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Re: Unsure About MBA
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25 Jan 2011, 12:50
hi dagman, your questions are extremely broad and I'll try to hit on a few important points that may be relevant. First, there are the different type of MBAs you could opt for: MBA, EMBA, part-time MBA to name a few (that's pretty much it anywa). Each of these mean a bit different to people. What you should ask yourself is exactly what it is that you want? What do you wish to gain/have/garner with another degree in your life? You mentioned that you don't necessarily want a career change, but you ask for what type of career opportunities. With no career change in mind, an EMBA would be very fitting because most EMBAs are looking to enhance their career in the same industry/function and to leverage that career with an MBA. For traditional full-time MBAs, most are looking to jump ship to another career (or career-changers). Given your profile, I don't see any reason why you can't jump to another industry. So to answer your question of what type of career opportunities are available for you, I'd say that whatever you want you can probably achieve (as long as you put in the legwork). In your case, you would simply have to make a very strong case as to why you want another MBA in your life, since you already have a JD. Would anyone consider an MBA in your case? I think that's too vague to be answered by anyone else except yourself. You really have to ask yourself what it is that you want to do in your life in order to determine whether the investment of an MBA makes sense at this point in time. With a firm understanding of what you want to do, then you can look at the different schools available in Canada, US, or even in Europe. There's no general consensus as to going to the best schools - but simply the fact that most people would prefer to go to best schools for career opportunities. The way I like to think about this is that as long as this specific school can help you get to where you want to be, it's a good school. I know some folks who went to small-time regional schools to enhance their careers and they got what they wanted. Not everyone wants to work on Wall Street for Goldman Sach (unless of course you're gearing up for Goldman or McKinsey, then yes you would want to go to the best possible business school out there). With all this said, I just want to cap it out with an emphasis that you will really have to think about what you want to do in 5 or 10 years. If you can nail down that part, the rest will eventually flow out. However, it's quite hard to figure out the career opportunities with an MBA w/out thinking about what you want to do, let alone the fact that it'll be merely impossible to not know what you want to do and get into a business school.