Hi guys! It’s been a hot second since I’ve sat down and written a personal and let’s be honest not-SEO driven, blog post. I thought it would be fun to catch you guys up on what’s been happening behind the scenes in my life and how things are going on the grad school front.
When I first started writing this post, I planned to talk about a little bit of everything. But then once I started writing I realized there’s a lot to say on the grad school front and it’s a question I get asked about frequently.
Grab a latte or in my case a soy matcha latte from Starbucks and let’s catch up on how grad school is going!
When people ask me about school, I never really know what to say.
It’s good and bad and overwhelming all at once.
Overall I’m really happy to be back in school and am confident it’s the best decision for me right now and my career. Yes I could’ve taken a bunch of marketing courses at General Assembly (which is a great option, don’t get me wrong!) but I was craving something a bit more formal. I felt that taking random courses on marketing and social media wouldn’t give me the in-depth experience I want and need.
I don’t know if I’ve outright said this on the blog yet, but my ultimate career goal right now is actually to have a few career paths that add up to pay the rent 🙂 I love teaching fitness, I love doing freelance social media projects, I love blogging, I love marketing, I love throwing Holistic Happening events and most importantly I love being my own boss. What I don’t love is being bored.
Going to grad school not only gives me the chance to build up the skillz I’m lacking on the social media + marketing front, but also gives me some time to build up my side hustles.
I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that some of the allure of going back to school was having a schedule which would allow me to work on side projects more easily than a full time job would. Full disclosure, I’m also aware that I’m very lucky and can afford grad school at this time.
Right now the courses I’m taking are kind of meh. Prerequisites are what they are and I’m excited to get into the “meaty” courses next semester. I’ve mentioned this before but I’m taking three courses this semester — Marketing Management, Data Analysis and Foundations of Social Media + Mobile Technologies. The first two I take “on campus” and the last is all online. I’ve never taken an online class before so that’s a big adjustment for me.
Parts of school are harder than I thought they would be. I had a full on meltdown leading up to midterms, something that never happened in undergrad. Okay, I also never took exams as an undergrad theater major, but that’s besides the point. I officially survived my first round of midterms and did not fail. Woot woot!
Other parts are easier. Nothing can suck as much as my undergrad experience where I was booked solid from 9AM to midnight every day, not including homework. Where teachers were allowed to rip you apart for your personality flaws. Yeah, being a theater major at NYU was no joke. Grad school is definitely not like that. I’m busy, but in a different way. And at least my personality isn’t being assaulted this time around.
School has been a crash course in prioritizing. I’ve got a lot of balls in the air right now between school, blogging, Holistic Happening, side projects and y’know not being a shitty friend/girlfriend. Considering I want to work for myself after I graduate, juggling a lot of things has been really great practice for that.
I do wish there was a bit more community within my program — I still haven’t met someone else in the Social Media and Mobile Marketing program. Luckily I do already have a strong network in community in NYC.
The best and maybe worst part is that grad school is very temporary. If all goes according to plan I’ll finish the bulk of my program (minus one course) by Fall 2017. Even though studying sucks and I loathe group projects (yup) in the scheme of things I’ll be out of school pretty soon. For this reason I’m trying to enjoy the freedom and opportunities that come with being in school while I can. And let’s be honest I’ll probably get another degree within the next 10 years because I’m too much of a dork.
So, that’s grad school in a nutshell 🙂
It’s always nice to hear about how others are coping with the whole school thing. I’m considering going to grad school as well. Seems like it’s much much different than undergrad from what I hear. More time consuming I suppose.
It’s a big transition, during undergrad everyone I was surrounded by was also a student whereas that’s not the case in grad school since most of my friends are not in school. It’s both more and less time consuming but maybe that’s me because the nature of my undergrad program was all consuming.