It’s all about the journey…not the destination!
It all started in the year 2013 when I was transferred to a dependent visa and I had to quit my job. It felt like it was the worst thing that had happened to me because I had always been a workaholic who used to work for 16 hours a day. So apparently, I was left with nothing to do! Sitting idle and not being able to do anything meaningful started affecting my health. So, I thought to myself that so what if I can’t work here, at least I can pursue advanced studies and get some benefit of being on this land of opportunities.
So, the decision was made! I wanted to study further and keep myself busy in a constructive way. I asked my husband to sponsor my studies and his reaction wasn’t very positive as expected. He felt we should save money for our daughter’s future and not spend it on my master’s degree when I already have one! It took a lot of convincing but finally I was able to get the funds. I applied for the degree program at the Harvard Extension School and took up the first required course called Web development using XML and XHTML.
I took up this course on campus and started going to the school religiously. Meeting new people, understanding different perspectives and learning a new programming language was everything that I was looking for! In my very first class only, I realized that this was the turning point of my life. My work permit was taken away from me so that I can focus on something bigger and start this amazing journey at Harvard. The infrastructure, the faculties, the students…Everything was so fascinating! I was totally in an awestruck and I still am! :)
The first semester just flew by and while I was still adjusting to the new academic culture, we were done with the semester. I still remember how overly joyed I was when I got my final result. I had scored 84% and was on top of the world. This was a big thing because I had gotten back to studies after 12 years! So, I called my family back in India and shared this great news with them. Everyone was very happy but all of a sudden while going through the details, I noticed that under the grades section it was written a ‘C’. And because in India we didn’t have the letter grading system and the passing score was also just 40%, I didn’t really know what those grades meant! So, I called up the counsellor and she informed me that ‘I had failed’ in the course and according to the curve, the passing score was 96%! That was the time, I got my first reality check that it was “Harvard” that I had signed up for. And nothing was easy here!
I was highly disappointed with myself and my morale went down so I called up the university office and had setup a meeting with the Director of IT to figure out if this was something really meant for me or not. He looked at my past record and advised me to take up 2 more courses before giving up.
The next course that I took up was “Project Management in IT”. This time I gave my 200% and instead of waiting for the final result, I started asking for feedback from the professor on a weekly basis. So along with the score in percentile, I requested the professor to give me the letter grade so that I know my standing in the class. The continuous feedback loop really helped to keep my progress on track and I ended up getting an “A+”. I was also chosen as the ‘Best Project Manager’ in the class. It was kind of a big deal for me because this was one of the required on-campus courses and there were 50 highly intellectual students in the class and being chosen as the best was really something to be proud of!
Semesters passed by and the journey wasn’t very smooth. I stumbled upon a few times but at the end it was all worth it. Today I can proudly say that I’ve aced 7/10 courses and now I’m just one ace away to make it to the Dean’s academic list!
Few lessons that I learned during this journey are – To never give up and to believe in yourself, especially when nobody else does. It was very important for me to keep my focus on my goal and with everyday distractions, I learnt the art of canceling the noise. I feel sometimes it becomes really important to be selective in hearing. There were times when people criticized me for not being at home every night to tuck my daughter in bed and they kept asking me this question that for how long this will go on. They also made comments like…I was too old for schooling and so on…And being an empath, it wasn’t easy to ignore the harsh comments and criticism but gradually I learned to not pay any attention to it. The key was to be deaf and keep going!
In Jan 2017, I got a call from one of my professors and he wanted to know if I was interested in assisting him for the ‘Cloud Security’ course. I was super-excited and although I already had a full-time job and my own studies, I accepted the offer without giving it a second thought. I knew I’ll be gaining more knowledge by doing this. Cloud Security is one of the most demanding courses in the university and it had 90+ enrollments this spring. And because its Harvard Extension School that we are talking about, we get students who are highly experienced and have already got established careers. They are here to learn how to build the cloud architecture from ground up or maybe just want to know about the migration strategies that they can apply while moving their services to the cloud. It’s also about brushing up your knowledge and staying up-to-date with the technology and the market needs. Most of the students here are CEOs and CTOs of big companies and getting an opportunity to judge their work was quite an honor for me. It’s like getting a little window into these brilliant minds. It helped me in improving my own work as well. Having 1:1 discussions with them about their projects and simply understanding their thought process is something so amazing that it can’t be expressed in words. Earlier I was a little hesitant talking to these high-level executives or express my ideas/feelings freely but now I feel more comfortable working closely with them. My communication skills got better, and my confidence got high.
Now that I’m just one semester shy from graduation, I’ve all these mixed feelings! I’m happy that I’m so close to my final goal but it also saddens me that this amazing journey is also coming to an end. Last 4 years have been a little overwhelming because going to school to study or to teach after 8 hours of full-time job is not easy. It becomes all the more difficult when you’ve a 9-year-old who’s no less demanding. I think I’ve been able to make a good balance by spending quality time with my family and also getting good grades at school. The major credit for this goes to my husband who supported me and helped me in every step.
I’m often asked this question that for how long this will go on or when is my course going to end? I think for me, learning is a life-long process and just like we work-out to keep our body physically fit, I study to stay mentally fit. It keeps that stimulation going and especially with artificial intelligence, block-chain technology and machine learning coming into the picture I think it’s very important to keep ourselves fresh and up-to-date and I don’t think my itch to learn is ever going away!
