The decision to pursue your MBA probably came after weighing a plethora of difficult choices. You might be moving to a new city or country, you must have calculated the opportunity cost of lost wages when resigning from your job, and you may have said teary good byes to friends and family back home. Unfortunately, the difficult choices don’t end. During your MBA, you’ll be picking which courses to study, which company to recruit for and where to relocate post your degree. If you have a partner, you will also have to consider how your choices affect them.

For the partner, the choices can be even more difficult. The partner may have to choose between having a long-distance relationship with you, or leaving their job and moving with you. If they decide to move with you, they would have to recruit for a job all over again, or perhaps agree on an agile-working solution with their employer. They could also choose to study, or they could decide on taking some time off and finding a hobby to pursue. As you embark on your post-MBA job, they might end up going through this cycle again.

The Partners Club at Tepper is always trying to facilitate both students and partners through these difficult decisions. In collaboration with the Accelerate Leadership Center, the Partners Club recently hosted an evening of discussion to help students and partners navigate dual career opportunities and how to overcome resulting relationship challenges. The session was open to both first and second years and was a resounding success in allowing meaningful conversations on setting priorities together, aligning goals and expectations, making compromises and managing a work-life balance agreeable to both parties. Members of the Accelerate team provided professional guidance and decision making frameworks to help address the big question of “can you have it all?”. The session was extremely helpful to both students and partners and I’d like to give a huge shout out to Allison Farkas for leading and managing the session on behalf of Partners Club!