I started grad school

I decided to get a Master's degree. It's mostly my boss's fault, actually. I had considered it before, but I'm interested in some kind of business field and my B.A. is in English. That's not a natural transition, and I just didn't think it was feasible. I also didn't feel like I could afford the tuition. Now I'm making enough money, though, and M.B.A. programs are accessible to anyone, no matter what you originally went to school for. My boss made a big deal about telling me about a lot of other people with non-business degrees that went on to something more applicable to what they do now, so that made me feel like it was possible. He's very encouraging, and assured me I could handle it and I should do it. Personally, I realized that the reality is that if I ever want to make significantly more money where I work now, I'm going to need to get a Master's degree. And if I ever want to leave and do the same thing somewhere else, my experience alone will not make me competitive.

So I started grad school, and found a program where I can get an M.S. in Business Analytics. Now I'm just trying to figure out the pacing. I signed up for two classes this semester, one of them only 8 weeks, because there's another 8-week class starting in October I could take, too, and then three fourths of my prerequisites would be done.

I'm three weeks in, and pretty stressed out about it.

One of my instructors is not a very good teacher, and does not provide very detailed information about assignments, instead asking everyone to log into a live chat session every week. Some of my classmates can't, because they work. People have had trouble with the technology. Also, he's just not very good at this. Someone will type something in response to what he's said, but by the time he looks over at the chat box, he's moved on and he thinks they're talking about something else, then wastes time telling them it's not applicable to what he's talking about. He doesn't really provide any new information that's not in the book, and he doesn't really contribute to my actual learning of the material. He just talks about it.

Conversely, the math-based course I'm taking is a lot better. Each week I have a one-hour recorded lecture, and the instructor is using slides from the book, just like the other guy. But this guy is so much better. He really understands the material, and he explains it in a way that makes it so much more easy to understand. The book seems aimed at math majors, and I can't even remember my College Algebra class. (The reality is that today, you can do so much with Excel that you just need to know what to click. Yes, you should have a basic understanding of the concepts, but you don't actually need to be able to do the math yourself. Whew!) The instructor does a great job of explaining it without dumbing it down, but using his own knowledge to elaborate on the text in a way that really helps me understand.

I think I'm going to take three years to do this degree. That's two courses each long semester and 1 each summer term, and I think I can make it work. I miss the free time to read, do jigsaw puzzles, nap, and play logic games, but I am really enjoying the intellectual challenge. I just need to make it through the tough 8-week class with the cruddy instructor.