Partner

Thanks to the Ross community, I’ve been an Ann Arbor resident for over six of the happiest months of my life.

On my final drive from Chicago to Ann Arbor, as luck would have it, I hit a mattress on I-94. First thought through my head? I really hope this isn’t a sign of things to come. After calming down, making my husband drive an hour to meet me, calling a tow truck, and figuring out what to do with a mangle mess of coils and fabric — it got stuck underneath the car — I was finally on my way to becoming an Ann Arbor “townie.”

Since I started school (and maintained a part-time work schedule), Erik and I have had to be more intentional to carve out time. We’re both in class or at work, meetings, and events for 12 to 14 hours per day, so we’ve had to find better ways to meal prep, grocery shop, clean (on occasion), and keep up with life.

When we received the acceptance call from Michigan Ross, it caused a 360-degree about-face in our lives. We were planning our wedding. We had both just been promoted at work. And now: We have a big decision to make that comes with many mixed feelings.

When Dayna got into Ross, it was a bittersweet moment for me. I was incredibly proud of my partner. She’d earned her way into her top choice program, and getting her MBA from Ross was the best next step in her career. At the same time, I was incredibly terrified. I was building my own career in New York City, and relocating wasn’t an option for me personally or professionally.

This is part of a series of blogs from the partners of Michigan Ross MBA students. From long-distance relationships, to finding a job in Ann Arbor, MBA partners share how they’ve experienced the Ross MBA program and how they make it work with their partners...

By Jaclyn Garrison, MBA Partner When you’re preparing to move across the country, you have to tell a lot of people. And the dozens of people my husband and I spoke to about choosing to move to Michigan so he could pursue his MBA almost always responded to our decision by saying something like “Why...