Crystal's Edumacated

Crystal's Graduation, 2009
Originally uploaded by Crystal & Billy

Today was Crystal's graduation!

She graduated with a BS in Management!

She's not technically done until she completes one more class and pays even more money to the school to have a diploma mailed to her. In other words, SHE'S DONE!

Or is she? We've been tossing around the idea of Crystal continuing higher education and getting a master's degree. It would take 12 five week classes to complete and would cost us $18,000.

I've come up with two reasons why I think she wants to continue...

1) School is mentally challenging and she likes that (even if she tells you she doesn't). She likes staying busy and she likes working out complex issues.

2) She's setting a precedence in our family. No one in our family has accomplished this on my side or her's. Only one person in our extended family has (Uncle Al).

My opinion on it is this:

The economy is terrible right now. I don't see an end in site. In fact, I imagine it getting a whole lot worse than it already is. As a friend of mine says "The ship is sinking". I figure now is the time to snag the low interest rate student loans while they are available.

It is going to be more difficult for companies to borrow money (worse than it is now). This translates into companies making much less than they are now. Salaries may decline but regardless of that I believe companies are going to be more particular with employment decisions. I suspect that employment strategies will change in a way that companies aggressively filter out people without experience or education. Companies will target top-notch people because they'll need these top-notch people to keep the companies afloat during the down economy. It won't be like before where a company can afford to take a risk on a person they were not 110% comfortable in. That sucks because taking risks like that is a part of business. Our company took a risk like that on me and it paid off for both of us.

Based on this logic, and given someone with several years of banking experience, management experience and a master's degree, I think it will make her very marketable in a down economy. Actually in any economy...

Being marketable is important to me. We both love our jobs but will it always be that way? Will we always enjoy and respect the people we work with? Will we always work together? Will the company always be in business? These are very real issues that you'd be foolish not to address. Because we work for the same company you could say that Crystal and I have all our eggs in one basket right now. It makes sense to get a little insurance for our family in the form of higher education.

I think the fact that we have a working relationship (literally) makes life a lot easier on both of us. We can talk to each other at work, we can run work concepts by each other, we carpool sometimes. It makes it really easy for us to live life and it makes it easier for both of us to find time for school.

Ok, that was a very long opinion.

As far as I'm concerned, Crystal is kicking ass and taking names. As a new wife, mother of two, working mom and full time student, Crystal has managed to keep our ship running smoothly.

Congratulations Crystal, you truly are awesome! I say don't stop now because you may never start again. Get that masters degree and make us all proud!