Happy New Year and Congratulations to the First Round Admits!
As admits talk to more and more current Booth students I often get the questions about balancing family, school, and the social life of business school. If you have read the Booth Experience before you know that my wife works fulltime and we have a now eight month old daughter, Cate. I have been able to be a Booth student with a partner and with a family, and hopefully my experience will help you think about your future Booth experience.
Booth with a working Partner
Having a partner at Booth is, relatively speaking, easy. Jen and I did two and half quarters as a couple at Booth. There are always schedules to work around, family commitments, attending events on your own, and Jen attended Partner events on her own – you know the usual. There are so many things you COULD do, and will WANT to do here at Booth that you won’t get to do all of them. So when you figure out all the things you each can do, you do a little scheduling and you make all the events together that you can. There is a great post on things to do here.
Finally, I should say the benefits of having a working partner can not be underestimated – you have a built in roommate, chore and bill sharer, and someone to talk to who just doesn’t care about options and swaps!
Booth with a working Partner and a Child
Now comes the more difficult part. It is difficult in that now you have another option, nay necessity, for your time. Sometimes it is extremely important to be a human jungle gym for an hour – it’s an awesome hour, but I am also not getting something else done. And while I am sure my daughter would love that discussion between Thomas Picketty and Kevin Murphy, I just don’t think the Baby Bjorn and her Indiana Corn teether is a viable option for an hour and a half. So what do you do?
Jen and I plan and prioritize and then we are flexible when that plan does not work. This past quarter I took mostly night classes and was a stay-at-home dad most days. This quarter, I am taking day classes, allowing me to take two classes a day. When Jen has a day off, we balance family fun, with all the other things we each need to do, which often means school work.
Do we need a little help? Yes, and we get it from either family, friends, or a babysitter. Jen’s mom comes up about once a month (her family is a three hour drive from Chicago) and my mom is here the week before finals. We are lucky that Grammy and Grandma can do this, but there are always other childcare options.
We also choose to live in South Loop – between Jen’s job at the north end of Michigan Avenue and Hyde Park. Around 12% of the class lives in South Loop (as compared to 7% in Hyde Park). It’s convenient for both of us and we found a place that suited our future family well. We are walking distance from two parks, one with a playground. It is easy to access public transportation, the lakefront, and most anything you could want – we even have a place in our neighborhood that serves pizza and pirogies! I would not call it the neighborhood you may get elsewhere in Chicago (I will do a future post on the City of Neighborhoods), but it suits our needs.
It’s all what you make of it.
Your Booth Experience is all what you choose to make of it. Whether you are single or have a family, there are many ways to get involved in the Booth community. The beauty of the Booth experience is that you have a great opportunity to grow the network you want to grow, and do the things you find valuable.
