Working on my Master's

Hey Guys!

I just wanted to discuss getting my Master's with you all a little bit. Currently I am enrolled at Western Governor's University or WGU. It is a fully online program and they offer Bachelor's Degrees as well as Master's degrees. I currently have two Bachelor's Degrees; one in Business Management and the other one in Marketing. To be honest, I never really pursued a career in either of those fields. I didn't work at all when I was high school or college and I definitely think it set me back a lot. I really struggled with finding a job once I graduated and the best I could find was working part time retail for a couple of years after graduating to gain at least some working experience. Even though I had the education, I didn't have the experience and I have learned that employers care way more about experience than they do education. 

However, that isn't necessarily true for every profession. Obviously in order to be a doctor you need to go to Medical school or if you chose a more niche profession then you need to go to school. The difference between those schools and business school is that most undergraduate business schools don't require any sort of clinicals or internships while you're in school. With that being said, I didn't go back to school to get my Master's for a job or to get a promotion at work, I went back because it was always a goal of mine. I actually had a goal of getting my Doctorate in Business Management before I turned 30 and becoming a professor someday after I gain enough experience to share my knowledge. That will not be happening though. I have decided that once I graduate with my Master's this November, I will be done with school and I don't really have a desire to go back. I definitely think it would be an amazing accomplishment but it won't be something I do until I gain more experience in either the Business Management, Marketing, or IT field. 

Anyways, I started my Master's program like a month before Covid happened and basically that was probably the worst timing of events that could have happened. I had a lot of anxiety when Covid hit and it set me back a lot in my gaining my degree. I let my anxiety get the best of me most of the time and I would procrastinate a lot rather than just focusing and getting it done. A lot of my Covid anxiety had a lot to do with my job and being in a long distance relationship. My work was one of the last businesses to shut down and we never fully shut down. Working for local government meant that you owed it to your citizens to remain as normal as possible even if that meant putting your employees at a risk. It took probably a month before I was finally sent to work from home and some of my coworkers actually stayed behind to answer the phones. 

As far as being in a long distance relationship, we both had anxiety about when we would be able to see each other again. I had it way worse than him but he tends to be more optimistic than me. Thankfully my fiancé had just come home right before everything started shutting down and flights were getting cancelled. We had a trip planned in April to see each other but it ended up getting postponed until June and by that time I was able to take a full week off from work. We got to spend 9 days hanging out just the two of us! We were extremely grateful after all of the anxiety we had both been dealing with. 

After all of that anxiety, I really struggled with focusing and getting my work done. So far I have been in the program for a little over 2 years. I did take a break after almost every term that ranged anywhere from 1 month to 3 months. I think I took a 1 month break after my first term because once Covid hit I pretty much wanted to take a break but they don't allow you to do that unfortunately. This is the only term where I didn't take a break in between terms because it is my last term and I think I am finally in a place where I can just focus and get my last 3 classes done so I can finally graduate with my MBA. By the way this school does terms rather than semesters and terms run for 6 months at a time and a new term starts on the first of every month. For example, my new term started on June 1st and I will finish 6 months from then which will be by the end of November.

The program I am in for my Master's is Master's of Business Administration with a concentration in Information Technology Management. It is kind of a challenging program but at the same time I don't really work in the industry so I have definitely lost touch with a lot of things since my undergrad program.  A lot of it is basically a more in depth lesson of stuff that I learned in undergrad but it's be 6 years since I graduated from undergrad that I have completely forgotten a lot of it. The crazy part is that I follow a subreddit for the program and there are people that finish the program in like 3 months. The nice thing about the program is that it is self-paced and you can complete the courses as quickly as you'd like or take a little bit longer like I have been. You do have to finish at least one course a term otherwise you could risk getting kicked out of the school. Self-paced also means that you have to make sure you are on top of your school work. I know that some people can definitely struggle with something like this. They do provide a mentor that you can either have weekly phone calls with or every other week. I really enjoy talking with my mentor, she's basically been like a free therapist for me which is great and she offers advice for the classes as well. I would definitely recommend the program to anyone looking for an online program or someone interested in getting their MBA. This is not sponsored but if you are interested in applying, here is a link to do so! 

Thanks for stopping by!

XO, Steph