Monday, October 19, 2009

Director's Corner

Greetings students,

At the MA town hall meeting on Wed., Oct. 14, an issue that came up was your current workload and how to handle it. In addition to having a full load of courses, you are also working on finding a job, have Action Learning Projects to complete, and are trying to maintain some balance between school and having a life.

We all recognize how difficult this is and the stress it can create. Throughout the MA program there will be peaks and valleys in your workload and right now you are in one of the peak periods.

While all of these elements of the program are important, there will be times where you have to prioritize what is most important to you and allocate your time accordingly. Developing this skill now will serve you well for the rest of your professional and personal lives.

A couple of other strategies that you might also consider to help cope with the demanding workload include:

  • Seek the advice of some of our second year MBA students. I’m sure they would be happy to share with you the strategies they employed to navigate the set of courses you are currently taking.
  • In the past I have offered a sequence of three to four workshops on time management for the MA students. I would be happy to offer these again if you have an interest.
  • Finally, please let me or Jan know if you feel that you are so overwhelmed that you can’t find the time to take a break or that you are generally not coping well with the workload.

~ Scott Shafer, director of the MA program

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