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How to balance studies with work and family demands: Taking extra classes while working, family demands or during school has been always a challenged for a person. It is very tough to keep between balance between all of these activities as all are important for professional, personal and social growth. If I take example of my life, I think I have to adjust a lot to full fill my English Composition course during my last semester of graduate study along with my mini vacation where I went to India. I found couple of good ways to balance Penn foster studies along with my family demands and graduate study.
If I start from the day one when I thought to take this class, it is very interesting. As a foreign Physical Therapist, the state board requires me to take an English Composition course to practice as a Licensed PT in USA, which I came to know just before I was suppose to start my job. It was my last semester in my graduate studies with lots of work and I have to take this course. I came across to Penn Foster college. I heard from other friends it usually takes the lots of time to finish this course but I thought I will pursue this as I also want to improve my English.
Finally I registered for the course with on terms that I had to finish this in 6 months. I liked this course because it was self study course with all reading materials provided by college itself. Once I registered for the course, college sent the study material in mail. Due to some family reason I had to go to India, my home country, for 3 weeks. I left 3 days after I registered for the class and couldn’t receive my study material as it was in transit phase in USPS mail. The school had also given me online access to study material without exam questions. Now it was challenging for me to study while home because of my sister’s marriage.
Before I left I printed all the study materials with me so I can read while I travel for more than 19 hours in flight. While traveling I read a lot about the course syllabus and prepared how to complete this course. I made a plan how can I pursue my this course as soon as I can because sooner I finish this course earlier I was able to start my job. By the time I reached India, I was ready with my study plan as I had to squeeze my time while I was on vacation with my family. During my vacation period in India, I read all the reading material which were online.
I was not able to give the exam because all the examinations were in the material sent by college after I left USA. I was reading whenever I was traveling, before sleeping, while watching movie etc. I got the sense about basic English course requirement and how my exam would be. While traveling back after 3 weeks I read a lot and came back to USA. Once I reached here I finished my due assignments of my graduate studies and I had booked every weekend for this course. It was very challenging as I had to also finish my all school work and job work. Then I thought to squeeze more time for this course.
I started reading and writing in coffee shop, late in library after my school work. I decreased my frequency to fitness center 3 times a week instead everyday. I cut down my time talking on phone with my family as i use to talk a lot and find 2 or 3 more hours in week from that. Sometimes it was very frustrating but at the end when I saw it is going to improve my lots of knowledge as well professional growth, I got excited about this. I took my first exam and I got 50% in that, same result for second exam. Than I thought I need to work hard and started discussing everything with my friend how to make writing effectively.
I discussed all queries with my classmates, roommates and colleagues. After a week I gave repeat exam and got satisfactory grades. Still I need to write couple of essays and finish an assignments too. In short still lot to do. In summary, I want to say that One has to plan ahead to take additional class from Penn Foster college as this courses need sufficient amount of time to pursue it. One has to balance a life well and squeeze the time from busy life to satisfy and complete this course but I cam glad as I learned a lot from this course.