My MBA adventure started after the military didn't release me from my first assignment to go to grad school. During my senior year I was accepted to Duke to do my masters in electrical engineering. I even had a defense-related research project lined up and was offered a lucrative part-time job by a professor because I had an active security clearance. Needless to say I was pretty bummed when I found out I wasn't going to grad school.
I still had the desire to get my masters, so I started looking at graduate programs near my first assignment. Initially, I limited my search to graduate engineering programs, but after some soul-searching I realized I didn't even like engineering (3.1 GPA is evidence of this). In fact, the only reason I studied EE was to get an ROTC scholarship.
I eventually stumbled upon the MBA, which I learned was designed to produce leaders in business, nonprofit, and even public service. I found the MBA appealing because leadership is a big interest of mine (probably due to the brainwashing I experienced in ROTC). Also, I knew I didn't want to stay in the military forever and so I saw the MBA as a good transition to civilian life.
Not getting to do my masters in EE ended up being a huge blessing in disguise. Now, I have the opportunity to pursue what truly interests me. I had planned on applying this year, but I'm going to hold off because I have a pretty sweet assignment lined up and I want to put in a couple more years to get the Post 9/11 GI Bill.
Audio wrote:
My adventure began in a completely random way. Before going to Philly, I lived in a country (Belgium) where MBA studies were not very valued, if at all. So basically, despite hearing about it, I never thought of doing one, also because I thought I didn't have a chance to get in with my career background.
Then one day in September 2007, I had a lunch with a former colleague of mine from a previous job, who became a friend. He told me that he was going to Chicago to do an LLM (roughly the equivalent of an MBA for law). I was very impressed by his achievement. He then told me that I should seriously consider doing an MBA, with my profile. I was really surprised that he thought I was going to have a chance, but he managed to convince me. He told me everything there was to know about getting scholarships, applying, organising the visa, getting the right resources, etc. And after an hour or two (yes, we love long lunches in Europe
), I went from "I'll never do an MBA" state of mind to "I actually have a shot at getting into a decent school!".
To make a long story short, it was a complete coincidence; had I not had that lunch I would probably still be in Brussels right now, with way fewer career opportunities than now. Thanks Maxime.
I almost cancelled that lunch.
Would love to hear from other people, how they started their adventure; was it programmed or also coincidence?