Getting an MBA: Getting to Where You Want To Go

This past week I had a chance to visit with an old coworker who I had worked with at a Big Bank. I recall he and I sitting and him talking about wanting to do more than his current responsibilities. So feeling “sage like” I had rambled on about the value of going back to school (mind you, I only had my bachelors degree at the time) and that he really needed to take the plunge and go and get his MBA.  Well to my surprise he did just that. I mean who actually does that…who gets advice, ponders, and then walks away from a perfectly good paying stable job to go back to school full time? It was not long after him leaving for school that I began to think about what I wanted to accomplish myself.

Not long after he left I found myself considering all the options of an advanced degree and how I was going to make that work. I looked at full time, part time and executive programs. I looked at top tier, second tier, and no tier programs.  I realized that there was a real debate on the various features on MBA programs. Some people only wanted AACSB accreditation while others were willing to accept institutional accreditation. To make matters more confusing further research on my part revealed that you could also have programs that had ACBSP accreditation.

Adding to the confusion was that every open house attended seemed to position their program for different people. Some programs were clearly after high profile candidates from well known companies. Other programs seemed to be geared for candidates who had little to no experience. The maze to higher education seemed endless. Full time or part time, distance or brick and mortar, AACSB accreditation or some other accreditation, all of these variables seemed to be important in picking the right program.

Now three years later I found myself coming full circle sitting in my office catching up with my old friend. He had completed his full time program from a top tier school and was now back in town recruiting for his employer. He went from working at a Big Bank with an office to working in a cube farm in California for a industry leader in silicon innovation and processor technologies. He was enjoying life working in the finance department and working on major project launches and mergers and acquisitions.

He laughing referred to himself as “obscenely overpaid” and found himself swimming upstream in a very large talent pool that contained tens of thousands of people. As we spoke in my office I reflected on my own progression. I had found excitement and fulfillment in moving in the other direction. I too had completed my MBA  and now enjoyed working for a company that employed hundreds. I had an office- but it overlooked the people I worked with not the corridors of large corporate skyscrapers.

The programs we had completed both had their names in national business magazines that rolled out annual rankings. They had promised the “world” in only two or three years.  The bigger question was what “world” that would be. For my friend it had meant going “Californian” and  enjoying working on a campus with six thousand other “best in class” colleagues. I had chosen a different world… a small and less hectic world.  I wanted small town banking with a credit union. I wanted to make a difference in the places my family would call home.

As my friend and I laughed and talked about how far we had come not once did we ask each other about accreditation. We did not talk about AACSB or ACBSP. We did not talk about part time or full time. We both agreed that group projects were the worst, PowerPoint’s are over rated, and the GMAT was evil.  So what is the correct answer to all these questions about MBA programs? Does it matter if the program has one type of accreditation or another? Does every program have to drill the math? Cohort or no cohort?

"...Which road do I take? she asked. Where do you want to go? was his response. I don't know, Alice answered. Then, said the cat, it doesn't matter.”

I think the answer to these questions can be found in the question posed to a cat in a tree. In Lewis Carol’s Alice in Wonderland  we read,  “One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree.  Which road do I take? she asked. Where do you want to go? was his response. I don't know, Alice answered. Then, said the cat, it doesn't matter.”

To me we are no different as we consider the various virtues of different types of MBA programs. To really understand what the program can do for you in your career you first have to know where you want your career to go.

How about you…what was the deciding factor for you?