Weekend Bender [wiːkˈɛnd /ˈbɛndə/] noun: A three day, 1.5 credit hour class that takes place from 8:30 a.m. – 5 p.m., Friday and Saturday, and noon – 3 p.m. on Sunday. Also known as the weekend from h***.
Alright, I’m being dramatic. Not only was my first (what I’m calling) “weekend bender” not bad, it was incredibly interesting and the sense of accomplishment when you walk out of class on Sunday is unparalleled in business school to date. Except maybe completing the Managerial Statistics final …
Even before you start business school, you’ll hear about “accelerating” in the info sessions, which means that you take more classes per semester than what’s required of you to complete the program in the allotted three years. Essentially, you set yourself up to finish sooner than anticipated.
There are many ways There is one way to do that and it’s by taking more classes. Your options are an increase in evening classes during the week (no, thank you – two evenings a week is enough), a week-long class (do they think I’m made out of PTO days?) or a “weekend bender.” These are the most popular because, as mentioned two paragraphs above, you can knock out 1.5 credits in three days (three days!!!!). As you might expect, these classes fill up quickly, so if you don’t register for them within a couple of hours (and I’m being generous) from when registration opens, then the odds of you getting in are slim.
Are they worth it? Absolutely! Let me repeat: 1.5 credits in three days. However, they don’t come without their caveats:
- You have to prepare: For the particular class that I participated in this past weekend, we had close to 200 pages of case/article reading to do before the first day, followed by more reading between days. That’s a lot to juggle with work and your regular class load, so the week leading up to the class isn’t without its sacrifices.
- The days can get long: Luckily for me, the class was not only interesting, it relied heavily on class participation, which means you stay engaged. Just remember to grab a coffee on your way back to class from lunch so that you don’t succumb to that early afternoon drowsiness. By day three, it’s more powerful than you think …
- You have no weekend to recuperate: You know that weekend where you need an additional weekend to make up for it? Well, this is that type of weekend, except that instead of cursing your Mardi Gras decisions, you’re in a daze from 21 hours of class. But, you know what? It’s OK (1.5 credits in three days!!!).
As you can tell by now, I’m all for this type of format. I’m signed up for another “weekend bender” in April and I can’t wait to continue this pattern every semester moving forward. Seriously, the feeling that you’re that much closer to graduating is a high that will keep you soaring until you walk into Managerial Economics on Tuesday.
To my fellow PMBAs out there, any advice for how to survive this type of weekend? How would you approach the workload?
Image: Starbucks Addict, Spry, Flickr Creative Commons
