*Advid Enthusiast

Moving On...

It hit me yesterday:

I never have to attend another day of class again in my life, if I don't want to.  From here on out, I get to make that choice to step foot in a classroom again.  I am graduated.  I have a Masters.  There are no further obligations for me to get my MBA.  It's done.  Chapter closed.

Insert my happy dance right here.  Right now.  Typing those words bring a smile to my face and a feeling of total utter satisfaction.  And relief.  After nearly four years, my MBA book is closed. 

Classes actually wrapped up for me the last Saturday of February, so I haven't been in class since then, but I did always have graduation loomed in the distant May.  It felt like so far away.  I walked out of that last class and into a liquor store, which I purchased a very expensive bottle of champagne.  My girlfriends came over that night and we popped the cork, celebrated my accomplishment and went out for a night of champagne drinks.  A month later, I celebrated in Thailand with five girlfriends, which ended up being the trip of a lifetime. 

Fast forward a few weeks and I told my parents that the only way I would participate in graduation was if they flew into town for it.  I wasn't going to go through the act of walking if I didn't have my parents there.  They flew into town for graduation weekend at the end of May and it was awesome.  Graduation itself was nice - it was a great way to signify the accomplishment.  Cap and gown, taking pictures, etc, etc.  Suffolk threw a fabulous brunch reception afterwards - I wasn't expecting the sort of spread that there was.  Very impressive.  Very  nice way to honor the grads.  After the reception, we went back to my parents hotel and from the 26th floor of the Marriott, we popped a few bottles of Moet and Veuve and we toasted their baby girl all grown up and very educated.  It was a very proud day for me.

And now, with a $75,000 degree in hand, I set out into the world to put that to good use.  I have outgrown my current role, and frankly, it looks as though I have outgrown my current company.  I am interviewing right now for a variety of roles at different companies and I hope to land on my next big challenge soon.  With my experience and my education, I think that a start up would be the place for me.  Somewhere where I could have impact and add value in a growth environment.  I don't think structured corporate is where I am going to find my way.  I'm open.  The job market is recovering, but it's still not awesome.  The good news is that I have my degree, I have a job right now, and it's just a matter of being patient until the right opportunity comes around.  Because I know it will.  It's just like dating.  I only need one job.  A job that energizes me, challenges me, rewards me.  Something I can see growing into and staying with long term. 

I wish great success to anyone pursuing their MBA.  It's quite a journey, filled with ups and downs, highs and lows, but in the end, it's an incredibly rewarding feeling to be done.  I am done with my graduate degree.  I am so proud of myself, so proud of how far I have come since I began this journey.  If I have any advice to anyone looking into it, I say, let someone else pay for it (i.e. a company) and you must, must, must have an international experience while you are getting your MBA.  China was a priceless experience for me.

Best,

Kelley Harris

kharris@suffolk.edu

And so it begins!

This past Saturday, I started what will be my final class in the Suffolk MBA program.

I'm not going to lie.  I woke up with severe anxiety.  I woke up at about 5 am on Saturday morning, thinking I might oversleep the 9 am start time.  Thinking I might just ruin my chance to graduate in May.  Clearly, I'm ready.  I cannot pinpoint the exact source of anxiety, but suffice to say, it was there.  I did not really go back to sleep.  I made it to class on time, Starbucks Passion Tea in hand, ready for for 9 hours.

I'm taking a class on Failure this semester.  Failure is such a part of all of our lives - unfortunately we all experience it at some point.  But how do you manage it?  How do you pick yourself up off the ground after you fail at something and move on to find success?  I love the idea of it.  I love the idea of exploring it.  I love discussing it.  It's such a very personal topic to people.

I sat there for 9 hours on Saturday and I can say, it was a long day, but it didn't feel as long as I thought it would.  I find myself extremely engaged in the topic.  What is failure to my classmates?  How do they define it?  Two primary thoughts came out of Saturday's class - 1) we all define failure in different ways.  What I feel I failed at, might not be seen in the same light in someone else's eyes. and 2) Failure makes us all feel the same: rejection, alone, despair, disapointment.  Like a total Failure.  Everyone goes through it.  We certainly all handle it in different ways though, that is for sure.

When I think about failing something, I more think about failure in my personal life, in my relationships.  I've done well for myself business wise - I can certainly think of a few things that I haven't entirely succeeded at, but nothing I would equate as a total utter failure.  But personally, I think there is quite a bit of failures and breakdowns in my relationships.  I've failed as a best friend.  I have failed as a girlfriend.  I have often failed as a sister and on occassion, failed as a daughter.  There are things I am not proud of, and I have not always handled certain situations in the best way possible.  But hindsight is 20/20.  What I am learning while I explore the concept of failure is that, failure is failure and it doesn't matter whether it's personal, professional or in your relationships, how you handle it at it's core remains the same. 

I handle failure by trying to gain perspective out of it.  Was I wrong?  How wrong was I?  What can I learn from it?  How can I be better next time?  Was the failure out of my control?  Did I do everything I could to try to keep it from failing?  If so, I chalk it up to timing.  Timing isn't always in your control.  In life, there are just some things that you cannot control and its not worth dwelling on.  I try to sleep well at night knowing that I wake up and do the best I can every day.  Maybe you're good, but the other candidate was just a bit better.  Maybe you're an amazing girlfriend, but it just wasn't meant to be.  Maybe the failure was all your fault.  What can you do to fix it?  It's a concept that I cannot wait to further scuba dive into over the next few weeks.

My last three classes in my MBA program have not been business specific.  They have been classes that focus on Self Awareness.  Thinking about creativity and how to be more of a creative thinker.  Leadership and being self aware of who you are as a leader - strengths, weaknesses and the life.  And now, introspectively looking at yourself and how you handle your biggest disapointments in life.  I think these classes are more important that any finance or stats class.  Tomorrow's leaders need to be self-aware and introspective.  These classes are certainly forcing me to take a look inside.

Like being on a therapist's couch.  Yikes!

Holiday Cheer!

Another semester behind me!!  Yippee!  I haven't had much to blog the past two months.  Once my Saturday class was behind me, I only had the one class left.  And to be honest, that class and I never engaged each other.  Every single class felt like the first day of class to me.  Whatever the disconnect was, I am happy to say it's behind me.  :)

So, you might ask, what is in front of me?  Just a single lone class looms before me.  One measly class is all that stands in my way of graduation!  That class happens to be a Saturday class.  The topic is an Org Behavior (my favorite), but I can honestly say that I am not even sure of the exact title of topic.  It was of keen interest to me, but the kicker was its four Saturday appeal.  Technically, I will be done with all my graduate school responsibilities in February, but I will not technically and officially graduate until May.

I have been referencing these months forever now.  I have always aimed to have December and January be the months where I finally figure out what I should do with myself career wise.  For three years now, I have safely said, I'll deal with a career path when I finish school.  Well, the finish line is right around the corner baby and it's time to kick it into gear.  While I am insanely happy at my current company, I do feel the drive to take the next step into a more challenging role.  Unfortunately, I do not think that that role exists at my current company, nor do I think there could be justification around creating the need for it.  Therefore, as scary as it might be, I do think that it will be time for me to fly the coop and seek other pastures. 

What am I looking for?  First and foremost - a pay increase.  A rather sizable one actually.  I don't necessarily think that suddenly having an MBA suddenly justifies you for one, but rather, I think my experience has earned me one.  Second most important is that I am looking for a company that has a culture fit to my personality.  I think this is so key, and a critical factor to happiness and success at company, but yet, so many applicants don't factor that into their decisions.  Sometimes my current job can be mundane, but I work with fabulous people, have great perks, am passionate about our work and feel that my personality fits well with the culture of the company.  I once worked at a hedge fund, and let me tell you - wasn't my cup of tea.  At all.  Thirdly, I am looking for a role in which I am challenged.  I like the administrative functions of my job, but I think I am ready for more challenging pieces of them.  I would like to run an office, manage a team, track budgets and finance, have input to strategy and problem solving, build repoire with peers, senior management and people who I manage.  I want to have problems to solve, and business issues that keep me thinking. 

I know the roles are out there.  I know I am qualified for them.  I just have to not be so scared of moving out of mom's house, if you will.  But it's so comfy there... and she makes dinner every night.... and I never have to clean... it's like living in a hotel.  What if I go somewhere else and realize I am now staying at Super 8 when before I was staying at W? 

Scary stuff.

We're in Full Swing

I am in full blown MBA mode right now. 

The past two Saturdays have been spent sitting in class for 8 hours.  I was really, really dreading this, but surprisingly, each day has gone by relatively fast.  Our professor is fabulous - she's one of my favorites - and she has done a really great job splitting up the day and keeping us engaged and interested.  I brought my laptop so that I could stave off boredom if I needed, but to be honest, I haven't need it at all. 

A few weeks ago, my undergraduate college sent me their quarterly book.  Inside it's filled with relevant information about what's going on at the college and updates on what your classmates are doing.  As I flipped through the  graduation class years, I noticed that a lot of of the 2010 and 2009 graduates had updates in the career section.  As I read through individual names, I noticed that overwhelmingly these updates were indicating that these students had gone on to pursue a post graduate education.  Being that I went to a liberal arts college, a majority of them were towards masters in arts and science, which seems semi-reasonable to me.  But there were some in business, which lead me to think:  How can you go on to get your masters in business if you've never had any relevant business experience?

A survey in my recent Saturday class indicated that a 1/3 of my fellow classmates had less than 1 year of work experience or less as well. 1/3 of the class had 0-1 year of work experience.  I have noticed this in my weekday class this semester as well - more than I have noticed in any other previous semester.

I think, personally, one of the greatest assets to being in an MBA program is learning from your classmates' real life work experiences.  They have gone through boom times and experienced the atrocity that is laying people off.  They have tackled sticky situations and learned that things are not always text book.  They have handled office politics and succeeded and failed.  I can tell by case studies and discussions in my class who has work experience and who does not and it makes a huge difference on the level and intensity of the discussion.  With many of my soft skilled courses, business cannot always be learned in academia.  An MBA is best learned when you have business experience to supplement what you are learning.  In my opinion, of course.  Not to say I think people with very limited work experience can't contribute, I just think that their contributions are that of a different viewpoint than those of us who have significant work experience.

Given this economic environment, it is scary and concerning to see so many undergraduates head towards post graduate education right out of college.  I am not in that position, so I don't know what it's like to graduate from college and feel like you have zero prospects job wise, so I guess I cannot truly judge.  Our society has told us that a graduate education is the next relevant step, so many of these recent grads are taking the plunge without realizing the ramifications of it.  Potential loans from undergrad, saddled with the ginormous mounting loans of business school can be very overwhelming on starting salaries.  I can tell you straight up that right now, in this current economic environment that some of my MBA graduate friends with 5+ years of work experience are struggling to find their next steps.  An MBA, these days, is not the golden ticket. 

Is our current economic climate somehow creating loan saddled, highly educated twenty somethings?  What are the potential consequences of that?

 

Swing of Things

I am sort of getting into the swing of things this semester.  With only having one class during the weekdays, it's a little more difficult to switch over the mindframe from summer to back to school.  Sometimes I wake up on Wednesday AM and have a bit surprise that I have to go to class that afternoon.  I think as the weeks pass, I will start to get a bit more used to it.  So far, the homework load is light enough, but I expect that to pick up as my group and I start working more on our semester project.

This upcoming weekend kicks off the start of my second class for the semester which I am very excited about.  It's on Social Media - a very relevant topic to my day job and after looking at the syllabus, I am pretty interested in all the topics we will be covering.  Sure, it's a long day - 9 to 5, but I think it will go by fast.  Or at least fast enough.  Again, getting to class sometimes in the hardest part - so once I am there, 8 hours won't be that bad.

Or so I say now.... :)

The weather report says it's supposed to rain this Saturday as well - so that would be an extra added bonus. 

So far, not much new to report.  I have quite an exciting Friday night lined up getting ready for the serious amount of work we have to do in preparation for Saturday's class.  Wine and reading.  Count me in.

Getting Held Back

After a fabulous four months off, I am now back at Suffolk.  

I feel like I have to repeat the fifth grade, while everyone else has moved on to middle school.  Feels so sad to be going back to school while a bunch of my friends graduated in the spring.   I'm so jealous of them not having to start another semester!  However, I can't complain too much-  I am down to just three classes AND I happen to like both my professors/subjects this fall semester.  I am mentally reminding myself everyday that it won't be all that bad.  This is easy stuff...

Well, easy compared to some of the stuff I have been through this summer.  I chose not to take a summer class this summer for more than just 2011 tax benefits.  I had a feeling that I might need that $3,300 for another reason.  In June, I decided that after almost 2.5 years of being together, it was time for my boyfriend and I to go our separate ways.  I felt the relationship wasn't right for many reasons and I no longer had hope that things COULD change.  He's a great person, as am I, and I think it just wasn't right between us.  We lived together for just over a year and a half, so our lives were completely intertwined and I made the insanely difficult decision to move out.  I left my upscale, fabulously decorated and homey apartment in the "burbs" and moved into a 350 square foot studio apartment in Beacon Hill.  

Thank God for all those hours on the couch I spent watching HGTV.  I was able to view apartments with the eye for POTENTIAL, not with what I was presented with - because ewww... some of the apartments I viewed were gross.  I couldn't fathom living with roommates again and I couldn't bear to live in the burbs, so I sought out something I could afford and make my own.  The day I took the keys, I scrubbed, I painted, I envisioned.  Then the next day I went and spent nearly $3000 on stuff.  You know, bed, couch, kitchen wares, garbage cans, cleaning supplies, wardrobes - stuff that you need but don't realize you need it.  After living together for some time, I had sold off a majority of my stuff because his was nicer and we didn't have room for all of it.  Had I taken the summer class, I would probably not have been able to make the move.  Having a little cash cow was definitely handy. :)

Which is obviously a lesson in being smart and protecting yourself.  Thank goodness my parents instilled the values of saving for a rainy day (and even sunny ones).

So here I am!  I love my new home, I love living by myself and I love Beacon Hill.  It's fabulous to walk 10 minutes up the street to the Sawyer building and fabulous to walk 13 minutes to work everyday.  I am surrounded by amazing bars and restaurants and people.  I think this is actually the life I always envisioned for myself.  City Living.  Surrounded by phenomenal friends. Tranquility and peace in my home.  I recommend living on your own for every single person out there.

I built a support group around me to lift me on my hard days and share with me on my good days.  A handful of people from this group are friends of mine from Suffolk.  They are leading very similar lives.  My friends outside of grad school seem to be more on the marriage and babies track, so they can't relate as well to heading back out on your own at 28.  A few of my Suffolk friends have either previously gone through what I did or are currently in a similar situation.  Maybe it is just a coincidence.... or maybe there's like minded thinking amongst my grad school peers.  Maybe we're more confident in going after what we really want.  Maybe we never settle for what everyone else has and strive for more out of life.  Whatever it is, I encourage anyone in an MBA program to really make connections with your peers and classmates.  You just never know when they might enrich your life in unexpected ways.

Free time!

Free time!  Oh, how I love you!  oh, how I have nothing to show for you!

I *should* have started a summer course yesterday, but as explained in my previous post, I am putting this off another semester.  Especially on such a gorgeous day (YAY 70's!), it was nice to just come home and take a stroll.

Many of my friends graduated this semester, which leaves me feeling oh-so behind.  I so badly want to celebrate with them (which I have), but also have ME celebrating my "doneness" too!  My time will come very, very soon, but I can't help but be wistful and a bit green with jealousy.  I recently got together with one of my travel companions from China and it's been 18 months since she graduated and TWO years since I traveled to China on the Suffolk Travel Seminar.  Time sure does cruise by huh?  It's amazing how much I have personally changed in this timeframe as well.  I am no longer the outgoing social queen with a packed calendar frolicking from one commitment to another.  These days, my heart yearns for a glass of wine, my couch and a book.  Or I arrive home, bust up the gym and head to the kitchen to calm my day at work by preparing a dinner from scratch.

Work has slowed a bit with summer approaching, the gym has welcomed me back with open arms and I now have all the free time at night to cook, read and watch marathons of The Office.  My desk is meticulously organized, my house Martha Stewart clean, my blog reading up to date and my soul is light and carefree. 

I guess this drag out school thing isn't so bad after all..... :)

Continuation of the journey

When I started this MBA journey nearly three years ago, I was gung ho.  MBA!  Hooo-RAY!!!  Over the years, fatigue has set in and with graduation just at the tip of my fingers, I am more than ever ready to be done.  With a December graduation in my sights, it's been my countdown. 

Well, that deadline is moving.  Again.  For what feels like the 9,567th time.  I was scheduled to take a summer class, but the more I thought of it, the more I realized I was dreading it.  The more I realized I didn't want to pay $3,300 out of pocket.  And all of a sudden, it hit me.  If I could just will myself to have some patience, I could take that final remaining class in the Spring of 2011 and could use it on my 2011 taxes.  This would bring a very significant portion of my out of pocket expense down.  I am not sure what the exact tax implications are, but they are significant.  Then when you translate that into real dollars in your pocket, it's a major sum. 

With a heavy heart, I sighed, resigned myself to graduating in the Spring of 2011.  The light at that end of that tunnel is that Suffolk offers weekend classes or weeklong classes - so hopefully I will be able to do one of those and just complete that last class in a short amount of time, rather than over the span of 14 weeks. 

And then I pondered the flip side.  that means summer starts RIGHTthisSECOND. WOO WOOOO!!! I completed all my homework and assignments about a week ago, so all I have had to do was just SHOW UP to my remaining classes.  It's been such a nice feeling! tonight is my last class of the semester.

Friday, I leave for a girls weekend.  It's MUCH needed and I am very excited!

However, I have to admit, this semester has been rather enjoyable.  My classes were interesting and I learned a lot.  MBA 800 has been my favorite class so far and both classes had a very manageable workload.  While I don't like the anticipation of physically going to class, I did get a lot of out of them once I was there.  I worked in some fabulous groups and shared a lot of laughs with my classmates.  I think this might have been one of the best semesters yet!

Up next:  I chose my two classes based on who was teaching them.  I picked my two favorite professors and am taking their classes in the fall.  Slightly different approach than in previous semesters when I chose based on time and topic interest.

For now:  The Advid Enthusiast bids you adeiu. It's time to get out and enjoy the weather and get my butt back to the gym. 

Now if only the weather would play nice starting immediately!

Welcome Spring!

Has the past week not been so refreshing for the soul?  The weather around Boston has been truly, truly magnificent!  Saturday was everything you desire in a spring day - and I took full advantage of it.  My boyfriend and I went mountain biking.  I am not a mountain biking sort of person, but I am an adventurous person, so I went along with it.  It wasn't bad - a truly great work out, but my giant fear of snakes was realized (I saw one, I am 100% it wanted to bite me and slither on me) and from that point on, I couldn't keep my fears and anxiety away.  Every rustle in the woods, every rock I stepped on, everytime I dismounted my bike - fear crept into my thoughts and I got skittish.  I won't lie, I was excited to be the heck out of the woods. 

It's crazy what fear and anxiety will do to a person.  Luckily for me, my fear is something that I don't have to worry about on an average day.  I don't worry about encountering snakes in my office, downtown, or in my apartment complex.  But what about people who their fears encounter them on a more regular basis?  Whether it's heights, or airplanes, or failure, even something like, Never being good enough, fear can be really debilitating.  I deal with my fear by avoiding it.  I live in an urban area, I walk cautiously across grass lawns back home in MN, I don't watch any TV that might have a snake it in and I certainly would avoid that area at that Zoo. 

However, I do live with a mild fear every day and I am beginning to think I can't avoid it forever.  Part of me does have fear about my future.  It gives me anxiety to think about what I might do after I graduate.  I don't have a particular career path in mind, I don't know what I want to focus on, I don't know that if I am even qualified to do anything.  Furthermore, I worry about the job market and almost every single day, I have fear that I have been spinning my wheels for three years now in my current role as an assistant.  Could I have spent the last three years doing something more challenging and substantial?  Something that moved ahead my career?  But, it's been a safe haven, a safety net of sorts.  People ask what I might do with my MBA or my career, and I can say, I don't know.  All I know is that I am happy and I have flexibility to pursue my MBA.  That's what's important right now.  I'll figure out the rest later.  Well, later is beginning to approach.  In December, I will graduate and school will no longer hang over my head.  That career safety net that I have had will be removed and the time will come for me to make some decisions.  I will have to choose a route and go for it.  I fear that I will end up taking a job that someone without an MBA could have gotten or that I will really have to start from the bottom.  I fear I will look back and think I wasted a lot of time in an easy job because it was safe and I didn't want to make tough decisions.  I fear I will feel that my peers are out ahead of me.  Ahhh!  A new career path?  What if I don't like it?

It's a scary world out there.  Sometimes, it would be easier to stay in bed than face it.  Sometimes it would be easier to not go mountain biking. Sometimes it's easier to stay out of the grass and enjoy the comforts of the patio.  Maybe I could be happy doing what I do now forever?  At least that way, I wouldn't ever risk making a bad decision.  But what do you miss when you let fear rule you?  When you're afraid to take leaps?  Well, you miss stumbling on a beautiful body of water hidden deep in the woods.  You miss the invigorating feeling of plush grass between your toes.  You miss overcoming a challenging hill and the pride that continued perseverance brings.  You miss the richness of life and valuable new opportunities by letting fear get ahold of you.  I try to tell myself not to stress out, not to let it get to me.  That there are LOTS of snakes hidden in the woods, but if I happen upon one or two along my journey, they are not going to kill me.  (They are afraid of me for Pete's sake!) 

This might be the most I ever let myself talk about snakes.  :)

Have a wonderful day!

Stress level = 7

Yikes.... I have not been a nice person lately.  I notice that I am on edge a lot... and it's to be expected.  We're five days away from our big move and there is just so much going on.  I long for the days of coming home and reading a book.  Soon enough.. just have to weather this "storm".

We ultimately decided on a new apartment and ladies and gentleman, I am moving to the 'burbs.  If you call Medford the 'burbs, which I do.  We're situated nicely on the orange line, which will be a HUGE convenience for my late nights at school.  We got everything we were looking for in a new place to live... the only thing that I "lost" on was the price.  Our new place is more than I want to pay, but still within budget, and it's 13 months... then hopefully we will relocate somewhere most cost effective.  Can't win them all folks.  :)  Needless to say, I am excited and anxious all at the same time - it's how I roll with change. 

School is a surprising mix these days... I have group projects in both classes.  My capstone, 800, group is awesome.  Despite the heavy, heavy work load, I am really enjoying this simulation project that we do.  At first, it seemed entirely too overwhelming... but if you really take some time to get into it, the WHOLE learning experience of running a company is entirely fascinating.  Now that the real rounds of competition have started, I am excited to see how we line up.  Who would have thought?  this might be my favorite class (besides China!) of the entire MBA experience.  Mostly because my group is supportive and we are all getting a lot out of it.  My other group... well... it has an interesting dynamic.  That's the trouble with small groups - all really great, smart people... who all unfortunately have different ideas.  But isn't this real life too?  Don't you run into conflict and various opinions at work too?  You have to learn to handle both situations professionally and appropriately.  People get heated, get passionate, sometimes... it happens.  What's important is that the end result comes out the best it can be.  Do I wish I was in a perfectly functioning group?  Sure... but again, I could use a good learning experience every now and again. 

Time is limited... so back to work I go.  Enjoy your week!