Pursuing an MBA

Chris is approaching the two-year mark at Andersen Windows, at which point he will be eligible for MBA programs for working professionals. Since he’s started at Andersen, he’s been encouraged to get an MBA, something many of his co-workers have done and recommend. The advanced degree would expand his career opportunities and after two years away from the academic environment, he misses school.

But with a baby arriving just six weeks after he’d start what will be potentially a five-year process to earn his MBA, some have tried to encourage him to hold off on going back to school until he sees how he handles such a major transition in his life. Even one of Chris’s co-workers, who’s expecting his first child in May, may hold off on entering a similar degree program, so people’s concerns gave us cause to think through the positives and negatives with more seriousness.

After we talked, Chris and I decided that he has nothing to lose in starting a masters. Andersen will cover tuition two-three classes a year, which means the financial stake is minimal. He's also entering a program tailored towards working professionals and he has the encouragement of his boss, so he'll get support from his school when work conflicts with class and vice versa. Chris would rather get in the habit of studying now, and then postpone his program if parenthood is too overwhelming, rather than never even start because parenthood is, well, rather overwhelming, and he can't imagine adding anything else to his plate. By going to school at night while holding a full-time job and being a parent, his grad school experience will surely be different from mine, but the payoff will be the same.

We realized that in life there are just some things you can’t control. In a perfect world, Chris would have finished school at 22, started his MBA at 24 and finished by the time he would be 29. In between, he would have met a wonderful woman a few years his junior, who wouldn’t have been ready to have kids for many years. By the time kids came he along, he would have already finished that MBA. Instead, he finished school at 24 and met a (equally wonderful) woman four years his senior, who doesn’t want to wait around another five years while we try to check off as much as possible on our imaginary “before we have kids” to-do list. I feel very strongly about family planning and waiting to have kids until you’ve had a chance to complete certain milestones – college, living on your own, starting a career, etc. However, where is that point in your life where you’ve accomplished the things you wanted for yourself in life – the things that would have been very difficult or maybe impossible with kids – but haven’t yet waited too long to have children? How do you recognize that point in your life?

I think Chris and I are here. I feel thankful that we have had the opportunity to accomplish what we have - careers, homeownership, grad degree for me, financial stability. There will so many plans we'll have to reevaulate, but with the baby coming, the question of whether we're in the right stage in our life to start a family is moot. Now our focus is on what we still want to accomplish in our lives and how and at what pace we will fulfill those goals.