The Daily Parker

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A little dazed

About five hours ago I finished everything required to earn my MBA. I still have one (option) follow-up lecture for one class, so I can't mark the whole thing "resolved and closed" in FogBugz yet. Thus the precise language: I'm done with all the requirements.

No more Saturday-morning CENTRA sessions. No more papers and exams lurking under the bed. No more residency calendar on my fridge (first attached there 18 months ago).

I feel like Robert Redford's character at the end of The Candidate: "What do we do now?" It's a little freaky.

Total damage, not counting the lecture Thursday and untimed activities like mulling over my assignments while doing something else: 1,437 hours. That's 9 months of full-time work, spread over 18. In other words, between July 2009 and today I spent about 20 hours per week doing something connected with my MBA.

In a wildly-tangential universe, I upgraded FogBugz here at Inner Drive Technology's World Headquarters yesterday. The new version (8.1) produces really cool charts, like this one:

The six big spikes correspond with the residencies that started each term. They drop off quickly because the residencies had immense workloads and short durations. This term, as you can see, had the largest workload of all, because we had four complete classes.

I'm very glad to be done. Parts of me haven't caught up to the reality yet. I'll feel completely through with the program two weeks from Thursday, when I see on the registrar's website that Duke has conferred my degree. Until then, I expect some continuing fogginess.

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