The Family Man (Not Nicholas Cage...)
This is for all of the spouses and parents out there. I thought coming to Fisher the thing I would get in 2 years would be an MBA, but I quickly learned that I was gaining a whole new discipline in the process. As a husband and father who wanted to be around his family, I knew coming to business school was going to be challenging both inside and outside the classroom. However, I feel that having a family has actually made me be better as a student and at home. The three things I have learned through this process have been:
- Time Management: You just have to be good at managing your time. I don’t have a lot of margins in my life right now, so it’s a sink or swim situation. Often when you’re in this spot, not having a choice can actually push you to be better than you might have chosen on your own.
- Devote time to thinking about what’s important: The forethought you put into what you want to get out of business school is positively correlated (what’s up data analysis!?) with the opportunities you’ll be able to take advantage of while here. There are a ton of events and if you don’t know what you want things may pass you by without you realizing it. Better to be prepared and do the heavy lifting on the front end.
- Learn to say no: Like I referred to in point #2, there are a ton of events out there. The temptation is to go to all of them. It’s a temptation because there are a ton of awesome and interesting events. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be a temptation, right? Well, due to family parameters, I can’t go to everything, but I can go to the events I’m really interested in and passionate about. That’s where the power of saying no comes in. You have to pick your battles, and part of that is saying no to good things in order to say yes to great ones.