“Sometimes we feel like everyone's watching us and paying attention to our trajectory and taking notes of all the things happening in our career, but it's really not the case. It’s a lot easier if you're just trying to please yourself, and it could look however it ends up looking.”

Associate Product Manager

Female, late 20s

Large Northeastern City

“My official title is associate product manager. It’s usually a role at a software or technology company. Product managers bring together engineers and designers, and we’re also experts on the user’s problems. Our main job is to align the team around what we should build and why and help the team determine the specific steps we can take to reach that goal. If you succeed as a team, a lot of it is going to be due to great teamwork and talented engineers and designers. And after a product launch, you are working with other teams to make sure customers use it and track metrics and get feedback from there.

When I decided to go back to school, I had been at my company for a little over three years. Business school is not like getting a PhD or going to med school or law school— you never really have to do it. I’d been at my first job for a pretty long time compared to other people I knew, so I wanted a change. I felt like I could learn more. I was worried I might start to plateau in terms of what I learned or how challenging I felt things were. A big part of business school is networking, but also meeting people and forming friendships as an adult. Something else I looked forward to was that I didn't have a group of close friends, specifically women, who talked a lot about our careers because I didn't know a lot of people who did what I did, who I really could talk about my job with. My roommate had law school friends who also talked about their industry and careers, and I thought that was really cool. And a big part of business school is traveling, so I was also really excited for that. It’s obviously a privilege to be able to just take time off from work and spend all this money on tuition and living expenses. It's expensive to forego work and also be spending money. But I am glad I did it. I did meet really great people. I like having friends who I can also discuss our careers with. 

At least at [business school name], there is recognition by faculty and clubs about pay disparities for women and lack of female leadership. In theory, everyone knew about these things and seemed to agree that these were problems. In practice, that wasn't always the case. For some of our male classmates, it's easy to say you believe in supporting women. But then if you look at their behaviors of speaking over women in meetings or rejecting their ideas or even something as unconscious as always trying to speak in class when there are women who didn't get called on— things like that were pretty rampant. We also really lacked female faculty. I think I had one female professor during my whole time there. 

A lot of the industries that people come from or are trying to work in, such as finance or tech, aren’t diverse. There was this feeling that like we were going into these places that lacked diversity, but the school didn’t provide structured guidance or coursework on how to be a better ally at work, even though this should be required for business leaders. There were also times where different clubs had heavily male or heavily white leadership, even though more diverse slates of candidates did run for officer positions. This is a problem because there are clubs for different industries students are interested in transitioning into, so if you're someone of color trying to be in that industry, the relevant club may not feel inclusive for you.

I think every professor I had was white. It’s a problem if you don't see people like yourself represented in faculty or student leadership positions, especially at a time when executive and board positions need more diversity.  Overall, business schools need more diversity, and need to do more to help students and faculty of different backgrounds feel welcome and included. 

Overall in tech, you can have a good work-life balance because there is flexibility. You can work less one day and more one day and shift some work to the weekends if you need to. I’ve always had a lot of freedom and that's a tech thing but also a startup thing where people just assume you'll get your stuff done. It’s also something I’ve tried to create. I wasn't so great at it when I first started this role during the beginning of COVID because I was just so glad to have a job, I thought, ‘I'm going to work so hard,’ and you're not commuting so you feel like, ‘oh, I might as well work during that time, I'm already saving time,’ which was very different from my mindset before I left for business school, which was very focused on work-life balance and not letting my job define me. And now, a few months after I've started, I've gotten better at that. But sometimes it does require you to say no and prioritize things and realize what's going to be something you can do next week or next month, and it'll have no negative impact. If you don’t think about your work life balance, you can't really assume that anyone else will be doing that for you.

I’ve always thought that [I didn’t want to be defined by work] from the start, even in my first job out of college. Part of it has to do with me not feeling like I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up. I took the first job offer I got, and I liked it, I enjoyed it. But I always viewed it as a job and not really a part of my identity. One thing I do regret is I kept my work friendships and my real friendships separate. I didn't really invest in developing deeper friendships with my co-workers because I thought my real relationships were outside of work. Also, my parents— they're both immigrants and neither of them like their jobs a ton, but it’s fine. They're not doing what they love or finding their purpose and that gave me more realistic expectations about work. I was grateful to really like my job and the people and the culture, which is more than what my parents would probably say about their jobs. So I already felt like I was really lucky in that regard.

I still am very ambitious and someone who likes control. It’s something that I’ve struggled with. A big part of me is like, oh, you should try to get promoted as fast as you can, and do XYZ. But while I am ambitious about work, I’m also ambitious about having a good social life and having great relationships and being a good daughter, so I am ambitious about everything. So it evens it out where I could work really hard at work, but then be like, ‘Okay, I have to leave now to go to this dinner.’ When I’m working, I am super focused. Then, by the time the end of the day comes, I do feel fulfilled. I'm not just ambitious about my title or my function, but I want to feel like I accomplished something and made an impact. 

I was a director before I left for business school and then came back to the same company as an associate product manager, which is the most entry level product manager position you can be and many levels down from a director position in the corporate world. Going into it, it was hard, especially because you're like, ‘Oh my gosh, what are people gonna think of me? I went to business school for two years and now I'm in a lower position. What are my classmates going to think, and what are my coworkers going to think?’ I definitely got a lot of questions about it. Overall, it made me care less about what people think about my career and whether it follows a certain trajectory, or whether on paper, it looks like I took a few steps back. I really love my job now and feel more challenged. People don't really know what's going on in your career anyways, so if you're happy, then that's great. It’s still hard to not compare yourself to other people and you see other people being very successful. But they're just being themselves and I have to be myself.

We've all read stories and are all aware of situations where someone looks so successful and happy on paper. Sometimes people talk about marriages this way, but then actually, everything's falling apart. They're super unhappy. They’re seeing a therapist too. You just never know what's actually happening and a lot of this applies to relationships, but it applies to jobs as well. People who are in these high positions, you don't know if they're super stressed or having a tough time balancing time with family, so you don't know who you're comparing yourself to because all you see is their title and some other superficial things about them.

I took a class called “Understanding Careers” when I was in business school and one of the big takeaways from the class is realizing that your career is very nonlinear. You're gonna be all over the place. You can be switching laterally or getting a demotion or changing a new industry, but there are plenty of very successful people who do that. For some people, a fulfilling career is continuing to do one thing and then becoming the best at that thing. For other people, it’s important to be learning new things all the time or to have a variety of experiences. Sometimes we feel like everyone's watching us and paying attention to our trajectory and taking notes of all the things happening in our career, but it's really not the case. It’s a lot easier if you're just trying to please yourself, and it could look however it ends up looking. That idea from that class helped me feel a bit more at peace with how things are going.

Now I've worked for five years and I can think back and identify what has made me happy. It’s a hard thing, there's not one moment of realization. Over time, you narrow down the list slowly. [Not knowing exactly what I want to do] is easier in some ways and harder in other ways. I'm not stressed. It’s not make or break. I can just look at an opportunity and ask myself, do I think I will enjoy this? What are the team dynamics? What is harder about it is: I won't know until 10 years out whether this mindset of taking it one day at a time will lead me somewhere fulfilling. Maybe there's something really fulfilling that comes from working hard for a goal for like 10 years and then just continuing to have some sort of target in mind. There's some worry that maybe one day in 10 years I'll be like, ‘oh, shit. I should have done this differently.’ I think that would be hard, but I guess we will find out what happens.”