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It’s been two years into my candidacy as an MBA over at Santa Clara University and, over that time, I’ve been asked by several people how I balance a full-time job, a part-time education and a mid-20′s social life. The usual answer is “poorly” or “terribly”, but that doesn’t help those who are trying to figure out if it’s the right path for them.

First things first though, here’s a brief moment of “fud” (i.e. fear, uncertainty and doubt) for those would-be-MBA’ers:

• You’re going to lose track of one or more friends.
• Over the course of the candidacy, you’re going to let down your family in some way.
• Over the course of the candidacy, you’re going to let down your friends in some way.
• Over the course of the candidacy, you’re going to let down your co-workers in some way.
• You’ll have less patience with people and it’ll show.
• You’ll have to either forego a healthy sleep schedule, social life or both.

I’m not trying to scare you away from it; its just important to know what to expect after making the decision to dedicate a big part of your life for the next 3 or so years. Now with that out of the way, let’s get to the real meat and potatoes. I think its pretty manageable if you take the extra onus to schedule and plan your time accordingly and stick to it. The problem is that most, including myself, don’t really understand how to do it until about a year or so of being in the program. So, here’s a little advice that’ll help avoid any or all of those “fud” points from the start:

Before the Quarter Starts:

1. Open up a calendar and notebook.
2. In the calendar, write down the dates for every homework assignment and project due as well as test dates across every class you’re taking.
3. With your notebook, write down a list of things you’re looking to accomplish at work AND life over the next 3-6 months, prioritize them and offer a very general time period as to when you think they’ll get accomplish.
4. Cross-reference with the list back to your calendar and see how that’ll look.
5. Take out half or more of the things you’d like to get accomplished at work and life. Put it in a backlog. You’re going to go crazy if you try to get everything accomplished.
6. Inform your manager of time periods of when school work is going to be hectic over the next quarter. This’ll help manage expectations in terms of work.

During the Quarter

1. Treat free time as an opportunity to actually get a head-start on school work due 2 weeks to a month ahead of time. This’ll help make those expected hectic periods a whole lot more manageable.
2. Try to do a small portion of reading or homework for 1/2 – 1 hour everyday.
3. Take every opportunity to exercise even if it means not hanging out with friends. This’ll really help keep your mind fresh.
4. Be strict in allocating at least 7 hours of sleep a day.
5. A week before any hectic period, inform your family, friends and manager that you’re not going to be available through a simple e-mail or two.
6. Make plans to go out for a fully weekend day with friends or a significant other after each hectic period.

After Each Quarter

1. Go on a small vacation (i.e. a long weekend trip) with the people closest to you.

Do this every quarter. I know this may sound crazy, but its tried and true. If you do even half of these things, it’s going to go a long way to make your life a whole lot easier to handle over your time at the institution. Oh, and one other thing: always remind yourself why you’re in the program (i.e. what you’re trying to get out of it). It’s a lot of money, work and time out of your life and doing it without a rhyme and reason is a recipe for disaster. Personally, I got caught in that that recipe and I wasted a year to trying to really figure it out. So, make sure you know!

As planned-out as we were for the destinations on our way to Seattle, we were just as much un-organized for the final destination. We started out at the visitor’s center (i.e. Seattle Visitor’s and Convention Bureau) which was hosting the Penny Arcade 2010 Expo at the time. Thankfully, it wasn’t hard to into the convention’s lobby and get some vital information toward Pike Place, the Space Needle and other such touristy areas. Though both tourist spots were like any other regular tourist spot: pricy and over-glamorized, they did open up the opportunity for several really great scenic and people-watching pictures around the 1st Starbucks, downtown Seattle, and the food/flower market.

After that, we ate some fantastic brunch at Tillikum Cafe. The egg and potato plate I got was particularly great. It came with seasoned eggs with some light cilantro, the potatoes were crisped, the ketchup was home-made, a thin sausage pattie, sun-dried tomato pesto on the side and italian bread. The next time I’m in Seattle, this is definitely going to be a stop.

The rest of the day consisted of going to the highest point in Seattle, the Columbia Center. Unfortunately, as the tourists we are, we ended up in the wrong building (trust me its confusing as it’s part of a number of buildings connected together!). Though the shots still ended up great of Qwest Field.

Lastly, don’t go to Aura nightclub.

Gotta say, that town is something else. I don’t think I can fit all the stuff we did into one tidy blog post, but here’s the laundry list of places worthwhile to check out (and the reasons associated to why its worth a visit):

• Food Carts: We stopped by the ones on 3rd and Washington and ate at “Built to Grill”. Best chicken panini I’ve ever had (they use home-made sun-dried tomatoes with a special set of spices to them too). I really wish
• Japanese Garden: If you’re going to be a tourist, you might as well go all the way and end up here. There’s some great picture taking opportunities all over the place.
• Voodoo Doughnuts: Just pure ridiculousness. I’m pretty sure I got diabetes after one visit there and don’t regret it. One thing to remember, don’t order the $4 doughnuts unless you know what you see what it is. Oh, also, there’s something to be said for the place to have a line out their door at 4pm on a Thursday.
• Powell’s Bookstore: Tourist stop! Largest bookstore in the world with micro-cultures within each floor (there’s 5 floors where each could be its own bookstore really).
• 3D Art History Museum: You’re going to think it’s some lame place when you first get in there, but you’ll be pleasantly surprised once you start looking a lot more into it. The people who take care of it are incredibly passionate about the art and it carries over to their museum. Did you know the ViewMaster was headquartered in Portland before it got shipped overseas.

Oh, and we got to Seattle (3 hour drive from Portland). 2 days! Good times.

We drove a little over 550 miles today and got to Mount Shasta, Medford and Eugene (Oregon). Mount Shasta was worth the stop! Not only was it close to the I-5, but the people there are really courteous. We hopped by the visitor’s center to got some hints on trails to hike around the area (ultimately choosing the Bunny Flat Trail) and took the 11 mile drive up the mountain (we got to an elevation of about 11,300 feet). For a really easy trail, the thin air was really rough and we didn’t go too far. Nevertheless, the mountain really offers some great picture taking opportunities and we got several. I’d recommend the trail to anyone that ends up in Mount Shasta for a bit because the view is well worth it. Past that though, there isn’t much else around Mount Shasta. The town has a few lunch and bar spots, but it’s mostly for out-of-towners rather than local folk. We booked it out of town and made it to Medford, Oregon for dinner.

The AAA tour book offered us Porter’s Dining at the Depot as a primo destination for dinner and boy…that book disappointed. The place was a “historic landmark”, but its food wasn’t so great. Our waiter was a good guy, but we just got tired of the flies and decently-prepared-but-not-for-their-price steaks and wine. On a side note, Yelp did give it a 3 star review which means that the sentiment is shared (I mean we are talking about a $50-a-meal restaurant here). Medford didn’t seem like the right place to stop, so we continued on another 3 hours to Medford and stayed at a Best Western there in order to get extra time in Portland (only an hour and half away!) tomorrow.

Missed Opportunities:
* The Olive Hut
* Jacksonville, OR – Home of Bruce Campbell

Short answer:

Provide and foster opportunity.

Long answer:

I’ve always had a love affair with the Internet. It started when I was 8 and figured out how to log-in to my father’s Prodigy account for the first time. When I graduated from my undergraduate degree from University of California, Irvine in Computer Engineering, I knew I wanted to help keep the internet going and thought l2/l3 was the place to be. So, after interviewing at various companies, it was a pretty easy decision (i.e. organizational culture, the team, job opportunities, etc.) to join Nortel as a 22 year old. After about half a year though, I realized that my abilities, as they were then, just weren’t going to cut it. A graduate degree was going to be a necessity in order to do anything there as pretty much everyone in the field had, at least, a MS in Network Engineering.

Yet, that path didn’t feel right. Mostly for the following reasons:

1. I had learnt or was already learning everything at work that I would learn in a Masters program.
2. I knew I didn’t have enough technical wizardry in me to do anything exceptional as an Engineer.
3. I knew I couldn’t see myself as an Engineer my entire life.
4. I knew I always had a good intuition for saving money, juggling costs and benefits (I’m a bit of a miser), figuring out the most practical use of technology in my life as well as being way too passionate, vocally, to be stuck in a cubicle all day.

So, I took the advice of a lot of folks and embarked on a MBA.

Then, a bunch of things happened very quickly that change my life forever. After almost 2 years at Nortel, I realized that the real innovation on the Internet wasn’t the L2/L3 side anymore. The industry was a hollow shell. It didn’t hold the Internet in the same point of view as I did. What’s a guy supposed to do at this point? Pretty much reboot.

So, I got back into volunteering trying to figure it all out again; first over at a Homeless Shelter in San Jose doing a bit of teaching and mentoring and at Mozilla (on a recommendation from a good college friend) to try out another part of the web. Both experiences re-taught me why I cared about the Internet in the first place. Each provided people with an opportunity to better their lives no matter what, where or who they were. Case in point, the kids at the homeless shelter didn’t have the same opportunities due to piss poor luck of being born into those situations. There were smart kids that, if put in a nurturing situation that allowed them to express themselves in constructive ways, could have really had better lives. It reminded me of a lot of things: what my parents forced themselves to go through for a better life for our family, the lack of proper help for friends and family that couldn’t afford living in better areas, the socio-economic disparities in Irvine and it’s surrounding cities and many other thoughts in the same line. It was painfully obvious that I had to do something about this.

So, I helped out in the Mozilla community trying to build my resume to hopefully get a position on the L5-L7 side. Though with some luck, Mozilla had an open position available and wanted me to take it; I grabbed it and haven’t looked back since then. Sure, I was starting a new career in a semi-new industry, while also starting a graduate program that was unrelated to my new job. I continued on anyways and, in the process, learned a whole lot. The past couple of years have really helped provide focus on what I want to do with my MBA. I’ve realized the purpose of an MBA is not to make gobs of money, it’s help to build a toolkit (i.e. nomenclature, learning to be a better enabler, business contacts, etc.) for the future to help create opportunities for myself and others.

My post-MBA goal now is pretty simple. It’s to make the world an easier place to create and foster opportunities on the Internet for those who want to better theirs or others’ lives.