People occasionally ask me why I’m doing an MBA. Recently I’ve found it difficult to answer that; I’ve been down in the weeds of it for so long that it’s sometimes hard to remember why I signed up in the first place. So today I decided to write this, partly to explain it to people, and partly to remind myself. The major reasons:
Colleagues and managers told me I should. This wasn’t a reason so much as a driver. I actually wouldn’t have even considered it if a colleague, one of the first people I worked with when I returned to my company, hadn’t suggested I get into the program (my company has a special MBA program set up through a particular university). She was just about to finish hers and suggested I look into it. A couple of years later my new manager suggested I apply, and this time I did.
To assuage a bit of guilt. Yes, I have a business degree, and yes it’s from the same university from which I’m now seeking an MBA. However, my brain just wasn’t geared for learning in those four years, and what little sank in atrophied in the following five years as I took on a series of technical jobs. Around the time I signed up for the MBA I was back on the business side of things and starting to use those parts of my brain again, but I always felt like I hadn’t used those years as well as I could have. Signing up for the MBA helped me make up for that.
To create a good network of colleagues. Networking isn’t something I do well, or easily. It’s anathema to an introvert. My afore-mentioned colleague (and other people I’d since met who’d gone through the program) talked about the benefits of being thrown into a group of 30 people from all over the company and the networks that develop just by dint of being locked in a room with them. So far it’s worked pretty well; I know more people in different parts of my company (and country) now, and I’ve developed some pretty good friendships too.
I just always feel the need to learn something. Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, Dan’s gotta learn something new. I’m not happy unless I’m learning something on a semi-regular basis. As much as I’m looking forward to finishing this thing, I know that two months after I graduate I’ll take for German lessons or teach myself Python or sign up for digital photography classes. Actually, maybe I should delay the education for a little longer and sign myself up for a 10k…
Any of those strike you as weird? I’ve had people tell me they wouldn’t have signed up for four years of lost evenings and weekends for any of those reasons.
[tags]mba[/tags]
Skirl | Dan Dickinson 
If it were easy, everybody would be doing it.
In the same way, I find it hard to explain to people why I’m up at most mornings at 5am. Why I go for days at a time without eating, and why tomorrow at lunchtime I’m going to be sitting in a sauna in a sweatsuit.
What makes it worthwhile is finding out what you’re capable of.
OK, well, I think you’re crazy for all that stuff. But I guess everyone’s crazy; it just depends on what brand. Me, I’m the kind of crazy who considers himself a failure for only watching 61 new movies so far this year.
I never thought of the MBA as a test, though, when I signed up. I guess that’s the nature of this particular program: four years of part-time makes for a marathon, not a sprint. They made that point with us too: we started in one Olympic year (Athens 2004) and we’ll finish in another (Beijing 2008), so it all tied together nicely.