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Earning your Executive Master's: Reality vs. Expectation

We know launching into a graduate program while working full time can be daunting. We’ve interviewed Stacy Skradski, Director Systems & Platforms at West, to tell us about her experience juggling family, work, and grad school - and why it's all worth it.

  • published: 2019/04/19
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Was it worth it?

It may be too soon to really tell you how much it was worth, but even a week fresh from no homework; I still say YES it is absolutely worth all of it.

Why? The executives and C suite “know” I was in the program at my company, and so I have a positive reputation as someone who was selected. That will carry a lot of opportunities with it, but it is soon to know exactly what those could be. I didn’t arrange any sort of “promotion” with my company upon completion of the course, but I know that because of the EMIT program, I’ve got qualifications + reputation in my corner when I go for my next promotion or seek out an opportunity.

The material covered was all relevant and gave insight into areas of enterprise IT that are outside of my day to day functions...What’s more – I feel like I’m better at my job and not boxed in to any one area of IT leadership.

 Stacy Skradski

Update: Late in 2018, I was selected by executive leadership to lead a Future Leadership Development Program, targeting recent graduates. This has been a great opportunity to leverage the relationships I’ve built with the University and pursue my passion for building positive corporate culture.

It feels like I climbed a mountain, or ran a marathon, or slayed a dragon. After finishing the program, I’m pretty sure I can take on anything. It was so difficult, and a lot of work – but finishing it feels amazing. The material covered was all relevant and gave insight into areas of enterprise IT that are outside of my day to day functions. Perspectives from my classes and classmates helped me think about how the projects I currently work on will/can/should impact other groups in my company. I’m walking away with a complete 360-degree view of how a company works.

What’s more – I feel like I’m better at my job and not boxed in to any one area of IT leadership. I was forced out of my immediate scope of responsibilities and feel more equipped to push my company forward at the enterprise layer, in addition to my own domain.

You cover a lot of ground in each class, it’s very compact. Somedays I did feel like I was on auto-pilot and didn’t get a lot of time to really ponder any of the subject matter in depth due to short class durations. However, I have no doubts that every one of the professors would be happy to hear more questions (and even more conversations about their class even now that it’s over). Every one of them were passionate about the subject they were teaching, which made the classes very easy to engage in.

I will never regret it.

How much of a time commitment was it?

A LOT – but a little less if you are efficient.

Straight up: it’s a large investment in your time. I won’t lie, it was extremely difficult at times. Most classes were consistent with 3-4-hour homework assignments due 3 times a week (about 20 hours if you prioritize right). Most classes had “presentations” that we needed to give to the group at the end of each class. These were an additional 10 hours per class.

The capstone project was a LOT of work, but the good news is that if you’re clever enough to be in the program, you find out quickly to make sure that your assignments (especially the “bigger ones”) are related to your capstone so that you have a framework created for the final project at the end.

Saturdays are all day at the University of Nebraska at Omaha College of Information and Technology. There was a constant flow of snacks and the lunches were very good most of the time. There was a week break between each class. This made planning for vacations and stuff was a little better.

The professors were all very responsive and inquiring about the progress. There was no point that I was going to “slip through the cracks” either because the cohort is so small. It was a great balance, and everyone realized and accommodated for the fact that we were all grownups with careers, and that sometimes things come up that prevent us from being full time students.

Would you recommend it?

Yes. A hundred times over.