Earlier in the week I made a promise to a twitter follower that I would explain how I managed to complete an MBA with a career-focused (and career-dependent) lifestyle and two young children.
Georgie Dent’s article last week exploring why more women aren’t doing MBAs struck a nerve. I shared the article on twitter and received feedback, mostly from women, along the lines that it would be impossible to do so without dropping the ball on career and family.
I can understand why many women would see it this way. It’s tough enough already for most women to manage a career and family. Throwing an extra activity into the mix that sucks up any precious time you may have left feels near impossible — mainly because generally there isn’t any time left. I am reminded of a woman I know whose son once went to school with my youngest. She is a single mother of two with a full-time professional services career and is studying for a Masters degree. She once told me that she sits down with her daughter to go through the week’s school work on Sunday mornings at 10.30am. She was very specific because she needed to be to fit everything in. And although my week was always super-planned too during the MBA years, it is possible to pursue a postgraduate education without needing to spreadsheet your home life.
I made the decision to invest in an MBA when I was at a career crossroad. The two paths ahead of me were: a. to focus on editing with the goal of becoming editor of one of the country’s biggest publications, or b. get myself on the management track and attempt to scale greater heights in my chosen industry. As soon as I committed my career to the latter I started researching MBAs.
The first person whose opinion I sought on choice of MBA was my then-manager. He looked at me as though I was mad and said, “why would you want to do an MBA? You don’t need one”.
That didn’t deter me. In fact it probably made me more determined to prove him wrong. At the time I thought he was negative about MBAs because he didn’t have one. And that may well be true in part but with decades of hindsight, I now believe it was because he didn’t see me as a future leader in the business. At the time I was a 28-year-old magazine editor and there were no women in my company running the business. There were lots of female editors and marketing and sales managers but no women in the inner sanctum, decision-making positions.
It was a couple of years later that I enrolled in the first year of my chosen MBA. In order to get all the ducks in a row that would allow me to begin postgraduate studies I needed to feel more supported. I changed jobs and waited until my son (I only had the one at the time) was two years old. I also needed to ensure that I would have strong ongoing support from my husband and family. I was heading into this with eyes wide open.
First year consisted of two subjects per semester and therefore two classes per week. So for two days every week I would leave my full-time job as a magazine editor and head directly to NSW University for a couple of hours. I arrived home at around 9pm and my son would always be awake waiting for me, wanting to play, needing my attention after 13 hours apart. I would eventually get him to sleep on those nights at around 10.30pm. And then I would spend the next two to three hours studying. It was exhausting, but the material in most of the courses was stimulating and that’s what kept me pushing through. I completed first year in the specified timeframe of a year and achieved a mix of distinction and credit grades, which I was pleased with given the constraints on my study time.
Towards the end of that first year of postgraduate study my husband and I made the decision to have a second child. Our eldest was turning three and we were conscious of the widening gap in ages between them. I was three months pregnant on day one of the second year of my MBA. Unfortunately pregnancy doesn’t agree with me and I endured morning sickness for the entire nine months. So now I was overlaying my university program with a constant need to throw up. After four weeks I raised the white flag and decided to defer until second semester when I was convinced life would be easier for me. My baby was due in August and I was planning to take six months maternity leave. I imagined that MBA studies would be a wonderful thing to be able to do while on maternity leave.
Even though my second child was the world’s easiest baby (he was a good eater and slept a lot, including through the night after only three months), I was exhausted with a newborn and an almost four-year-old curious, demanding child who loved having me at home. Also, I continued to edit the magazine from home and had set up a fax machine on the dining table so I could receive the magazine pages to check each day. This time it took just two weeks to make the decision to defer the semester.
That one year deferment turned into two when the first day of my return to work following maternity leave involved boarding a plane for Milan for a week. I was now working for a French publishing company and traveling to Europe quite a lot. I couldn’t bear to be away from my young sons for longer than absolutely necessary when I was back in Sydney.
However, I was committed to completing the MBA that I started three years earlier. The university allowed a maximum of seven years to complete the degree, or I would have to start again. That was my timeline: seven years. So I mapped it out. The final year had to be completed in a single, dedicated year. That left me with three years to complete second year. I decided to stop beating myself up about taking so long to get through it and instead chose to finish the course one subject at a time, which seemed manageable with two young children. I was able to complete second year while performing the full-time duties of my first significant management role as publishing director of Pacific Publications.
Third year was a completely new ball game. It required a number of residentials, intensive research and group work. My family was up for it, but my manager was not. For the first time I felt that I had to make a choice between my job and my studies. I realised it was now or never for that MBA. I chose now and resigned from my job.
Fortunately I was offered a job elsewhere immediately. My phone rang within an hour of my resignation as journalists spread the news throughout the industry. I negotiated a three-day consulting arrangement with Fairfax and that proved to be the perfect scenario for the final executive year of the MBA. It was perfect for my children too.
The third and final year of the MBA, completed seven years after it began, was one of the most incredible experiences I have had. It renewed my passion for my career and lifted my thinking far beyond anything I had learned on the job.
Whenever I am asked if it was worth doing an MBA, I have no hesitation in saying “absolutely”. I am also always honest about the sacrifices and exhaustion that go hand-in-hand with being a career woman with a young family.
My sons were there when I graduated. I heard my youngest shout “there’s mummy” when I took to the stage. It was one of the proudest moments of my life. But I had to promise them that I wouldn’t undertake any further study. They wanted more of me.
For 11 years I have kept that promise. My youngest is now 16 and has two years left of school — which gives me two years to decide on my next postgraduate course…