After a month of hemming and hawing, I finally got off the fence and signed up for LSE.
The good:
*Benevolent company J agreed to allow me to work my full-time job around LSE class hours and to work either early or later than normal EU hours when classes are in session. Granted, I support Asia, the US, and South America in addition to Europe--so there is always a location whose business hours I can be working with that timezone mix. :-)
*In addition, they agreed to pay through their UK tuition reimbursement program. They pay 50% now and 50% upon completion. So in effect, the degree becomes free (assuming that I stay past the 'holding' period upon completion).
The bad:
*The holding period locks me into Benevolent company J for another 3 years after the 2 year degree completion point. Nothing against company J, and I think it's a fair policy--I'm just not so fond of owing anyone cash, which in effect this is to me.
*The commute from Essex into London is readily possible with regional train, but not so pretty--building in time for the train or tube to be late--2 hours is the conservative estimate for travel time door to door.
*I do need to front the 50% they fund upon completion until I actually complete. Currently all my side hustle earnings are going into an empty pasta sauce jar toward this end. (Arriving in the UK without UK credit history I was only able to get a 'student' passport bank account--one without interest gaining--for my first year here. So I'd rather hold onto it than let the thieving scoundrels of my giant banking conglomerate have any extra interest free cash.)
The ugly:
*Travel costs from my corner of Essex (assuming I pay for a round trip ticket each time I go and cannot find any travel card alternative or advance buy alternative) is between 17-22 GBP/trip which I will have to front.
The good (again):
*The semesters are short-http://www2.lse.ac.uk/termDates/Home.aspx
*It will look nice on my CV.
*I am a proverbial student.
*It will nice to make some new connections whose circles I probably wouldn't otherwise cross.
*I suspect the subject matter will actually be quite interesting and overall helpful to me from a professional knowledge standpoint.
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2 comments:
Congratulations! I am very excited for you. And from my viewpoint, when I was at CBS, those of my classmates whose rides were paid for by their firm were pretty happy. In some cases, they jumped ship (but that was the happy go lucky 90's) and in some cases new firms paid for those jumps. Others just stayed and found their careers improved.
G: Many thanks! :-)
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