7 tips for the perfect work, life and study balance

If you’re considering turbocharging your career with a qualification to pre-empt changes in your industry and take control of your work life, then you’re not alone. Managers and directors everywhere are considering going down the retraining path, but one question tends to crop up before they take that final step: how do you fit in an Executive Master when your work and home life already seem to take up every waking hour? We’ve put together our top seven tips to ease into one of Sciences Po Executive Education’s intensive courses with (almost) total peace of mind.

1 - Get a sense of how much time you’ll need to invest

Michel Barabel is the Science Director for the Executive Master in Human Resources and knows only too well just how demanding it can all be: “Embarking on a course like this is a lot of work, so students should definitely expect to be much busier”. This is something everyone really does need to consider before committing to an Executive Master. Not only will you need to attend the actual classes (two to three days a month), you’ll also need to set aside personal study time outside of the sessions. “It’s vital you sit down and really think it through,” adds Hélène Heurteau, who took the Sciences Po Executive Education Executive Master in Communication in 2019. “Throughout the course, there’s extra workload to consider, which means you have to plan around your weekends and downtime. But don’t forget that this extra time is personally enriching, and you’ll have something to show for it by the end: it’s a path to self-fulfilment.” Michel Barabel agrees. “It’s work you’re doing for you. It’s about putting in the time to grow, reflect and get some perspective. At the end of the day, it’s time well spent.”

2 - Discuss it with your family

This is key to striking the perfect work, life and study balance: make sure you talk about your plans with your nearest and dearest beforehand. Tell them about the course and why you want to do it, outline what you ultimately want to get out of it and how it might impact on your day-to-day. “It’s something that affects the whole family, not just yourself,” explains Michel Barabel. Your partner and children should all be involved before you even start the Executive Master. “It’s a collective process you need to map out together: make sure you agree on what will happen to family activities, how household chores will be shared out.” Planning ahead is essential to a positive learning experience. When mother-of-three Hélène Heurteau enrolled on the course at the age of 35, “my husband and I sat down together to talk it through. He supported me in my plans and suggested we rejig how things were done at home so that everything would run smoothly”.

3 - Discuss it with work

Making sure your company is aware ahead of time is just as important. “There’s the workload to consider, ways your team could be restructured or the role you might play within some projects,” points out Michel Barabel. It’s a good idea to talk to your employer or manager, explaining just what the course will mean for them.

You could also highlight how your training won’t take over your job – in fact, it can only be a bonus for the work you do. “After just a three-day session, students are equipped to start putting what they’ve learned into practice at the office and experiment with new ways of doing things,” says Michel Barabel. According to Hélène Heurteau, who was head of communication and image in a talent and modelling agency when she began the course, “we benefited, but so did the company. We brought more value to the table, additional expertise.” Juggling your private, professional and student lives is a learning experience in its own right. “Over the course of the 18 months, participants will have to be extra agile, swifter in their work processes and capable of dealing with whatever life throws at them,” explains Michel Barabel. Students will also be honing their group work skills, finding workarounds to align with each group member’s schedule.

4 - Discuss it with your course mates

Once you’ve started your training, you’ll be able to discuss your experiences with other people on your course. How do they fit the Executive Master in with their jobs? What kind of arrangements have their companies made? “We’re always talking about how complicated our diaries are and what hacks we’ve been using,” says Hélène Heurteau. This is a golden opportunity to pick up some best practices and share your personal circumstances to get tips and advice. You can also dip into Sciences Po Executive Education’s extensive alumni network to get guidance and inspiration from professionals who have been where you are now.

5 - Make the most of bespoke support

“Sciences Po Executive Education offers a gold-standard personalised support service, where assistance is tailored to each individual student,” explains Michel Barabel. Throughout their training, participants can count on support from their programme leaders and course assistants who strive to always be on hand when you need them and “be a constant point of contact throughout your course,” as programme leader Hélène Tinlot-Benichou puts it. Our support staff are there to advise, guide and answer any specific questions you might have. You can feel free to reach out to your lecturers and instructors, too.

6 - Tap into the tools

Students are given their full course timetable in September, ensuring they are able to plan well in advance the 18 months they spend with us. “We also lay out what pieces of work they will need to hand in and any extra workload this might entail,” adds Michel Barabel. “The more transparent we are, the better prepared they will be.” You’re given access to an online sharing portal where you’ll find all your course’s documents, and the library can be accessed remotely, too. Finally, students on the same course have the option of using a group chat platform that can be useful for supporting one another and swapping information.

7 - Make a habit of it

As the course instructors and lecturers repeatedly told Hélène Heurteau and her course mates, “you need to get into the habit of regular study sessions to avoid feeling swamped”. Hélène followed their advice and recalls that “we had study-planning classes that were useful in helping us improve in that area”. Throughout her course, she made sure she never did anything last minute. “Sometimes that involved shifting things around at home. If the kids were doing their homework at the weekend, then I’d hit the books too.” Angélique Fraysse had the same experience while studying for her Executive Master in Real Estate Finance and Strategy in 2016: “I mapped out a whole schedule right from the get-go, blocking out windows in my diary to study or revise and avoid falling behind.”

The dissertation requires careful planning too, which is made easier by “check-ins with our tutors,” says Hélène Heurteau. The same goes for the group work, where “we would check in every week or ten days to see how we were getting along”: just what Hélène needed to stay on top of her course and get the most out of the experience.

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