go by what the professor has told you is the correct answer. Undergraduate students in particular are terrible writers. The majority of undergraduate papers that I graded read like extended Facebook status updates. No joke.
- The ideal yoga - school - work balance is taking two yoga classes/week. Anything more and my body feels like it's going to fall apart; anything less and I feel like I am going to fly into a murderous rage if we hit one more red light on the bus to school. I love yoga but it does take time to go to the studio, take the class and come home. When I go running I leave from my front door.
- I'm not sure if I had a favorite class of the semester. I'd like to say it was Business of Social Media but I mentally checked out of the class after the worst feedback I've ever received in my life on my first paper. (Though I note that my re-writes of my papers thus far have received As and were filled with compliments. Go figure.) My change management class was interesting and I got a lot out of it but I wish that I had had a real job where I could test out some of the theories we learned in real time.
- There have been times during the semester where I've really wondered if going back to business school was a good idea and if it was worth it. By changing careers at age 37, I am trying to do something really really really hard, and sometimes the enormity and difficulty of what I'm doing was really really overwhelming. Deep down I know it will all be worth it, but on the days were I'm surrounded by 30 20-year-olds at an Internship open house and stick out like a sore thumb, it's really hard to see the forest for the trees.
- I think I owe every single person I know a phone call, an email or a visit. Nearly all socializing had to take a backseat to everything else I had to do. I think I kind of shot myself in the foot with this one, because I feel completely disconnected with the rest of the world.
- Thank god I like quinoa salad, roasted tofu and homemade applesauce. Unfortunately, making the time to eat dropped down on the priority list as my to do list increased.
- It's really hard to explain what being a full-time MBA student is like. It's literally like being on a parallel plane as everyone else. Most people go to work during the day and their non-work time can be used in anyway they like. For business school students, there is no "non-work time". There is always something that needs to be done - papers, group projects, reading, etc. I've spoken to my classmates about this and I know I'm not alone in feeling like this. We could go to a movie but 10% of our brain is still thinking about what needs to be done. We could go out to dinner with friends or have a nice day doing something non-school, but then have to make up the time by working like crazy until midnight and then getting up at the crack of dawn to keep trying to chip away at when you missed while doing something "fun." Holidays and birthdays don't really mean much. MBA students like to be busy busy busy with a lot going on, but I know I speak for all of us when I say that I can't wait until that busy busy busy time is directed by what I want to do, not what my professors want me to do.
- Everyone complains about the workload and being busy but everyone is really busy and has a lot going on. For the past year I felt like I was the one who couldn't hold everything together and I was the only one crying over my laptop because I was so overwhelmed. A few weeks ago my friend N, a finance major who's taking 5 classes, told me he hadn't been out on a Friday or Saturday night the entire semester and spends all of his time in the Library. His friends have told him he's started to act like a "jerk" because he's so miserable all the time. And two weeks ago my friend K, who's kind of a tough girl with an attitude, told me that she's at her parents' house every weekend crying about how hard her classes were. I really thought I was the only one. Not that I want to start an MBA support group, but it felt good to know that I wasn't the only who having a really tough time.
- There's a possibility that I might have a 4.0 gpa this semester. My hardest, most busiest semester? The one that nearly kicked my ass in November and I get a 4.0?? This would be so awesome!
- A few weeks ago my friends and I all declared that we were going to walk across that stage at graduation and party to celebrate that we were done. It's nice to have something to look forward to! Three! More! Classes!
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