91影视

Joy Ofodu:
I did it! Hi, my name is Joy Ofodu and I just completed my master's program. One year. One year, baby! A full-time graduate business study and a full-time work in technology. I am very, very happy. I'm very, very proud. One question that I got a lot was, how did you do it? Today, I'm not going to pretend to be an expert, but I will talk about what worked for me. I excelled at work. I excelled in my graduate program. I had so much fun and soaked in a lot about ethics and technology and branding and positioning and internet ecommerce business strategy. I would love to share with you how I did it. So without further ado, here are my tips for you.

First is to master your job. If you're planning on doing full-time work and full-time school, it's really important that work is like a solid home base for you. Make sure you have a good relationship with your boss, with your skip level, with your resource or HR, VPs, et cetera. You should be set when it comes to work. There should be no question about your ability to fully execute your job while you're pursuing your master's program. And the thing is, at the end of the day, something's gonna give. So it's okay if you're not the best at work or the best at school when you're trying to juggle both. Hold that room open for yourself to fail a little bit, but make sure that you've mastered your job.

Next is to pick a mostly asynchronous program. My Master of Science in Marketing program from 91影视 is one that didn't really require us to be in synchronous hours together, or it made the synchronous hours optional. So only when I was auditing a couple classes did I actually have to be in the same virtual room with folks. Yes, the program was completely online. Same virtual room with folks at the same time every week. I would try to avoid that. If you are trying to go through full-time work and full-time school, find an asynchronous program, a program that allows you to complete it on your own time with deadlines and due dates. I am someone who responds really well to deadlines and due dates, but I love my independent working time. So, synchronous hours of, "Hey, we're going to meet Monday through Sunday from this time to this time," just really didn't fit my life or career when I started a year ago. And having an asynchronous program that allowed me to log on whenever, complete the readings and the modules as I wanted, save my place and then rejoin whenever I feel like it was really helpful.

This next one's going to be tough, but you want to separate work from school. So during the day when I have a full-time job, I am focused on that full-time job. I am not thinking about class that night. I'm not thinking about school. I'm present with my colleagues. And then at night, when it's time to really dial in, be there, be present with my peers, be on those Zooms, chat with my professors, I was all in on that. I recommend having separate calendar time for your full-time work and your full-time school. Evenings and weekends are, for me, the best time to give to school when I'm working full-time. Do not try to mix both of them. I wouldn't work on essays during the day. I would not handle work emails at night unless I was working with international teams. Everyone's gonna figure out what works for them, but for me, having that mental separation of like, "Okay, I am closing my laptop on my workday, and the next time I open my laptop tonight is gonna be school, it's gonna be me doing readings, it'll be me chatting with professors, me doing my research or calculations," keep those two things separate.

Next is having buffer activities. So, between my workday and my school day, I would do something purely fun, non-technical, analog, to just digitally download my brain and prepare to go into school. So for me, that was archery, hopping into my backyard, taking a walk around my neighborhood, meeting or having a social conversation with a friend. Those things really helped me unwind before I started my school. And yes, in the early days, I was watching film and TV. I'm talking Living Single, you feel me? Or maybe swipe through the dating apps, just whatever to kind of digitally download my brain and get it ready for school. Calendar everything. You heard me? I want everything on your calendar. I wanna see it. I wanna see it. I already have a very robust calendar for my work, and that's how I take work seriously. I know I have to meet with X people at X time.

Graduate school is really no different. You're collaborating on projects that feel very applied and very professional, so it's important to treat them as such. When you're scheduling meetings with your peers, your colleagues, you're giving availability, use all the software and digital tools that you have available to you. Using group chats, using Calendly, Outlook calendars, et cetera, just making sure that you're actually putting something up on the map to say, "This is my time Mondays and Tuesdays," or, "Tuesdays and Thursdays," or, "This block of time on Saturday is when I'm working on X project," or, "When I'm meeting with this colleague," or, "When we're gonna do the research handoff," or, "When I should be on standby." Just make sure you're being very clear about how you're spending your time. Nothing has caused me to be more intentional about where I put every single hour of my day, how I invest my time every single hour of the day, than going through full-time work and full-time school. I have never had to be more selfish with my time. And for people who are used to providing, used to leading, used to responsibility, it can be a really tough thing to be selfish with your time. So just recognize that when you step into graduate school while working, it's almost like ushering in a new era of your life. You need to take it seriously. You need to make space for it. For me, I just recognized that by putting things on the calendar, they were becoming real. By cutting out this time, by saying, "Sorry, on Tuesday nights, I don't do that," or, "On Saturday, this is how I like to think," I became very, very intentional about every single engagement, personal, professional, social, and I put it all on the calendar.

Next, something has to give, and it can't be your sleep. It can't! Between work and school, you're gonna find that something will slip. And it could be work, it could be school, but it could also be your social life, it could be your chores, it could be time that you spend with your family, it could be personal care, hair, nails. I just find when I'm deep in academics, other things are gonna fall down on the priority list, and that's very natural. So just recognize that your life, the pandemic life, whether it was super stressful or super relaxing, where you felt like you had a lot of free time at night, whatever that looks like for you, it's not going to be the same once you start school. Something has to give. So calendar and chart your activities. What are my professional obligations, personal obligations? Who are my friends and what are my social clubs? How do I give back? Just list all your things. And understand that when you add 40 hours a week or 30 or 20 hours a week of school to your schedule, something has to give. And I just say that it can't be your sleep. I'm not going to let you do that to yourself. You will sleep on my watch.

Next, darlings, is deep indulgence and rewards. Treat yourself. Take care of yourself. You are going to put your body and your mind through so much trial, through so much ritual, so much strain, so much new exercise, so much innovation. You need to take care of that body and that mind like it's a temple. What rewards and indulgence looked like for me was just deeply enjoying the things in my life that bring me joy, no pun intended. So whether it's a very, very big old pint of sorbet, you feel me, or spending hours at night laughing with friends, sometimes saying, "You know what? I'm not gonna do a single school thing tonight. I'm going out on an amazing date, and I'm just gonna enjoy my date and then worry about school later." Practice gratitude. Practice, "Thank you, body, for getting me through that final. Thank you for challenging yourself, mind, on that reading. I see you, mind." And just reward yourself indulgently. It will help you go a long way.

I loved graduate school enough for it to be my number one priority, and that is what I recommend to you. There will never be another time in your life, unless you do another program, where you are in school. Work is鈥� sorry to dream of labor, but work is forever. So recognizing that, "Hey, Joy, this is the last year, this is the last calendar year of your life where you are going to be focused as an academic," I had to do that. What this meant for me was easier to do verbally than in practice. It's tough. It's tough to knock things out. It's tough to say, "Hey, actually, the most important thing in my life right now is deeply learning from this program. The most important thing in my life is taking advantage of being a student in this school." It just means pushing yourself the extra mile, especially if you're doing a virtual or online program. It can be easy to kind of fall to the back. It can be really easy to just do the routine thing, to do the bare minimum work. I'm gonna be so honest. One thing people will say to you is, "Oh, graduate school, you get out of it what you put into it." But it's absolutely true. If you are putting in A effort, you're going to get A's. You're going to get a deep understanding. It's about more than the score. It's about more than the peers. You are going to have a revolutionary experience if you invest in your education. If you decide to be a passive participant in your education and you're like, "You know what? I'm going to do the bare minimum. I'm going to do the bare answer that's going to get me to the next module just so I can learn this thing."

Sometimes that's fine too. Having room for yourself to be like, "On these topics and these courses, I want to go hard, I want to go deep, I want to make sure that I'm applying this to the rest of my career. I want to take and build a foundational learning that's gonna grow with me." Sometimes you have those really energetic moments of investment, and then other times you're like, "This really isn't my top priority. This class or this module or this assignment, this is something that I'm just doing to get by." So it's important to kind of have that balance. Hold room open for both. Hold space open for both. You are not going to love every assignment. If you do, tell your professor. I'm sure they'd be happy to hear it. You're not going to love every assignment. You're not going to love every class. It's okay to do the bare minimum sometimes just to get by. But know that this is a program that you are investing your time, energy, and often financial resources in. You're going to get out of it what you put into it.

Don't do all the readings. I did not do all the readings. I can confidently say that. I think I got damn near a 4.0. I did not do all the readings. With graduate school and any assignment really, it's important to understand what you need to address the assignment effectively. That itself is a business exercise. The blessing of graduate school is that your professors, especially as they're adjunct faculty, they come with a history of research experience and corporate experience, and they're in the offices. They can bring all of that to you. They can truly inundate you with resources if you ask them to. I'm sure any of them would be happy to. But your task as a graduate business student and as a professional is to distill all the Harvard reading, is to distill all the MBA peer feedback. Take everything and condense it and figure out what you actually need to get these calculations done, what you actually need to plan an effective business strategy, to chart e-commerce growth.

You have to take all of this noise and tune out what you don't need. And I would say the same is true of your graduate program. Overall, look at the entirety of what your program has to offer and say, "These are the things that I will prioritize taking advantage of." I want to go to the resume reviews and the career talks and the classes, but I want nothing to do with the online portals and the networks and the chat rooms. You can pick and choose. You can build your own program, your own experience of that program, but only if you're very actively distilling what you want to invest in and what you don't. If nobody else gives you permission today, this is me giving you the permission. You can apply to a program and not be a perfectionist and not take advantage of every single aspect of the program. It's okay to coast by sometimes. It's okay to let life take over. But just remember that you only have this chance, you only have this window to be a true full student. So take advantage of being a student, but don't feel pressured to do everything.

Form excellent groups. Form excellent groups. You better get your groups together. You better get with the really smart people. You better get your groups together. Forming excellent groups at 91影视 has been the key defining aspect of my experience. Without excellent peers and group members to hold hands with you, you're in virtual rooms together, you're on Zooms, you're strategizing, you're in decks, you're building, you're sending out emails, you're reaching out to stakeholders, you're doing everything that you would do in a full-time job in a full-time graduate business program. But without an excellent group, it's going to be very, very difficult.

But without an excellent group, good luck! And that doesn't mean that every single group that you participate in is going to be or feel excellent or feel energizing or feel fun, but it just means that early on in your program, understanding what your strengths are and what your peers' strengths are and then trying to put together almost like an Avengers-like group of superheroes where, "Hey, I'm really good at data science. I am a presentation builder, right? I'm a graphic designer." Identify people's strengths and try to get that Avengers-like group together and people who are really taking the program seriously. You can separate yourself from folks who really aren't that invested or are just getting a degree to get a degree. If that's not you and you wanna be with this like Avengers superhero team, you need to keep your eyes and your ears open early, identify those folks, reach out to them on LinkedIn or whatever internal programs you have and be like, "Hey, us, these four, these five, we're a unit." Group work was so essential to the Master of Science of Marketing program at 91影视 that, like, without solid groups, I literally would have lost it. So it's just understanding how frequently you're going to be working in groups and how defining that is to not only your grade, but just truly your student experience day to day and night to night. Having people that you can rely on, people that you can learn from, people that you can build with is everything.

The final tip that I have for you is to identify your support system. There's no way that I would have gotten through grad school without a true village. This part definitely makes me emotional. I'm not gonna cry this time, but just understanding that you will change. Like, in order for you to be as nimble and flexible as you need to be, in order for you to be incredibly selfish, to put a lot of your social or familial or house or neighborhood or service, to put that life on hold in order to fill that space with a degree, you need an excellent support system. You need people in each of those areas who get it, who understand what you're about to do, what you're going through, who have their ears open to listen to you, who are going to support you and just hear you out. To me, it's important to be able to turn to someone and say, "Hey, I'm really struggling. I need your help with this." To say, "I know I'm going to get through this graduate program if I invest more time and energy, but right now, I need you." Like, I needed those people in my life. That was my family for me. That was my friends. Often, it was even my peers or my professors. We absolutely had weeks as students where we would lean on each other and be like, "Girl, I got you next week, but this week, I can't."

And one thing about being in a program, especially an accelerated program for a year, is that it will feel nonstop. The action is nonstop. The work is nonstop. You will burn out if you don't have people that you can lean on. So not going through it alone, not feeling the need to, like, shoulder the burden and act super cool at work and be like, "Oh no, I got it and it's all going well." Like, I was very honest with myself, most importantly, but also with other people that, "Hey, I'm struggling through this graduate program right now. I'm having a great time. I'm loving it. I love what I'm learning. I'm excited, but I'm struggling." And to me, struggling sometimes can look really efficient. It's low-key dangerous in that way because the output is solid. You wouldn't know from the outside that I'm having a difficult time, but I was. So prayer, family, nurturing, forgiving, and indulging, all of these aspects led to me being able to take care of myself, to be my biggest advocate, to be my biggest defender through this program. And those are very tangible things that I would encourage anyone to practice if they're going to add full-time evenings and weekends. That's your free time, by the way. You're giving up your free time. You're replacing your free time with something else that you'd rather do. When you're making a sacrifice like that and you're filling it with something else, you need a support system that understands, honors, values, and cheers on that sacrifice.

That's it. That's how I did it. I'm so glad to be at the end of this program. I've always dreamed, honestly, of pursuing my master's education, and I knew that 91影视 was the right school. I knew that this was the right program. I've learned so much that I want to apply to my own creator business that I've already started to apply, to go viral online, to have a really solid foundation for my business strategy, and then also to take back to work. When I am at work, I'm thinking about the principles and things that I learned from school. And as I grow my career in business and in technology or even branching on over to entertainment, I know and understand different principles of how and why consumers act the way that they act because I refreshed my mind with this graduate program. I was working for two years full-time out of my undergraduate institution before I began this graduate program, and I think it was great to get that sense of what I really like to do, what I'm most passionate about in the corporate arena to apply to school so that as I'm going through my graduate program, I'm like, "Okay, I'm gonna take this. I'm gonna leave this behind." So I do not regret anything about the timing of when I decided to go to school, about the institution that I chose, about the program. I know that it was right for me, it was right for my life, and I really just hope that these tips can help anyone else who's considering furthering their education. Balance it. Balance it better. Good luck everyone and go Broncos.