Almost 4 years ago, I chose to pursue a graduate degree while working a full-time job to grow in my career and to increase the depth and breadth of my technical knowledge. The journey was demanding but it imparted valuable lessons that can broadly apply to any situation where one must balance their day-to-day responsibilities with the effort necessary to grow and develop in a career.
Based on my experience, here are five key lessons that have been most valuable in balancing graduate school with a full-time engineering job:
Communicate Transparently and Often
First is the importance of clear and frequent communication. Whether it is with your manager, colleagues, professors, or classmates, setting expectations and keeping others informed of your availability, workload, and deadlines is essential. Transparency builds trust and can often to lead to support structures that enable your success. A professor allowing an extension of a project presentation deadline because they know you will be traveling for business the same week, a manager encouraging flexible work hours during exam week, and classmates willing to start a group project earlier are all examples of support that was offered to me as a direct result of open communication.
Set Realistic Expectations
Setting expectations with others is just as important as setting realistic expectations for yourself. Taking on more without readjusting what is already on your plate is a tried-and-true recipe for burnout. One way I learned to avoid this was to write down every reoccurring responsibility/commitment that I had now (include work, school, social, and general life-maintenance), my desired results in an ideal world, and the minimum necessary. Then I removed any items that don’t have that minimum necessity and ranked the priority of the remaining items. This activity can lead to a collection of minor changes that add up to significant impact. For example, it led me to stop folding my t-shirts after doing laundry, lower my expectations for how long a workout needs to be, and start saying no to additional responsibilities when their priority did not rank higher than anything on my list.
Find Synergy
Another powerful strategy is to try and find synergy between work and school where possible. This involved conversations with coworkers to learn whether their projects touched on my course material and conversations with professors to find additional resources that more closely aligned with my career. Not only did this help save time, but it also made my coursework more valuable and helped solidify the material I was learning. I once did a mathematical analysis of a switch mode power supply I was designing into a product to align with a course I was taking, even though this level of analysis was not needed for the design. It helped me understand the formulas I was learning in the course and months later when I needed to troubleshoot issues in a prototype, the in-depth understanding I had of the component allowed me to isolate problems quickly.
Time Management Strategy
Lastly and perhaps most importantly, having a defined strategy for time management is critical. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to this but just as gaps in your own approach tend to be obvious and quickly apparent, so do the right techniques. Personally, I found success in Trello and the pomodoro technique. Trello is one of many available tools that allow you to create cards for individual tasks, sort these cards into lists, rank priorities, and track progress. My personal Trello board had lists titled Backlog, This Week, Today, In Progress, Awaiting Input, and Complete. The pomodoro technique is a method by which you spend 25 minutes of pure focus on a task, followed by a 5-minute break. After four of these sessions or “pomodoros”, the break becomes a 15-minute break. Short breaks are used to reflect on what was accomplished in the last session and what is planned for the next. This technique helped me stay focused and helped me understand how long tasks were taking me.
Find a Company that Cares
Balancing a full-time career with graduate studies is not just about making it out with a degree—it’s about growing as a professional.
A key part of my journey in completing my graduate degree was working at a company that values professional development and growth in their employees.
Gilero provides an environment that made balancing hands-on project work with finishing my degree both possible and rewarding. Gilero’s culture builds people up through challenging projects, promoting continuous learning and skill development. It makes bright engineers even better equipped to take on complex design work.
Having completed my Master of Science in Electrical Engineering at NC State, I feel that I’m better equipped to design and develop medical devices that change the lives of patients everywhere.
About the Author
Noam Sheetrit is an Electrical Engineer at Gilero, where he contributes to the design, verification, and compliance of electromechanical systems for medical devices. He holds a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering and a Bachelor’s in Biomedical Engineering, enabling him to develop integrated systems that prioritize patient safety and usability. His expertise spans circuit design, schematic capture, and system integration, ensuring that devices meet quality standards such as IEC 60601 and IEC 61010.