They say education is the foundation on which to build experience.

But for two business graduates, it’s also built the foundation for a marriage.

Sheldon Pike, 31, and Chelsey Pike (nee King), 27, will both graduate with master of business administration (MBA) degrees from the Faculty of Business Administration on May 29.

They got engaged, built their first home in St. John’s and got married, all while simultaneously taking part-time courses to complete the program.

“I wanted to do [an MBA] for a while, but I just couldn’t find the motivation to go for it until she went for it,” said Sheldon.

“We both started in the program together, and I think that was a huge driver of why we both did it,” added Chelsey. “It gave us the motivation to get through it. If I had to do it by myself and Sheldon wasn’t in the program, I think it would have been harder to apply myself.”

Pursuing career goals

Both already Memorial graduates – Sheldon with a bachelor of commerce (co-operative) degree and Chelsey with a bachelor of engineering degree – they decided to embark on an MBA to further their career goals.

“I wanted to do my MBA because I have certain career aspirations, and I knew that in order to attain those, I needed a certain level of education,” said Chelsey, who currently works as a project engineer on the West White Rose Project for Husky Energy. “I knew I needed to understand the business side of decisions, not just the engineering side.”

Sheldon, who also holds a chartered management accountant designation, is the finance director at ACENET, a consortium of Atlantic Canadian universities that provides high-performance computing services for researchers.

The couple met in 2013, became engaged in 2016 and got married on Sept. 8, 2018, at Memorial’s Botanical Garden.

They faced some challenges in doing the program together, such as employing different study methods and sometimes bringing debates from the classroom home with them, but overall agree that doing the program together was a supportive experience.

“We had the opportunity to bounce ideas of each other and we were able to challenge each other’s arguments,” said Chelsey.

“I’d say part of my doing well in the program was due to doing it together,” added Sheldon. “I definitely did better in the program than I would have done if I was by myself.”

Sheldon and Chelsey will walk across the stage at the St. John’s Arts and Culture Centre to receive their degrees during convocation on Wednesday, May 29, at 7:30 p.m.