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Level 7 Diploma whilst on maternity leave... has it ever been attempted?

Maria

Hi all,

I would appreciate any guidance and experience sharing on this, as I am considering taking up Level 7 Diploma studies a couple of months before my maternity leave is due to start, and then, all going well, continuing to study throughout the mat year off, with a view to make significant progress towards completing it before I come back to work.

For background, I have previously done a Level 5 and I have a degree, so I don't anticipate I'll struggle with the level of the course. I am an HRBP with management experience so I feel the Level 7 fits perfectly. 

The only thing I am worried about is how realistic it is to get anything like this done, even a couple of hours a day, maybe a few days a week when you have a newborn on your hands? It is going to be my first maternity leave so I have no clue what I am getting into. When I completed Level 5, I did it alongside full-time work in less than a year. 

So doing Level 7 on mat leave can't be much more taxing than that... Or am I being naive?

Any thoughts welcome - especially if you've done either Level 7 or mat leave (or both!) before.

Parents
  • I did level 7 while on adoption leave. It was hard to make it work, and it took a lot longer than I'd hoped, but it was good to have something non-child related to focus on sometimes. I would say try and drop your expectations: "a couple of hours a day" is probably optimistic, as a baby is not likely to give you more than half an hour to yourself for really quite a long time! Also, you're going to be tired, even if you're lucky and you get a good sleeper, so you need to take some rest and recovery time. You'll get into your own rhythm, and then you can work out the little opportunities through the day where you might be able to read or make some notes. You're going to need some back up for when you need to focus for longer, and get down to writing, but you have time to work that out.

    All things are do-able with a bit of flexibility. I would recommend a kindle - then you can read one-handed, as you'll be doing everything one-handed for quite some time...! Congratulations, and I hope all goes really well.
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  • I did level 7 while on adoption leave. It was hard to make it work, and it took a lot longer than I'd hoped, but it was good to have something non-child related to focus on sometimes. I would say try and drop your expectations: "a couple of hours a day" is probably optimistic, as a baby is not likely to give you more than half an hour to yourself for really quite a long time! Also, you're going to be tired, even if you're lucky and you get a good sleeper, so you need to take some rest and recovery time. You'll get into your own rhythm, and then you can work out the little opportunities through the day where you might be able to read or make some notes. You're going to need some back up for when you need to focus for longer, and get down to writing, but you have time to work that out.

    All things are do-able with a bit of flexibility. I would recommend a kindle - then you can read one-handed, as you'll be doing everything one-handed for quite some time...! Congratulations, and I hope all goes really well.
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