Our Coaches’ Advice: Key Tips for Returning to Studies While Working

You’ve made the decision: you’re going back to school to give your career a boost and take on strategic roles in an international context. This ambitious choice means balancing your professional life with your family, social life, and studies. It’s no coincidence that students in the Executive MBA programme receive support from our coaches, in addition to sharing experiences within their cohort. Here are three essential tips to manage your multiple roles successfully and make the most of your months of training. These tips come from Florence Divet, who has been coaching at Executive Education since 2018.

reprendre ses études

Share Your Professional Project with Those Around You

In other words: commit, but with all the stakeholders involved—especially your employer and colleagues, your family, and your close friends. Everyone should be clear about your new path, your ambitions, and the adjustments and changes that need to be made. Ultimately, these discussions might help refine your career plan and will definitely save you time and energy later. Support from your professional and family environment is crucial for returning to studies.

During your training, sharing your professional project also means discussing your discoveries, learnings, questions, areas for improvement, and successes with these same stakeholders. Over the 18 months of training, you will explore new areas, open up to new perspectives, and experiment. It is essential to communicate this evolution to your work environment and your loved ones to maintain their support and grow alongside them.

Dedicate Quality Time to Your Studies

Obvious, isn’t it? Perhaps. But reality is often more unpredictable. While you need to allocate specific time slots for your courses and assignments, including on your personal time, the key is the quality of the hours you dedicate to your studies. This means identifying the times when you are cognitively most effective, in what context, and during what time frame—in short, knowing your chronotype.

Do you work best early in the morning, in the silence of your office with the smell of hot coffee? Or conversely, is your concentration and productivity at its peak late at night to the rhythm of Jean-Michel Blais’ compositions in your ears? This pace will be yours, and only yours, for productive and enriching study sessions.

Immediately Apply What You Learn

Throughout the Executive MBA, you will be regularly encouraged to apply theory through practical cases directly relevant to your company. The objective here is twofold. First, to reinforce the retention of learning which might otherwise be forgotten if not immediately implemented. Second, to motivate your workplace’s support for your professional project: by bringing the benefits of your training to your company, your employer and colleagues will be more inclined to support you.

For you, this provides numerous opportunities to enhance your skills through on-the-job experience. These are unique opportunities in your professional journey, guided by experts at Rennes School of Business and enriched by the sharing of your fellow students. Eighteen months of unparalleled richness, topped with the prestige of a school recognised internationally.

Learn How to Balance Professional, Personal Life, and Studies