So, my transfer from my 529 came through, and I paid my $200 deposit (it’s a non-refundable fee, but gets applied to my Fall tuition when I start classes) on Monday. I then spent Monday evening and most of my free-time on Tuesday and Wednesday re-working and debating my potential schedule for Fall.
As I mentioned last week, when I talked to the graduate adviser, she said that they don’t recommend that graduate students who are working full-time take more than two classes a semester. Initially, I was willing to go along, but the more I thought about it, the less I liked the idea of abandoning my original plan. I have to change which classes I take, because I still can’t take the first two accounting classes with BUSN 6550, but I’m going to take 3 classes this Fall.
It’s going to be rough. I know this. It’s also (only?) 16 weeks and I’ve done similar things (worked three jobs at once) for longer.
To get a sense of what I was up against, I plugged my Fall scheduled into my Google Calendar. I included the hours I’ll be working, my bus trips to and from work/school (at which time I’m going to study), and the 21 hours of studying (7 hours outside of class per class) that they recommend you allow for.
This is the result:
I lumped all of my classes together in the middle of the week because I had that option. That gets them out of the way, and allows me to spend Friday, Saturday, and Sunday focused on my homework. If I can get my homework done on those days (many of them Ben works or hangs out with friends), then I am going to allow myself to take Monday night off from school. Ben usually gets out of work around 4:30 or 5 pm on Mondays, so that’ll be the day I get to hang out with him, which is an excellent motivator for getting my homework done in a timely fashion.
As I said, it’s going to be challenging, but I know I can do it.
