A Room of One's Own

 

When Terry and I were first married in 1992, one of the upstairs rooms in our house was designated "the computer room," but it was in most respects really "Scott's room."

Oh, we both used it, but I was the one who "decorated" it, if you want to call it that. It had hockey and music posters on the wall. It featured stuffed Bill the Cat and Opus dolls from my favorite comic strip of the time, "Bloom County." It had a little nook in which I placed the Yamaha keyboard on which I would doodle from time to time.

As I was just 22 years old at the time, it was in some ways the college dorm room I never had.

It was the only room in the house over which I had (or wanted) any real say when it came to what we put there and how it looked.

Fast forward 33 years to our current house and this tradition of giving me one room to play with has continued. Terry uses our upstairs office all the time, but most of the stuff there is mine.

There are, for example, three bookshelves to hold my personal library, including this one devoted largely to my military history books:

And on top of that is a little shrine to our dearly departed cats Fred, George and Charlie:

The music theme continues in this little corner with the inclusion of two instruments (a keyboard and guitar) that I technically cannot play, though that never stops me from trying. Note that the room also contains my alto saxophone, which for the record I can play.

On the walls are various photos reflecting my interests, from a large autographed image of Sting to an autographed Lake Erie Monsters (our local hockey team, now called the Cleveland Monsters) layout. I also have a map of the Appalachian Trail and these two pictures of my mom and dad presumably taken on Parents Night when I played high school football:

Above those are my undergraduate and graduate school diplomas from John Carroll and West Virginia universities, respectively:

There's also a closet containing music and sound equipment and a large bin of sheet music I won't even bother showing you.

The point is that, while this room will never win any interior decorating awards, it's my room, and I love it. Terry does a wonderful job putting together the other rooms in our house, but I'm very grateful to have one to myself.

After all, I have helped us make a lot of mortgage payments over the years. It feels like I've earned a few square feet of my own.

Sometimes in life you have to do crazy things...and sometimes you have to think twice

When I earned my master's degree from West Virginia University two years ago, I made a solemn vow that I would never again be a college student.

While I am immensely proud of my M.S. in Integrated Marketing Communications, it was a struggle to get there. Anyone who has ever worked full time while going to graduate school and trying to maintain some semblance of a life will tell you it's a challenging and exhausting business.

So imagine my surprise when I recently found myself on the phone with an admissions representative from the University of Kansas inquiring about their online MBA program. 

And when I came this close to applying.

It has only been 27 months since I finished my capstone project at West Virginia and collapsed in a tired and emotionally drained heap. Granted, some of those drained emotions stemmed from losing my mother and mother-in-law in a span of 18 days that summer of 2020, but school still had an awful lot to do with it.

My reasons for considering an MBA as I near the ripe old age of 53 were many, including:

• I love learning. I really do. As physically and mentally draining as an MBA program would be, I embrace the thought of becoming more well-versed in finance, accounting, statistics, management, ethics, etc.
  
  
• I've never been formally trained in business. My undergraduate degree was in English and History, and I really only entered the world of corporate/business communications in 1999. I've learned a lot since then, but an advanced business education would likely do wonders for me professionally.
  
  
• I'm reading a book by my favorite health expert, Dr. Mike Roizen of The Cleveland Clinic, called "The Great Age Reboot." The book's premise is that we are right on the verge of incredible medical breakthroughs that are likely to extend our lives significantly, i.e., in many cases well into our 100s.

To that last point, I've always hoped I would live a relatively healthy 85-90 years then fade away quickly and quietly. And that may end up being the case. But given recent advances in gene therapy and treatment of what were formerly fatal chronic diseases, there's a possibility I'm only halfway through my time on this mortal coil. Which means I may need 30 or more years' worth of savings once I retire. Which in turn means I may need to work longer than I realize.

And if I have to work into my 70s, I'm going to need all of the knowledge and professional development I can get. Thus the notion of getting a second master's degree in the form of an MBA.

Materion Corporation, my employer, has a generous tuition reimbursement benefit. And Kansas' online MBA program is not only highly rated but also highly convenient with its asynchronous classes, eight-week terms and willingness to allow students to take semesters off.

I could probably do the whole thing in about 3 1/2 years.

But ultimately I chose against it. I'm still relatively new in my job, and while it has been an absolute dream so far, there's a lot of mental effort that goes into doing it well. And my side hustle of sports PA announcing – which is more of a hobby than a "side hustle," really – gets more time consuming with each passing year.

Then there's the matter of spending time with my wife of 30 years. Not so long ago, we were a household of seven people, with all of the attendant chaos and effort. Now it's just Terry, our youngest child Jack, and me. And in a few years, it will just be Terry and me.

I hitched my wagon to the Terry Train decades ago, and it remains the best decision I ever made. It's a connection that demands time and attention, both of which would likely suffer if I pursued that MBA, even if only for a few years.

All of which is to say I'm fine with the life I'm living right now, thank you very much. I can always read books, attend webinars and pursue other avenues to gain business knowledge.

Over the years I have jumped feet first into a wide range of personal and professional experiences, and I don't regret any of them. Sometimes we benefit most from saying "yes" to the seemingly improbable, or even the impossible.

But other times we have to consider the risk-benefit ratio and whether it's worth getting into something over our heads. In this case, I've decided the status quo is best, and it's a decision I imagine will be permanent when it comes to getting an MBA.

Of course, two years ago I thought my heartfelt "never again" in regard to grad school was also permanent, so who knows?

Sometimes crazy is good. And sometimes crazy is...well, crazy.

Not that you asked, but here's an update on graduate school

I am to the point in my master's degree program that I marvel at those who have made it through this. Here's what I'm finding, as I enter the final two weeks of class #2 (of 11 classes in a program that will take me two more full years to complete at a minimum):

• There are certain problems raised by opting into a master's program that you simply cannot solve. For example, I am chronically sleep deprived, and I see no way whatsoever of getting around this. I work, I come home, I briefly see my family, I do homework. Then I go to bed and do it again. And again. And again. There is no wiggle room there simply to go to bed earlier. There IS no "earlier."

• Related to that, I am not running nearly as much as I used to nor nearly as much as I should. Again, I see no way around this. It just is.

• I am eating terribly, and my weight is creeping up. I could improve this with some self-discipline, but I'll be honest: I am tapped out when it comes to self-discipline. What self-discipline I have serves merely to get me out of bed in the morning and doing everything I have to do.

• Weekends are spent either studying/writing or worrying whether I'm studying/writing enough. There is probably a better mental approach to this, but I haven't yet found my groove there.

I hate how whiny this all sounds. It's my decision to do this, no one else's. And it is a first-world problem of the absolute highest order.

But it's the dominant reality in my life these days, and I now have even greater respect for those who have earned graduate (or post-graduate) degrees, or who are currently in the midst of doing so. You amaze and inspire me.

Every day I think about hanging it up after I get through this particular class. I did that once before, about two years ago when I started a master's program in public relations through Kent State University (this current program is in integrated marketing communications through West Virginia University...go Mountaineers!) I learned a lot at Kent, but I came to a realization that, given my life circumstances, it was insane to try and push through, so I quit.

I think about doing that now, too. I have good reasons for pursuing a master's degree, but it would be SO much easier to just chalk this up to bad judgment and move on. There are two reasons why I don't:

(1) I hate the example it sets for my kids and for anyone else in my life. I feel like I used to do/accomplish big things in my life ("big" by my standards, anyway), and now all I do is shy away from them. I enjoy this material and many things about the academic experience, and I want to keep going, so I do.

(2) My support system. And by "support system," I mean my wife.

Terry has stepped up to the plate with this far better than I have. She does an amazing job trying to arrange things at home so that I can study and do what I have to do every day. And more importantly, she will hear no suggestion of quitting. There is no "let's talk about it" or "oh, honey, I understand." There is simply, "no, that's not happening."

Which frankly is what I need to hear.

She is, as always, the most impressive person I know and the saving grace in my life.

Of course, the decision to walk away yet again from master's-level work (I actually did it in 1997, as well, when I VERY briefly tried an English program at Cleveland State University and realized I was too busy...and that was with only two kids!) is ultimately all mine. She can push and goad all she wants, but in the end, it's my call. She just helps keep me on track.

Here's the thing: I'm pretty certain I'm going to see this through to the end..."The End" being December 2020. I just don't know how, exactly. When you're not taking care of yourself properly, and you're sitting at your computer struggling to understand Chi-squared tests and non-probability samples and statistical significance formulas, you see no clear path to the end.

Do you know what I mean? With most things in life, you can pretty well chart out how it's going to go. God, of course, throws things at you that force you to change course, but for the most part, you can actually see the ultimate goal of whatever it is you're doing. You can envision how you're going to get there.

I cannot do that. I'm about to have the luxury of a six-week break from class that I desperately need and that will easily be one of the top five greatest things that has happened in the history of the universe. So in the short term I'll be fine. And I'm even taking the late spring term off so that Terry and I can indulge ourselves with a once-in-a-lifetime Australian cruise in late March/early April. That means, after Nov. 28, only one class to worry about in the space of 5 1/2 months. Easy enough.

But what happens when I dive back in this coming May? From there the breaks will be fewer and further between. It will mostly be go, go, go, go through the nine remaining classes and 18 months, the last of which is a capstone experience that, I'm finding online, regularly makes people cry and curse their decision to build on their bachelor's degrees.

How do you get through the day-to-day of THAT? I have no idea. There will likely be coffee and an ever-pressing Terry involved. I just can't envision what that daily reality looks like.

Yet I'm going to keep on keeping on. Not sure I have a choice. And occasionally I'll write a melodramatic blog post like this one to make myself feel better.

I appreciate you reading. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go write a discussion board post on a topic I vaguely remember reading about. It could have been last night. Or was it last week? I have no clue...