So here I am, at the start of Fall Trimester and I am incredibly excited. I decided to ease the load a bit this trimester and only take one class – Marketing. It certainly is a far cry from my Econ and Accounting classes last trimester (it’s safe to say I survived and even aced my finals! Thought I was in trouble for a bit there). I can say with confidence that Marketing is definitely more my forte than number crunching, so that myth you hear about MBA-ers being all math-minded? False!

I know people who choose to lighten their load or take an entire trimester off for various reasons, but my reason is because I’m getting married this coming November, and I wanted to be able to enjoy this next life stage without the worries of school weighing on me. My wedding date actually falls around midterms and the week after my honeymoon happens to be finals week! I just wasn’t willing to sacrifice my sanity to get through this program as fast as possible. We all have different capacities though, you just have to know what’s best for you and understand how much you can (or are willing to) handle.

I almost ended up dropping Marketing too because the syllabus stated that 20% of our grade was based on participation (usually participation grades are calculated based on attendance). On top of that, it also said that it is very likely that we’ll drop an entire grade if we miss more than one class. I had a mini heart attack reading that because I was looking so forward to Marketing and having at least one class with the people I had grown so close to at Pepperdine this past year. I knew I’d be missing 2 weeks due to the honeymoon, so I immediately emailed my Professor explaining my situation. We figured out a way to work around my situation, thank goodness! Lesson Learned: look for every alternative possible before giving up, especially if you’re in the Fully Employed Program. Most Professors understand that their students need to travel for work or whatnot and will work around your schedule.

A huge reason I chose Pepperdine’s program was for its flexibility – many other Fully Employed MBA Programs (UCI, UCLA) require their students to stay in the same cohort for the entire 2-3 years they’re in the program and not deviate from a set schedule. If “life happens” for you, Pepperdine is great at accomodating and working around your needs. Even though I’m only taking one class this trimester, I can still “catch up” and graduate within 2 years if I really wanted to. Pepperdine offers one week trips abroad after every trimester that you can take for 2 units, so if I go on 2 of those, it easily makes up one class. Another option is to take on 3 classes in one trimester (you’ll need a 3.5 gpa and permission first though). So all is not lost if something comes up and you still want to graduate as soon as possible!

Related posts:

1. A Balancing Act