BY CORTNEY MORSE DOUCETTE
BACK BAY — If all goes to plan, 2022 will be the year that I earn my MBA.
It will be a personal and professional milestone, but it also will mark the end of an academic opportunity to look hard at the challenges facing women in the workplace and try to see where positive changes can be made.
I almost skipped the chance to do this.
I thought of passing on a chance to join a master of business administration program because the pandemic took hold of the world not long after I was accepted into the program.
I wasn’t sure it was the right time to incur the cost of higher education. I wasn’t sure I could devote myself to schoolwork every waking moment outside of my day job. I wasn’t sure it was the right time to focus on myself, as a parent, when my family, like so many others, faced a difficult time.
But I was encouraged by my family.
If not now, when?
There are deeply affirming elements of pursuing studies in the middle of my life, when I already have a family and a career.
Study affords me the opportunity to ask big questions. There is precious little time to ponder big questions when I’ve got to get dinner on the table after my last meeting but before drama club, soccer, swim practice.
But I am curious about the world and care about my place in it. I want to contribute solutions to problems large and small because I believe we owe this to each other.
My graduate work allows me a framework and motivation to tackle the big problems. The house quiets down, the kids go to bed, and I ask questions and seek answers.
What complex, seemingly insurmountable problem do I want to focus on for the next two years? In those late hours, I’ve doubled down on my abiding concern for the fate of women trapped in abusive relationships. Considering this pervasive problem, I was drawn to issues of women in the workplace and what it means to have power – or not.
It is meaningful to draw parallels between these two worlds and consider where progress can be made.
Another great gift I’ve discovered through graduate school is the people I’ve met around the country who are in situations both similar and very different from my own.
Regardless of our age, experience or location, we’ve committed ourselves to the pursuit of additional knowledge in the world of business. For all of us, weekends are now for homework.
As each class begins, I seek out others to form a study group. Economics, for example, is simply not a class that I can get through on my own. I came to rely on these people as classmates and friends while we communicated many times a week via Zoom.
As 2022 approaches, I can feel the momentum of the last year and a half propelling me toward a hard-fought goal. I’m grateful for the support of my family and friends as they’ve encouraged me to continue days – or weeks – when I felt impossibly overwhelmed.
This pandemic has been a strange time to chain myself to a computer and do homework. Yet somehow in these dark days, I have connected to a celebration of knowledge and new friendships that fills me with hope and excitement for what is to come.
In the new year, I hope you choose to commit to something exceptional that challenges and motivates you. May you find time to ponder the big questions in your life and invite others to join you on the journey.
The author is a senior channel marketing manager for a technology firm. She lives in Back Bay.
© 2021 Pungo Publishing Co., LLC