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MS Software Management Blog

Wondering if a Carnegie Mellon degree is right for you? Read along as our students chronicle their journey through the MS in Software Management program.

Amin is a second year grad student in the MS Software Management program, a former Software Design Engineer from Microsoft and a current Software Engineer at Adify, a Silicon Valley startup. He is passionate about entrepreneurship, software and traveling. He would love to start a software company someday.
Vineet is a second year part-time software management student, currently working @NetApp also nominated as the best place to work in North America recently. His area of expertise is Oracle ERP solutions. Other professional areas of interest are SaaS markets both technologically and business wise. @CMU he wants to grow his knowledge to manage software products and businesses. He is interested in work on start up ideas. On the personal side he loves to spend time with his family and travel.
Rene is a recent alum, a manager of operations and program manager in Cisco's software development organization, the mother of two daughters and a performing arts fan.

Wednesday, June 6, 2007

Family Matters


In this blog, I am going to share some personal background and how I strive to bring balance between family, work, and school.

Family time was one of the main concerns that I had before starting the MS in Software Management. At that time, my wife was about to join work again after her maternity leave. I started the course after bargaining with my wife and promising on making radical changes related to my working habits. My wife works for a non-profit organization and we have two kids – My daughter ‘Angelica’ is 5 years old and my son ‘Arjun’ is 18 months old.

Work-study-life balance is one of the main questions that I get asked by students who are joining the software management program.

One year into the program, I am not going to pretend that it was easy; or that the tips I am sharing with you were straightforward to implement. However, I have reaped many benefits since I made changes in my life to embark on this journey and accommodate the demands of school. Some highlights of the changes include:

  1. Special time for my family: Sunday is our family day. We try to finish all weekly chores before Sunday. We plan the day so that most of the day is spent outdoors. We finish the day early (usually by 6:00 pm), as the kids get tired out from the day’s activity. I do not typically compromise on this time. This gives me more than enough time in the evening to catch up on weekly readings, planning my schedule for the week, and an occasional series on TV.
  2. Work and the commute: I live in South San Jose and work in San Mateo. The commute is close to 40 miles each way. I used to drive to and from work everyday and I can tell you that it was extremely stressful, especially now that I can compare that to my experience of carpooling/vanpooling for the last 3 months. This has helped me start and end my day in a very planed and predictable manner. I typically sleep or read a book and find myself refreshed when I reach the office or arrive back home in the evening.
  3. Spread the schoolwork evenly: Fridays and Saturdays are typically reserved for completing pending school assignments that I could not finish over the week. However, I usually reserve the reading assignments for the early part of the week, starting on Sunday nights. I find that reading earlier in the week is more beneficial, since the plenary sessions at Carnegie Mellon West reinforces the ideas from the reading. These sessions are run typically on Tuesday or Wednesday for about 2 hours.

Listed below are some of the rules that have helped me make the changes that I have listed above. They might work for you as well:

  1. I make sure that family comes first. Grades at school or a minor snafu at work can be fixed. You will be surprised that if you do not follow this rule, you will push your family pretty hard and into a corner.
  2. I do not try to do everything at work or at school. The art is to divide and conquer as a team. I know we live in an era of sports and entertainment where a lot of credit is given to “megastars,” who can do everything on their own. I am not saying, “don’t shine or showcase your abilities”; on the contrary, I believe that it is more important to “choose wisely and execute to the best of your abilities”.
  3. Plan your time well in advance for family time, work, and school. Work can always throw a curve ball at you in terms of last minute fire-drills and deadlines. Don’t be afraid to ask about the relevance and timeline of the task. Push back on schedules or re-assign to others in case it deviates and messes up your weekly plan or larger career or educational goal. Give enough time to yourself for preparing and planning for each task.
  4. Be true to yourself and your family, your peers at work, and school. Do not over-extend yourself and over-promise. If you do, you will find yourself giving more excuses and reasons for why you are behind on a task or you might find an unhappy family.
  5. Start the day early at work and complete the day on time. You will be surprised that this small change can actually help your family plan better as well. When I get home now each day at 6:15 pm, my daughter is done with her school-work and reading and the dinner is always ready. This gives us time to spend with the kids before they go to sleep. My wife and I make sure that the kids are in bed by 8:30 pm. I work on my job or school related tasks through midnight. This was not the case before I joined the program. Earlier, I would come home any time from 8:00 pm through 10:00 pm.

Embarking on this journey through grad school (especially at Carnegie Mellon West where you learn by doing) puts the responsibility on you to manage your time well so that you can do justice to the task at hand and to your peers. Carnegie Mellon West courses are designed to accomodate the busy professional with family obligations, however its still up to you to make changes to your daily routine to include special times for family, work, and school because family matters.

posted by Carnegie Mellon Silicon Valley @ 3:45 PM  1 comments

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