Ways that MBA School is Like Playing Hockey For 10 Days Straight
So I just finished four solid days of classes. That’s 8 am to 5 pm on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, plus homework in the evenings. Plus a welcome dinner on Thursday night. I now have 3 assignments and 2 rounds of a business simulation due before the next weekend of classes, two weeks hence. Plus prep for both a group presentation and a group in-class experiment, though I won’t be there do either since I’ll be in Ontario for my Dad’s brain surgery. To make a long story short, they weren’t kidding when they described the core part of the MBA program as “intense.” As I was going through this weekend, which thankfully is the longest weekend we’ll have in this program and the only one preceded by three exhausting weekends of pre-core courses, I kept noticing similarities between this program and the 10-day long hockey game I played in back in the summer. And thus, I give you this list:
Ways that MBA School is Like Playing Hockey For 10 Days Straight
- thrown into an extremely intense situation with a whole bunch of people that I don’t know ((My 29 new hockey sisters I made during the Longest Game and my 50 new best friends in MBA school)). And, happily, all of them are friendly, supportive, and tonnes of fun!
- took the optional preparatory course (Bootcamp for the Longest Game and pre-core Quantitative Methods/Accounting/Economics for MBA school) and it was exhausting, but so worth it ((both to get me ready and to meet some of my teammates/classmates in advance))
- long, long hours of doing the same thing (playing hockey vs. sitting in class)
- sleep deprivation
- delirium
- people hitting walls at different points, and be able to see in their eyes that they are just so done with this right now ((happily, they are back into it the next day after getting a few hours sleep))
- immediately losing track of what day of the week it is ((“Is it Saturday today, or is it Sunday?” is something I’ repeatedly heard from both classmates during this past weekend of classes and teammates during the Longest Game))
- cycling between thoughts of “this is the worst idea ever. Why did I agree to do this?” and “this is SO AWESOME! I’m so happy that I’m doing this!” about a thousand times per day
We have a very long haul ahead of us, but I’m going to stick with what I learned in the Longest Game and take it one day, one shift, one Accounting lecture at a time. I think I may also post this photo of the sign that gave me so much strength during the Longest Game by my desk to help keep me going:
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Probably fewer blisters and less need for padding though, right? (I hope!)
Glad it’s going well and you’re feeling prepared and supported!