How to Achieve Study-Life Balance in Grad School

When you’re single, childless, and in grad school, you can get a little ambitious about your course load.  I did. I’m close to my parents, sisters, and niece and nephew, but I don’t see them every day, and I don’t need to. What I did feel the need to do was finish my Masters of Business Administration before I turn 40. 

So I loaded myself up with as many classes as I could. In the fast-track program in which I’m enrolled, that means I take two classes every eight weeks, year-round. These classes are the equivalent of 16 weeks of work in half the time, and in 17 months, I’ve had one week off: Spring Break.

To top all of that off, I work full-time. My counterparts with families typically work full-time as well, but they are taking different class loads because they have family commitments. If I had differing relationship commitments on top of work, I would have stretched out my classes, but going part-time, even online, can take up to three years. I didn’t want that.

I will finish grad school earlier than my goal of before my 40th birthday, and I will do so without going crazy.  How? By making sure that I still set aside time for myself, my work, and the family that I do have.

Of course, saying and doing are two different things. How did I achieve this study-life balance?  A couple of important ways…

This mostly means active use of my cellphone. I may be a digital immigrant, but because most of my classes have been online, it’s been easy to stay on top of my grad school assignments and complete them whenever I wanted to. Plus I’m a sucker for the latest iPhone. The classroom platform has a calendar feed that integrates with my calendar app. The app is on all my devices, so I can jump from my phone to my tablet to my computer and still know what I have due for the week.

I’ve also resorted to the standard: “I’ll have to check my calendar,” when answering any questions about making plans. I used to think people who did that were doing to so just for show. I now realize that it’s a legitimate response if you don’t want to overbook yourself. I’ve done it.