Monday 25 August 2014

... Of Mice And Men

"The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men
Gang aft agley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!"

My life never ceases to astound me.

In the last eighteen months it has become an unrecognisable beast barely resembling its former self. I just had to roll with the punches as they were blown at me, ducking for cover when needed and grappling to adapt to the new arena I found myself fighting in.

I didn't finish my Masters degree at Durham uni. I had to withdraw from my second degree at the OU. I don't work for the building firm I'd spent nine years at and I'm now a married woman.

A lot can change in eighteen months. I found that out during what turned out to be the most dichotomous time of my life. I won't go into detail because it's neither necessary nor interesting. Suffice to say my life is somewhat different now, some in a positive way and some in a negative way. But even the negatives aren't necessarily bad.

In February 2013 I got made redundant. The firm I'd been at for just shy of nine years no longer had a place for me and so I was given eight weeks to find a new job. After five weeks I started a new job as an analyst for a private medico-legal firm and as of this month I find myself a newly appointed deputy team manager looking after a team of thirty on the path to becoming a team manager.

Where did that come from? How did I find myself suddenly involved in the world of business? One minute I'm studying with the hope of becoming a social science researcher and then I find myself doing daily MI reports and worrying about SLAs and talking about my team in terms of FTEs. How did my career take such a big turnaround, and most importantly, how do I feel about it?

The truth is, I'm annoyed. I'm annoyed that I'm enjoying this job far more than any I've had before. I'm annoyed that I'm looking forward to what the coming months have in store for me. I'm annoyed because I'd never considered business as a potential career option before and I'm actually really enjoying it.

I remember my schoolmates taking Business Studies as a GCSE option and me sniggering at them behind their backs because it sounded so boring. Twenty years later they're having the last laugh because now my thoughts are turning toward resuming my efforts at an education but - to coin the American phrase - switching majors to Business.

A great and inspirational friend of mine has an MBA - the ultimate accolade for an aspiring business student. She works for The Open University and so was able to gain the qualification at no cost - one of the many perks of working for such a brilliant institution. Unfortunately for me, an MBA would come at a very high price, somewhere in the region of £15,000 (which I simply cannot afford). So for now, a self-funded MBA is out of the question.

So. If I want to continue my educational journey and delve deeper into the world of business what are my alternatives?

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