My Final MBA Thoughts

Here are a few of my parting MBA thoughts for anyone thinking about taking an MBA.

1. The Merage School is a top notch MBA program for Marketing, Finance, Strategy, Real Estate, and Information Technology Management, but I think the big differentiator is how it exposes students to concepts of Strategic Innovation. Strategic Innovation adds an entire new dimension to an MBA education that will grow in demand as companies mature.
2. Work a few years before pursuing an MBA. I see a trend of many students jumping from undergrad to the MBA. I may be biased here, but a great deal of the MBA learning experience is translating the lessons into previous work experiences. I believe this enriches your learning experience and adds value to your investment.
3. If you have a specific company you want to work for after your MBA make sure they regularly visit your selected school. I am not saying it is impossible to work for them if they do not, but it will present you with many more opportunities.
4. Your MBA program is a 21 month job interview. Everything you do in this program will be remembered by your classmates who will be one of your most valuable assets in your career. So to make the most of this experience, you must always represent yourself with integrity, motivation, and respect. If you are not ready, then do yourself a favor and wait until you are ready.
   
5. Be prepared to work more than you are used to. Days, nights, weekends are more than cell phone plan terms. This will not be like your undergrad.
   
6. Prioritize. At times you will be overwhelmed with the work. Your key will be identifying what work will give you the greatest return.
   
7. You will learn much more than your brain can absorb. I still have a wealth of lessons floating around in my brain, waiting to processed and categorized. I hope to be able to do this before I start working, but I doubt it.
8. Extra-curricular activities are just as important as the academics. I think this hard for some internationals to understand, but in a U.S. program these extra-curricular activities are incredibly important because 1) they are great opportunities to network and bond with other students; and 2) recruiters look at these to see that you exposed yourself to experiences beyond the classroom and use them as great interview questions.
   
9. Get to know your classmates. This should go without saying to an MBA applicant, but there will be students who you will rarely see in your program. In my opinion, this is a waste of an MBA education (you should be seeing a theme here that the true value of an MBA is outside of the academics). You will forget most of your class lessons; you will never forget the classmates who shared the experience and invested themselves in getting to know you.
10. Get to know your teachers. This is an area of weakness for myself, but your teachers can be great resources to you in your career. Build a great relationship with them now, in order to make it easier to contact them in the future.
    
11. Orange County is a pretty nice place to go back to school.

That's it for my nuggets of wisdom. I am glad to discover that a few people found value from this blog in making their own MBA decision. I want to thank people for their compliments and comments. I enjoyed sharing my experiences.

End of the Road - Graduation

Twenty-one months comes pretty quick. Graduation was held last Sunday at UCI's Bren Events Center. The ceremony was only 2 hours, but had to show up at 7:30am in order to have class pictures. Of course 7:30am is California MBA code for we are taking pictures at 8:30am, but if we don't say 7:30am you would not show up until after convocation started.

The ceremony made everything official - I have now earned my MBA from a top U.S. university. It was a nice opportunity to thank all of my classmates and wish them luck.

That evening Lindsey, myself and my parents went out to Laguna Beach to celebrate. First we had a drink on the rooftop patio over Hotel La Casa del Camino which has an incredible view of the Pacific Ocean. After the drink, we headed downstairs to the K'Ya Restaurant for a nice dinner. The K'Ya is great because it offers small plate versions of their dishes allowing us to sample and share many different dishes. It was pretty good food and reasonable prices.

Now that the MBA is officially over this blog will transition to more of a family update blog. I will post two more posts on some final thoughts about doing an MBA and a comparison of the MBA to Law School. In the future, I will post about some alumni endeavors as they arise. If you are interested in following my views from a career perspective, I started a professional blog at www.mytechnologycompany.com.

We Got That Funk!

Last Wednesday, Lindsey and I got funky by going to see George Clinton and P-Funk Band at the Anaheim House of Blues. It was alot of fun and just a big party. They would be the ultimate band for a house party as they know how to keep everyone grooving.
Their band is enormous. It is really funny - you watch a band member play for awhile then walk off stage - another band member strolls on stage plays a little bit, then walks off - A man in a pimp costume comes out and high fives the audience, then leaves the stage. It was like one of those clown cars where the clowns keep coming out, just here you continually saw new band members.
George was a cool cat and acted like the conductor of the band. He would gage the audience and decide what funk they needed to keep the party going, then got the band to deliver. It was fun to see the funk legend in action.

Look Ma, All These Colorful Ropes!

We had our graduation banquet where we handed out the program academic awards. I earned the designations as a member of Beta Gamma Sigma (top 20% of business majors) and Dean's Scholar (top 12% of class). As part of the awards I got some colorful ropes to wear with my grad robes for graduation next Sunday. I don't remember us in Canada using fraternity names and colorful ropes to signify academic achievement, so I think it a U.S. thing. I still have no idea how to wear these ropes.
I'm not big for these kinds of achievements, but I am glad I sort of justified the school's fellowship they granted to me by meeting their academic expectations. If there is one thing I was proud of, it was that I accomplished it without specializing in one area. My electives were widely spread out among Marketing, Finance, Strategy, and OB.
Last thing to note is that the Merage women dominated the academic awards despite being a relatively smaller proportion of the class. This did not surprise me because from my experiences the women were generally more motivated and driven than the men. They definitely earned their achievement and I hope the men took notice of what it takes to succeed in this world.

Yeah, I'm Distracted Too

After that last post, I have to admit I am distracted too. Now with a job offer in hand, I am going through the stress of having a thorough background check conducted on me (I don't think there should be any issues, but who knows what would raise a flag for them) and a drug test (American companies are pretty big on this drug test concept). I have a pile of paperwork to sign and I am trying to decipher the various medical, dental and vision plans - what they cover, how much they will cost.
Last week was dedicated to Lindsey and I looking for new places to live. Lindsey put a lot of work in walking areas and contacting landlords. This past weekend, we put a deposit on a place, have been approved, but now need to sign the lease. I don't want to say anything for fear of jinxing it, but the place is frick'in amazing! I will post more once it becomes a reality, but I can say if all works out Lindsey will no longer be an Orange County housewife.
But anyways, last week was exhausting and stressful viewing all these places and figuring out which one is best for us. The good news was that there were a wealth of places and we are ideal tenants (professional, no pets, no kids), so we had a great selection of places to chose from. Now, we can embrace the stress of preparing to move.

MBA Final Quarter Blues

It is really hard for an MBA to stay focused and motivated during final quarter. Generally, finding that new job takes precedence over class work. Even once you find a job, you get a whole new set of distractions: preparing new employment paperwork, background checks, drug tests, preparing for the new job, and finding a new apartment (that may be in a new city). Additionally, as you think about your new career you come to the realization that right now may be the last time for awhile that you will have some flexible time to enjoy life. So, class work gets further pushed down the priority ladder.

I think you need to keep that in perspective when you look at your final quarter group experiences. It is incredibly difficult to be part of a team where one, two, all members are not motivated and/or distracted. In that situation you need to set your expectations low to avoid frustration. While it is great to have the team commit to a group goal, it is very hard for MBAs to admit that they will likely do the minimum or less on this project. So you will end up with everyone saying they will do their best, but their actions will reveal their other priorities. So, the message is even when group goals are set, adjust your expectations downward to reflect the realities of MBA final quarter.

Now you may wonder if there is an Org.Behavior lesson on how to manage a team in this situation? And I think there is, but it is not a pretty answer. If you have an unmotivated and/or distracted team, there will be little you can do unless you can find their motivation and eliminate their distractions. In this situation, you can't eliminate an MBA's life distractions; and motivation really depends on the individual - how interested they are in the project versus other things they could be doing.