A few months into COVID-19 lockdown, I found myself wrestling with an unfamiliar emotion: boredom.

While my work as an internal communications manager for a community-based hospital dealing with rising COVID numbers offered no shortage of daily stimulation, my personal life was off balance.

I routinely filled my free time with travel, arts performances and professional sports events. However, like so many people, lockdown meant that many of my hobbies and interests were put on pause. After marathon sessions of binge watching my favorite streaming services, I reflected on the autobiography of the late actor and humanitarian Sidney Poitier and found myself quoting from its pages.

‘What am I doing with my time?’

When reflecting on the motivation for writing his autobiography, Poitier wrote about the dangers of idleness as he scrolled through dozens of TV channels and found nothing that warranted his attention. He wrote that at last, he turned the TV off, threw the remote across the room and muttered to himself, “What am I doing with my time?”

Like Poitier, I asked myself the same question. That was the moment I decided to be productive during a pandemic by embarking on my long-held dream to earn a master’s degree in strategic communications.

Juggling Work, Home, School and a Pandemic

Before embarking on a degree program, I recommend that you get buy-in from your family, friends and, if necessary, employer. Pursing a part-time degree is about time management, and no matter how hard you try, the demands of coursework will sometimes bleed into other aspects of your life and alter your regular routine. In those moments, it’s helpful to have a support system that understands and believes in what you’re doing. Their patience and grace is invaluable.

It’s also helpful to have an accountability partner in your degree program. I was fortunate to discover that a co-worker also had enrolled in my online program. We act as each other’s cheerleaders as we share advice about classes, professors and the best strategies for learning and completing coursework.

While opportunities to earn an online degree have been available for years, it has been a unique experience to complete coursework during a pandemic. The pandemic required universities to rapidly upgrade their e-learning platforms. Professors were very agile because many of them were also adjusting to remote work in their university life. They were more than agreeable to meet and chat with students via Zoom, phone calls and even text messages. We were all learning together in this new, hyper-digital world.

Far From a Trivial Pursuit

Pursuing a master’s degree in strategic communications is a significant investment of time and money. It’s also an investment that reaps major rewards.

As professionals, it can be easy to get stuck in our routine of established communications plans and tactics. However, when you’re a student, you have a license to be curious and question everything. You develop an innovative spirit that is infectious and affects not just your academic work, but your professional career. As you discover new best practices, you are motivated to implement them in real-time in your daily work.

Earning a master’s degree also teaches you the virtues of patience and planning. Thanks to technology, we live in an instantaneous world. This see it, want it, get it kind of existence has spoiled us. Pursuing a master’s degree is a marathon experience that teaches us how to assess the challenge of earning a degree, set long-term goals of drafting a degree plan and learn to celebrate the small victories of completing each course along the way. These strategic planning and change management skills are essential for any communications leader.

Next-Level Credibility

I launched my master’s degree journey after two decades’ worth of experience in the communications industry. I was also certified by the Global Communication Certification Council as a Communications Management Professional (CMP). I was curious how the master’s degree program would expand my knowledge base.

The most important thing a master’s degree in communications teaches you is strategy. In our undergraduate years, we’re focused on learning how to communicate; as graduate students, we learn the why and theory behind communicating the way we do.

Earning a master’s degree in communications also gives you credibility for your chosen career. There are many entry points into our profession, and several members of the industry earned degrees in other subjects before transitioning into the field. I earned my undergraduate degree in journalism and I appreciate how a master’s degree program in strategic communications balances my education about the industry.

Perhaps my most important insights about earning a master’s degree in communications are the revelations I’ve yet to experience. I believe this degree is an investment in your future self. I believe that in the not-too-distant future, I will face a communication challenge or career opportunity that will be strengthened by the knowledge I gained from my academic journey. In that moment, I’ll be grateful that I chose to be productive during a pandemic and lay the foundation for a brighter future for myself and my career.

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