Studying for PcM AND planning my wedding
I initially planned to take the PcM exam in October 2019, pushed it to November, and then ended up getting engaged! The wedding is now scheduled for October 2020. I pumped the breaks a bit, but was given advice from my college friends to take the tests any (you only get more busy they said).
I was nervous about studying through the holidays so I scheduled the PcM exam for March 2nd 2020. I am panicking a bit because I am not sure if I really shot myself in the foot by trying to study for the exams while wedding planning.
I started off studying (4-5) hours per week through the beginning of january, but quickly realized this was not going to be enough. Last week I squeaked in (8.5) hours, but lost the entire weekend of studying to a last minute catastrophe with the wedding stuff.
Am I crazy for trying to do these two things at the same time? Can I do it? Have any of you done it? Should I book the next test directly after this one and keep going on this crazy rollercoaster?
Thank you for your thoughts and advice!
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Hi Katilin,
Congrats on your engagement! I got married this past October and I loved having a fall wedding! I'm sure you're in the thick of planning now, but hopefully you're having fun!
I got engaged in August of 2018 and married in October of 2019. I thought that I would have no problem finishing all of the exams before my big day. Which may have been the case, had I not also been planning a wedding and working full time. After finishing PA and attempting, but failing PPD and PDD, I decided I just needed to take a break from studying until after the wedding because it was adding so much additional stress. Unfortunately, I made this decision pretty late in the process, so I still experienced a lot of unnecessary stress around my wedding planning.
It got to the point, that if I was focusing on the wedding, I'd feel guilty about not studying and if I was studying, I'd become distracted by some detail about the wedding. So, I was really not making much progress on either front! In the end, I really wish that I had just spent the time I needed to on wedding planning because the guilt I had around studying / not studying just took a lot of the joy out of wedding planning for me. This included stress during wedding specific events like my showers and bachelorette party. This is such a special time in your life and you'll only have the experience once. And guess what, on the other side of my wedding, theses tests have not gone anywhere and I have way more free time and motivation now than I did when I was planning my wedding. I know that things will only get more hectic, but right now, studying doesn't feel like as much of a burden as it did then. There's less pressure, which makes me feel like I will be more successful.
Obviously, everyone's experience and perspective is different. So, maybe my advice is not what is best for you. This is just my two cents. Best of luck on both your wedding planning and exams!
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Jacqueline, Thank you for the advice! I might just take this one test (and possibly one more but give myself more time in between)? I don't want to waste the money on the tests and end up failing anyway but I also already have the ball rolling so I don't want to just stop all together either!
Thanks!
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