B - What?

One of these days I will start off a sentence with, back in B-School…

I like that going to school for your MBA also means that you’re “going to B-School.” Actually, the only place I’ve ever heard anyone use that term is on House of Lies (an HBO show about some cutthroat business consultants and Ivey League “B-school” grads.)

I graduated with my undergrad in the spring of ’11 and went straight off to pursue my MBA that next fall. It was both a good idea and a bad idea. My reasoning for going straight into grad school was that I was already used to juggling school with all of my other commitments, and if I took a break I might never again be insane enough to go back. Don’t get me wrong, I actually enjoy school. However, going to school on top of being a mother and wife, and working full-time really puts a strain on my sanity. So, I made it through the first year of the 3-year, part-time program and came to a point where I just had to take a break.

My first semester of grad school felt great. One of my classes was a business law class and I enjoyed it so much that I had a far off notion that I’d like to go to law school. Then I woke up and realized that I fell asleep on the crazy bus. It was nice to be learning something different. I love the black and white of engineering and I still prefer numbers and working problems to writing papers. But I enjoy learning new perspectives and hunger to be more intelligent about the things going on in the world around me. I feel like I get this from business school, more so than I did in engineering school.

The next semester really tested what I was made of. It was a perfect storm of stress in my life, which culminated at the end of the semester. As a student, this is when the stress of finals alone consumes your life. The long and short of all of it is this. I wasn’t able to see Colten for at least 2 days out of the week. On school days, I was leaving before he got up and getting home after he had fallen asleep. This was hard for me, and it only became harder as time wore on. I had many group projects that required meeting up outside of school hours as well, which equaled even more time away from him.

Work in the meantime, was enough to make me go bonkers on its own. Looking back now, the project I was working on at the time was the most stressful and time sensitive that I have worked on yet. Add to that the fact that I was a new graduate, still learning how to fill this engineering role that I was in. Even with three and a half years of interning under my belt, I felt ill prepared. However, a lot of my stress in this situation was brought on by my own fear of failure.

The trifecta and final straw that semester had to do with my family. My grandmother passed away. She was precious to me and it was hard to say goodbye to her. Although, my actual breaking point came later when I learned that my father had prostate cancer. This is hard to hear as a daughter. Even with a positive prognosis from the doctors, I couldn’t see past the fact that my dad had to go through this. And to make matters worse, I couldn’t be there to hold his hand.

So, needless to say, I took a break. One of my professors was even kind enough to let me take an incomplete, giving me more time to complete a few of the assignments that piled up on me when I had just shut down. I managed to get out of the semester with an A and a B. That is a real accomplishment if you ask me. I originally thought that I might take a semester off, but that quickly turned into an entire year. This was ok, because we made a shift in focus to put Jeff’s schooling first. We had already learned that both of us going to school was a recipe for disaster.

There was no second guessing my decision to take a break, but the absence of school in my life left me feeling a bit crummy. I am a very goal oriented person and I never feel more satisfied than when I am in hot pursuit of a goal. I am definitely of the notion that if you aren’t progressing and moving forward, you’re moving backwards. I tried to bury this feeling because I knew that I not only needed a break, but I deserved one. I think it revealed itself in other ways though. I made my way into in an obvious rut, one that I couldn’t shake. And having school on hold definitely contributed to that.

It's a little over year later now, and I am finally heading back! I recently applied for readmission and was accepted. This past weekend I was able to register for my classes. I am feeling pretty stoked. So, come Spring 2015, I should be the proud recipient of an MBA, and have another goal with a check mark by it.