The A-Z guide to completing grad school while working full-time

April 5, 2012

Four.

That’s the number of classes I have left in graduate school. The end is so close and I’m coasting through these last couple of classes. As I approach the finish line, I’ve had time to look back and reminisce over the many nights and weekends I’ve dedicated to this MA degree. Here’s a little A-Z guide to completing graduate school while working a full-time job.

A-     Abort (What you should do if studying goes past midnight)

B-      Beaches (What’s nice to think about as you start your fifth communications paper)

C-      Clouded (How your mind feels after the professor reviews the syllabus)

D-     Daring (How you feel when you leave work at 5:45 p.m. and class starts at 6 p.m.)

E-      Exhausted (How you often feel at the end of the day)

F-      Friendly (The way you should act toward classmates even if you don’t feel that way)

G-     Genius (What you are!)

H-     Headache (What you often have after a crazy work and school day)

I-       Ice cream (Makes homework more enjoyable)

J-       Jack Daniels (Makes you forget about class altogether. I kid… I kid, but really)

K-      Kittens (Make you smile, every time)

L-      Love (What family and friends provide you to keep you going)

M-    Mad Men (The show to watch that reminds you how awesome your industry is)

N-     Nights (The time of day that you should take classes so you can keep working full-time)

O-     Overwhelmed (A feeling you will identify with often, but get used to)

P-      Pedicure (A great way to reward yourself after a big assignment is turned in)

Q-     Quarter (The change you will need to fill the meter when you don’t want to spend $200+ for a parking pass)

R-      Running (Relieves the stress)

S-      Strong (What you need to be)

T-      Time-management (The skill you HAVE to have to balance priorities)

U-     Unconscious (What happens to you when your head hits the pillow every night)

V-     Values (What to remind yourself to reaffirm why you’re getting the degree)

W-   Wheaties (Breakfast of champions, of course)

X-      Xanax (What you feel like taking, but don’t need to!)

Y-      Yes ‘you can’ (The phrase to tell yourself when you say, “I can’t do this…”)

Z-      Zestful (How you feel when you have four classes left!!)

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Posted by Jackie

Work. School. Eat. Maybe Sleep. Repeat.

May 10, 2011

I haven’t completed a thorough blog post in a while. To say the least, school and work have been encompassing my days. How is it already May? Time fast-forwards when you become an adult. I remember being a kid and thinking summertime lasted forever (but then again, I was THAT kid that was excited to go back to school—or at least have Mom buy me a new 140 Crayon set with the sharpener in the back).

Work is booming and I couldn’t be more excited. However, with more responsibilities comes more time in the office. Within the past month, I’ve had to stay at work until 9 p.m.; another time until 11. It’s a part of the job! I am working on this amazing campaign that is launching the first week of June so we are under some hot deadlines to get everything completed. Seeing everything come together is remarkable so I am excited to be a part of the team that makes it happen.

This Thursday will be a nice work break though. We are taking a Borshoff retreat; a day out of the office to visit Bradford Woods.  I’m hoping the weather is nice as my colleagues and I do some fun team-building exercises.

Now school. Scccchhhhhooooolllllll. I. Will. Conquer. You.  Campaigns is done! Up until about two weeks ago, I was engrossed in campaign presentation work and finalizing a massive paper (approx. 90 pages!) This was the campaign about Never Too Late I blogged about in the past. My group members and I delivered a stellar presentation to the client on April 20. I couldn’t have been happier with the client’s reaction (or our grade)! With that class down, I have completed my five core graduate classes. This Thursday, I start my summer 1 class, Public Relations for Nonprofit Organizations. The class runs until June 21 and then comes a nice break for summer 2; no classes from June 22-August 15; Yes!

Four classes to go. I am down to the wire. I’m taking two class this fall, another two in the spring, and THAT’S ALL FOLKS. Hello graduate degree! 

Until then, I’m going to continue to shine at work and geek it out for school. Life may be a little repetitive and crazy now, but then again, a rainbow never forms without a little bit of rain.

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Posted by Jackie

The graduate work continues

March 7, 2011

I really don’t talk about graduate school a lot. I guess it’s because it is ongoing…still going…work to class…class to home…papers…papers…papers.

I don’t say much because there is not a whole lot to say…except that I am still truckin’ along.

BUT–there is a light at the end of the tunnel. After this semester, I have 4.5 classes to go (I count one as a .5 because it is only a month long…so technically 5, but 4.5 sounds better). Regardless, I will be done by summer 2012. Hallelujah!

I’ll be the first to admit that I can’t WAIT to be done. However, going after my M.A. is also the best thing I could have ever done.

Three tracks are available at IUPUI in the PR Master’s program: PR Health Care track, PR General Management track and PR Sports Management track. I’m in the Master’s in PR Health Care and Life Sciences program. I chose health care because it struck my fancy, and honestly, I wanted some kind of niche in PR. I can get the general management stuff down–but I wanted to have a competitive edge in something.

So what’s the deal with the health care track? Well…this area of study prepares graduates for positions in today’s rapidly growing fields of health care and life sciences. This is a vital and growing business sector in Indiana with multiple organizations in the health care, life sciences/biotechnology, hospital and pharmaceutical industries. This track includes an advanced curriculum in PR and business courses (yes, I have to take Kelley business classes…ughhh) with distinctive coursework concentrated in health care and life sciences PR.

If you are interested in the Master’s PR Health Care track, I highly encourage you to read some of the blogs written by graduate students (even me!) If you are still interested, check out the M.A. in Public Relations website.  If you are STILL interested, contact Bob Dittmer, director of public relations graduate studies (rdittmer@iupui.edu). Better yet, if you have any questions–feel free to talk to me! :)

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Posted by Jackie

“Back to school…back to school…”

August 27, 2010

(said in Billy Madison voice) 

Tuesday marked the first day of the fall semester at IUPUI. The course: PR Planning,  another class I need to obtain my Masters in PR Healthcare and Life Sciences. For the longest time, probably kindergarten through my last years at Butler, I was always really excited for the first day of school. I picked out my outfit…gathered all my books and supplies…made sure I knew where I was going; you know—the nerdy/girly thing to do before the big day. And I was a nerd. I admit it.

Grad school is different.

Tuesday morning, I threw on what was suitable for a normal day at Borshoff; no client meetings, but still business casual. I ran back into my house, after I started my car, because I fortunately remembered that I had class that night and would probably need a notepad, folder, or something. I didn’t have my textbook because I ordered it too late from Amazon. Finally, I scrambled through my planner to check what classroom I was in as I walked into the communications building on campus.

Funny how things change.

It’s not that I wasn’t excited for class to begin—it’s just a different time in my life. Juggling one class is tough with a full-time job (I tried two and said goodbye to my social life). Not to mention I am starting to travel a lot more for work.  I also enjoy that thing called ‘free time’ (shocking, I know). The only way I manage to have a social life is getting a little bit of homework done every night of the week so I can have fun and relax on the weekends. It’s only healthy!

So, with that said, welcome to PR Planning. The best part about walking into class on Tuesday was seeing all the sweet, familiar faces. We all gave each other that look that said, “Welp … here we go again!” Or “ Thank God you’re enduring this with me.” It’s nice to have a cohort of friends that travel together from one class to another.

The PR planning course will  explore the advanced management techniques for public relations programs and campaigns focusing on the use of research and evaluation techniques, development of goals and objectives, segmentation of audiences, development of strategies and tactics, and creation of timelines and budgets. The course also uses the case study method to illuminate and illustrate these concepts.

Seems pretty standard. All us PR folks have to know how to plan, right? The class is one of those “core” classes that everyone has to take. I may be one of the youngest in the class, at 22. However, some of my classmates are older than 40 and even have their APR. Yep, they are in the planning class too. Regardless the years of experience, or profession, it’s nice that others value continuing education. This class will benefit me and only make me a better communicator, and that’s exactly why I am here.

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Posted by Jackie

Aggregators: Nothing Aggravating About It

June 9, 2010

OK, so I am a little embarrassed to admit this (judge me, I deserve it), but prior to beginning my current grad class, Managing Online PR, I had no idea what an “Aggregator” was.

<Insert laughter and finger-pointing here>

How could that be? Here I am, a PR professional working at an esteemed and well-known Indianapolis agency and I had never heard of a News Aggregator. Yikes. Let me tell you—when I say I’m learning something new every day, I mean it.

For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, it’s OK! I was there…a week ago. News Aggregators have become a necessary component for information gathering in the 21st century. A News Aggregator gathers information and data important to you and puts it in one place for easy access on the Web. Originally, I had set up several RSS feeds of my favorite sites. But then I learned that all those feeds could be delivered directly to my News Aggregator; a one-stop-shop!

It was time I became acquainted with this so-called News Aggregator. Several Aggregator applications are available such as Digg, FriendFeed, My Yahoo!, Reddit, Yelp and more. In my case, because I already had a Google account, I decided to use Google Reader. According to my class textbook, The Social Media Bible:

Google Reader is a Web-based aggregator that provides you with the feeds of your favorite updated websites so you don’t have to spend time visiting all the sites you normally visit. It is capable of reading RSS or atom feeds both online and off-line and is a useful tool for reading the latest postings on your topics of interest (p. 604-5).

Once I started really rockin’ and rollin’, I discovered iGoogle.  iGoogle acts as a News Aggregator in itself and users can embed a number of gadgets on the page like a calendar, joke or quote of the day, fun facts, weather application and more.  In essence, it’s a personalized Google home page.

With iGoogle I can share feeds, chat with friends, search in all feeds across all updates and select the RSS subscriptions I want to see. In my Aggregator, I enjoy checking out the latest PR and social media postings from Mashable, entertainment news from People and what my graduate classmates are writing about.

Should you use a News Aggregator? YES! All my favorite site news is delivered directly to me on one web page. This saves me a lot of time, as opposed to going to each site and seeing what new information I missed. Gathering news that benefits my career in PR and social media is critical for me as a professional and enables knowledge sharing to my peers and followers on Twitter. With that said, I salute you News Aggregators. Thanks for making my job a little easier.

Here is my iGoogle home page

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Posted by Jackie

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