[推荐]一年级学生谈why mba (Washington, Arizona, Cornell, LBS, Wharton)

Anne Turchi: A Jump Into B-School (laceType>UniversitylaceType> of laceName>WashingtonlaceName>)

"I'm taking this leap because I am shocked and amazed at the impact and growth that private enterprise has had on our culture, and I'm angry that the non-profit and public sector hasn't kept up."

My first risk was even considering business school at all. Six years ago I was an arty smarty undergraduate at laceName>EmorylaceName> laceType>UniversitylaceType> with a mild contempt for our campus business school: a brand-new monstrosity that cast a long shadow over the adjacent rickety theater building I liked to frequent. I stayed far away from this long shadow, with its rumored remote-control mini-blinds, three-day weekends, and free keg parties. Not my thing.

After graduating, I entered a career I perceived to be on the opposite end, first as a social worker and later as a program director for a large non-profit (YMCA). I began to realize that maybe the public and private sectors weren't as different as I'd thought. I noticed the people I worked with were all, like myself, more passionate about the "cause" than about creating organizations that could serve their missions efficiently. Pretty soon I began to think that maybe, just maybe, business-trained folks might be able to deliver some valuable benefits to the non-profit world.

When I was admitted to the University of Washington, I took another risk and posted a message on the laceType>UniversitylaceType> of Washington's New Students' Discussion Board, my first experience participating in such a high-tech instant friendship tool. I tried hard to sound friendly and comfortable. Here's what I wrote:

Hi! I look forward to meeting everyone in a few weeks at Preview Day. I've spent the last several years working to develop arts and humanities programming within non-profit organizations. The next two years will provide me with a unique set of skills for this type of work. I have several friends who are currently in MBA programs; the more I hear about the good work that they're doing, the more excited I become.
I'm also a jogger, a volleyball player and a writer.
I live about 2 1/2 hours south of Seattle in Camas, WA. I'll be leaving behind my fianc? Marty, my dog, Huckleberry Finn, and my cat, Ira Glass, while I'm in school.

When I hit "send," my message did not fall in line with all of the other new MBA introductions. Instead, it created its own main category. The topics that people could now begin discussing included, "How to Get Your International Student Visa," "How to Apply for Financial Aid," "Meet your Future Classmates," and "hi" by Anne Turchi.

Because of this misunderstanding between the discussion board and me, I had no other choice but to "lose" my nametag when Preview Day finally arrived. No sense advertising the fact that I was the idiot who didn't know how to use a discussion board.

Preview Day was my first introduction to The Secret Language of Business School. People eagerly told me that they were involved in "programming" this and "supply chain" that, to which I just smiled and tried not to look confused. I'm in programming too: developing arts, literacy, and family programming for low-income kids. Every time someone said "supply chain," I imagined a person building a chain of linked paintbrushes, modeling clay, and other common supplies I purchase for my programs. Halfway through the day, I stopped referring to my field as "programming." I did this because my human services lingo was far outnumbered by computer geek lingo, and because the combination of "programming" definitions and contexts was starting to freak me out.

Preview Day did provide me with some clarity and insight into business school. Our sample class, current student panels, and campus tour led me to some general business school knowledge:

1. Economists are the poets and philosophers of the business world. While other people are running around determining how to make things more efficient, cutting jobs or programming computers, economists are saying Yogi Berra-like things such as this: "When it can no longer continue, it will end." In fact, all of economic theory (that I know so far, after one sample class) relies on the theory that things are exactly as they should be.

That's not to say that I agree with this worldview. My work with recent immigrants, teen parents, and homeless families has given me a slightly different take on positive vs. normative economics. What about things that should not continue, but will until we force change? I imagine myself with a group of economists, sitting in a coffeehouse, drinking lattes and discussing economics. I'm wearing my black poet's beret and smoking a pipe, catching looks of contempt from the humanities graduate students sitting one table over.

2. The rumors are true. Business schools do buy their students alcohol every other week. At least mine does. I think this is to prepare us for the inequality that exists in the world: our future businessmen and women can get the free stuff; theater and philosophy graduate students can pay for their own booze, even though they'll probably need more of it. Better to accept this now.

3. Business school will help me open as many doors as I choose. The University of Washington provides countless opportunities for its students, but the trick to a great experience will be jumping in, taking risks, and trying everything once. W.H. Auden wrote:

The sense of danger must not disappear
The way is certainly both short and steep.
However gradual it looks from here
Look if you like, but you will have to leap.

I'm taking this leap because I am shocked and amazed at the impact and growth that private enterprise has had on our culture, and I'm angry that the non-profit and public sector hasn't kept up. I want to learn the secrets of finance that the financial superpowers use to stay superpowerful. I want to learn the tricks of marketing that have children washing their ADHD medication down with 64-ounce Cokes. I want to learn to plan the way a private business plans and structures, and take this knowledge back to the non-profit world so organizations I serve have a fighting chance to affect our culture in equally positive ways.

I have worked in non-profits where the executive directors decide on budget expenditures with, I kid you not, crystals and fairy dust. I've attended meetings where employees literally wrote their frustrations down on paper and buried them in a pile of sand in the center of the circle. So they could stop being frustrated. If I chose to work instead of entering a full-time MBA program, chances are that I would attain the same level of position within the nonp-profit world, but what difference would I have made? Wouldn't I just be operating the way I was programmed?

This September, I pack my bags and enter a new world. When I get there, I suspect I'll realize that it wasn't as different as I thought and I'll grow less Pollyannaish. I'll probably learn that the tricks and secrets I was looking for don't exist in the business world either: it has no more magical problem-solving fairy dust than the non-profit sector has. Discovering new solutions to old problems will take faith, hard work, and innovation. I'm psyched to give it a shot.

Louis Barkan: Phoenix Rising (laceName>ArizonalaceName> laceType>StatelaceType> laceType>UniversitylaceType>)

"My decision to pursue an MBA was not one about which I deliberated excessively when life demanded a call to action."

A fire burns in the desert, all day long and through the night. The city and I share a dream. Phoenix Rising.

Long before Bank One Ballpark installed its absurdly gratuitous eyesore, a spool (spa/pool) in deep right, the land of the city of Phoenix was inhabited by the Hohokam Indians, who had cultivated the area by creating an extensive series of canals to irrigate the desert. A drought wiped them out by the mid-1400s. But, about 400 years later, John Swilling was inspired to deliver once again life to the area of sun-baked rock that now is the sixth-largest city in the country, a golf/resort mecca, and an established manufacturing base for several multibillion-dollar global concerns. His friend, Darrell Duppa, suggested they name the place Phoenix, for as in the myth, in which a great firebird lives and dies amid flames only to ascend again from its ashes, so too would a great civilization arise where another had died. Since my life was thrown into upheaval three years ago, I have had the Phoenix myth in mind and envisioned myself, out of necessity, another of the great firebirds who must rise again.

My decision to pursue an MBA was not one about which I deliberated excessively when life demanded a call to action. In fact, after doing a thorough cost-benefit analysis of laceName>ArizonalaceName> laceType>StatelaceType> University's W.P. Carey School of Business, it was a pretty easy decision to make and one made with a high degree of confidence. The funny thing is that I had spent much more energy and time ruminating and debating the value of law school vs. B-school, or for that matter any additional school, while working in the film business and planning contingency plans in and around the highs and lows of that industry. After 11 years in the film biz (the last exhilarating two spent attempting to produce my own films), all of the projects in which I personally invested so much and worked so hard to create were dead for many different reasons, and to make matters worse, I was flat broke and needed a job. I thought about working again as an assistant at an agency or production company, but the idea of that grind, a thankless one in many instances, offered very little appeal. Moreover, I was stung and embarrassed by the rejection, more than a little embittered with my failure and wanted a new opportunity in a new place. I thought very seriously then about going back to school, but I didn't want to take on any debt and felt I needed a grounded work experience to get back on my feet, develop new skills and spring a new career. The only problem was I really didn't have a clear idea of what I wanted to do, and I found myself at the proverbial crossroads, befuddled and straining mightily to see a sign. I finally got an answer when my father called.

Thirty-six years ago, my father and grandfather started a janitorial/industrial supply business. With a little luck and a lot of hard work, they were able to build a successful business that provided well for their families. My father, whom I love and respect deeply, is an expert businessman and salesman. Part of his formula for success in life and in business extends from the philosophy that a problem, or failure, really is just an opportunity for success. This was something that he drilled into the heads of me, my brothers (I have three ?Andrew, Alex and Ryan) and the employees who worked for him. As it turned out, he had a compelling business opportunity for me.

The majority of our family business was focused on government sales, in particular to the Department of Defense, for which we had designed and delivered a range of proprietary products. He had just teamed up with an "800-pound gorilla" office products/commodities retailer that was trying to enter the growing business of providing privatized supply/logistics solutions to the federal government. Our family business had extensive experience in this field, and together, my father and this "800-pound gorilla" successfully pitched and won a bid to provide goods and services to one of the largest military training facilities on the West Coast that served close to 60,000 soldiers and dependents. My dad wanted me to assume the critical role of managing our sales and marketing efforts associated with that contract. Additionally, I would serve a similar function in support of our responsibilities to a separate joint military-marketing agreement our company had with a major global paint manufacturer.

While I was at first a little daunted by the task at hand, I nonetheless remained confident in my general abilities and eagerly looked forward to the opportunity. I'd be able to stay in Southern California, earn a decent living, and apply the strong entrepreneurial ambitions I cultivated in the film business to a more traditional business sector. It also felt immensely good to be able to contribute positively to our family's good fortune by growing sales and providing an exceptional level of service to our clients. Uncommonly high quality service was a cornerstone of our company's success since day 1, and I was enraptured with assuming this role and continuing to serve as a beacon for the company values which my grandfather and father articulated when they first incorporated. In fact, I saw that superlative aspect as one of our fundamental and inimitable competitive advantages in a business and world that, to my eye, paid only cheap lip-service to such a standard. I soon moved from my small Beachwood Canyon apartment in the Hollywood Hills to an ocean-view condo on the Del Mar coast.

The business was good, and I began enjoying my life in ways that I had not experienced throughout my stay in Los Angeles. Not that one was better than the other; my new life was just satisfying in a different, steadier manner. I love Los Angeles (except for the traffic of course) and all of the cultural value it offers, but the life of an independent film producer was a giant continuum of speculative effort that offered little and infrequent positive feedback or measurable progress. If you haven't taken OB yet, you will learn that clear and constant feedback is essential for creating vital educational and motivational processes which are fundamental in enhancing performance. In my new life, I found that I relished daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly sales results, for they gave me a clear indication of my progress as well as pointed to areas of my work that needed attention and improvement. Further, I thoroughly enjoyed being able to end a long, hard day's work by reaping the intrinsic satisfaction of having helped customers who sincerely appreciated the expertise, support and very high levels of customer service that I and the company delivered. As I said, I was able to see our measurable progress, and we progressed very well, helping this "behemoth" build its most successful retail outlet in the country. As we looked toward the future, everyone in our company felt a swell of pride and accomplishment as we sensed a new positive evolution taking shape in our company.

Even within our family dynamic, inspiring changes occurred. The fact that we worked so closely together inherently brought our relationship closer, and therefore another very positive attribute of the job was that I was able to re-establish a closer bond with him and the rest of my family. My mother and two of my three brothers also were involved in the business though they were based in Norfolk, Va., at the company headquarters.

Things progressed smoothly for about a year and a half as my education in this business grew, and I honed my skills. It also was a great honor to serve respectfully the needs of the military as it ramped up for an Iraq deployment. Everyone contributed admirably, and a general feeling of singular and selfless purpose permeated our tasks and activities.

To maintain our position and properly service the contract which we helped design and win, our company was faced with having to spend heavily in transaction-specific investments which made us vulnerable in the event that our retailing partner decided to exploit the opportunity. Despite the advice of others who knew of the perils inherent in partnerships between large companies and small, we decided the benefit was worth it, and we accepted the risk and proceeded forward. The aforementioned goodwill cracked when I discovered certain threatening and opportunistic actions that this particular "gorilla" company was taking against ours, their partner. Intense conflict emerged, and things heated up pretty quickly. Though it would be inappropriate to go into detail here, suffice to say, this discovery quickly brought our relationship to an end.

As misfortune would have it, our company experienced a few other critical downturns over the next two years, and we soon found ourselves vulnerable and, like the Hohokam, struggling for our very lives. Business troubles aside, my mother was then diagnosed with carcinoid syndrome, a very rare form of cancer, and the disease took its toll on her and us during this very tough time.

However, under the exceptional leadership and courage offered by my father, who acted in a manner that I imagine a Hohokam chief might have embodied, our family and company fought valiantly for the next year, with integrity, and to exhaustion, in order to survive. We weren't just fighting for jobs, we were fighting for a tradition, a certain way of living, a legacy. The company offered the kind of life that was worth fighting for. People developed long-standing relationships and shared lives there. I had known some of the people who worked there my entire life, people who were at my bris and had held me when I was in diapers, people who celebrated my bar mitzvah, and who loved my grandfather and stood with me at his funeral. But in the end, no act of will or amount of prayer would provoke a miracle. We had to close the doors, and like the Hohokam, whose name means "vanished ones" in the Pima dialect, we found ourselves fumbling through the dust looking for things that once were ours but disappeared.

I went home to Virginia, and the next three months were grueling physically and mentally as we closed the business and cleared out the buildings. Toward the end one day, after hauling out the collected debris and breaking down the last of the metal storage bins in the warehouse, my brothers and I came across one of our old company signs that had the original company logo and motto emblazoned on it.

That sign must have been over 20 years old. It's very likely that shortly after that sign was first painted and hung, my father would have walked into the building on a Saturday morning to wrap up some business from the previous week. He would have walked in through the warehouse, and the building would have been quiet and dark. He would have been carrying my youngest brother in his arms, and he would have flipped on the lights, looked proudly up at the sign and thought optimistically about the future. My brother wouldn't have known what it meant then. As we stood there huddled around that yellowed and cracked sign, the irony struck all of us as we read, "Quality Service is Our Business."

The Phoenix metaphor aside, the survival instinct is a strong one, and in the aftermath of all of this, I needed to reinvent myself. The fact is that despite the tragedy, I learned many invaluable lessons, and though I was a little beaten up, I realized that I had a great amount of strength and wasn't licked. The old maxim "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" is indeed a vital perspective. Indeed, as my father suggests, what is a mistake or failure but an opportunity to create something good?

A few months after we closed our business, my girlfriend, who works as an H.R. executive for a global manufacturer, was offered a new job in the Phoenix area. It was a great opportunity for her to work in a new business unit, learn a new skill set and move her career forward. The move also afforded me the opportunity to look seriously at business school as the best way to acquire the necessary tools to fully utilize the lessons I learned and harness my talents in order to create a new life and fulfilling career. As I said earlier, when life demanded a call to action, the decision was an easy one to make. Originally I focused my inquiry mainly on Arizona State University and Thunderbird, and found that both schools had compelling and well-regarded programs. However, after many interviews with staff and alumni from both schools who graciously gave of their time, I confidently decided upon ASU's W.P. Carey School of Business. The decision had little to do with the fact that William Polk Carey and my great-grandfather, Edward Polk Merritt, shared the same middle name. Rather, I felt that the W.P. Carey program, which is home to Edward Prescott (2004 Nobel Prize winner), would best be able to deliver to me a solid business education and foundation on which to build. Further, I felt very strongly about taking advantage of the opportunity to pursue a dual concentration, coupling the expertise and renown of its nationally recognized supply-chain program with a strong strategic marketing education in order to expand my skill set.

And, like John Swilling, I too find myself in Phoenix and inspired to restore life and deliver prosperity. When I finally made the decision to embark on this path, I realized that the desert is as good a place as any (if not the best place) for the journey to begin.

Kate Ng Who I Am, and Why B-school Is For Me (Cornell Johnson)

"I'm still baffled how a club-hopping and winter-fearing person like me talked herself out of her element"

I cannot pinpoint the exact moment that I decided to return to school for an MBA. If anything, school was something my siblings and I shunned throughout our Vietnamese–American childhood. It was as if to defy the very academic standards our Asian cohorts studied all night to set. Regardless, as many first-generation Americans can attest, my parents kindly drilled into our consciences the sacrifices that were made for us kids, particularly for our education. So, in a way, my motivation for an MBA stems from guilt, fear, and other subliminal messages my mother embedded in her dinnertime speeches. In other ways, it is a natural by-product of my personality, professional influences, and life aspirations. Like many MBAs, I have a taste for luxury, a desire for adventure, a fascination for travel, and most importantly, a tolerance for hard work (as a means to acquire all of the above). Rather than a list of traits, I think a "blast from my past" better paints a picture of who I am and how I got here.

Around the time I graduated from laceName>JameslaceName> laceName>MadisonlaceName> laceName>UniversitylaceName> in Harrisonburg, Va., my parents wanted to buy a Sunoco gas station/A-Plus convenience store. This transaction required at least one of the proposed owners to achieve a passing score on a Sunoco-administered exam. My mother, an entrepreneurial businesswoman, failed the exam, missing every question that tested any ability to communicate in the English language. Luckily for her, the job I had accepted with Sprint's Associate Engineer Program was not starting for another three months. I wasn't really doing anything, so would I mind taking the exam in her place?

My mother's request (in broken English) was the first I had heard about a gas-station venture, but reflexively, I cooperated, not needing nor inviting elaboration. I was an indifferent bystander, not only absorbed in my own affairs, but also all too familiar with my parents' seemingly erratic business decisions. A gas station was merely the latest in a long line of businesses (7-Eleven, Minuteman Press, Eagle Printing, Colony Liquors) my parents had owned. Ignorance about the gas-station buying process was what allowed my parents to trick me into participating in the next step: gas station school.

laceName>SunocolaceName> laceType>UniversitylaceType>, outside Philadelphia, was where I grudgingly relocated for two months to obtain the required Sunoco certification. Only those who passed the Sunoco test were admitted to Sunoco University, where the mission was to train and empower the work force in convenience-store retailing. Craig, our distinguished professor, was responsible for "fueling our success," and "making gas happen." Weekly exams were standard, and success was ensured by faithful recitations of Sunoco acronyms, one being the fundamental GUEST principle (Greet-Understand-Enthusiasm-Smile-Thank You!). Course material included: Principles of a Positive Attitude, Did I Greet My Customer?, and How to Handle Food. In summary, Sunoco University was my personal circle of hell.

After all, I was too cool for mini-mart vocabulary and hot-dog-patterned ties. Like many of my classmates during the Internet boom, I managed to score multiple job offers months before graduation day. I needed management training as much as I needed the Sunoco University Certificate of Achievement, affectionately printed from the inkjet on Craig's desk.

I've emotionally disowned it, but Sunoco University, whether I accept it or not, is a part of my identity. Growing up, my parents didn't have just jobs, but businesses, in which my brothers, my sister, and I became employees. After arriving in the U.S. in 1975, they lived in a refugee camp and were dependent on economic assistance. Determined to create opportunity, Hien and Ha became "Tony" and "Maria" and slowly acquired wealth through small-business and real-estate investments. By the time I reached high school, we resided in what I would call the preppiest neighborhood in Northern Virginia. Instead of Hoang Lan, I went by the cheerleader-friendly "Katie" and our immigrant roots existed only in the memory of my parents. However, with recent MBA ambitions and the pursuit of my own opportunities, I'm afraid my family's values have come back to haunt me. The gas station, Dad's printing business, Mom's liquor store, a complete neglect of child labor laws — they all represent a work ethic I was forced to inherit and a spirit I learned to admire.

Family operations introduced me to small business and entrepreneurship, but it was really my current work environment that drew me to the concept of business school. After a devastating and completely uncalled-for layoff by Sprint, I was hired by a minority- and family-owned company called Unified Industries Incorporated (UII). As a mentor company in the Department of Defense Mentor-Protégé Program, UII hired me to consult with its protégé firms in the development of technology solutions and marketing strategies. Because it was a small, unstructured work environment, I found myself in different functional roles, particularly operations, business development, and information technology. At a higher level, I was also exposed to corporate strategy, implications of management decisions, and organizational behavior — issues in which I had an interest, but no real intellectual contribution. Surrounded at UII by MBAs as my managers and mentors, I saw business school as the next natural step in taking their lead.

After over three years with UII, I decided to go back to school, a transition that took over a year of application preparation and submissions. I started the process by reading books, attending forums, and talking to managers at work. Because business school for me is more about a comprehensive connection of disciplines rather than specialization, l knew I wanted a general management school with a flexible curriculum and a strong international program. To reduce risk and maximize acceptance probability, I targeted schools at which I had already established a personal contact, whether it be an admissions officer, student, or alumnus. For some reason, I was convinced that if I e-mail people enough, they will start to like me. Finally, I thought about where I most liked the environment and where I found students to be most approachable, genuine, and just fun to be around. At the end, I was left with UCLA Anderson, Cornell Johnson, Georgetown McDonough, NYU Stern, and Texas McCombs.

After three abominable months of waiting, four miraculous acceptances, and one decision extension (kindly granted by NYU), I chose Cornell. Cornell is a place where not only the business school, but the entire university, is distinguished for its tight-knit community.

It is in this setting where I best envision myself getting to know my classmates well and having the most enjoyable experience overall. I'm still baffled how a club-hopping and winter-fearing person like me talked herself out of her element. But the more I discover about my new classmates and the cool little town I will call home, the more I am reminded of why I can't wait to start.

Hussein Kanji: Why London? (laceName>LondonlaceName> laceName>BusinesslaceName> laceType>SchoollaceType>)

"I know I'm taking a gamble. I'm making a bet on a school that's largely unknown in the United States, passing on my alma mater, and moving to a country where technology seems to mean individual taps for hot and cold water."

Two days ago, I wrote a rather hefty check to laceName>LondonlaceName> laceName>BusinesslaceName> School. Actually, in that great American tradition of consumer debt, I charged the amount. Either way, it's official. I'm heading to the United Kingdom and going back to school.

There are a couple of different kinds of reactions I get when I share my news.

One reaction is that lots of friends stare at me, befuddled. You're doing what? What do you need business school for? Do you know how many MBA graduates would kill to do what you do now? What do you hope to learn that you haven't already picked up?

I suppose it's because they think I've done well for myself in my career. I guess I've been pretty fortunate.

It wasn't too long ago that I was invited to help build a new strategic acquisitions practice at Microsoft (MSFT). Without giving away too much, my job is to help Microsoft divisions craft their inorganic growth strategies. I recently spent a couple of months jamming on MSN's acquisition framework. To my friends who love corporate life, I couldn't be in a better spot. My VP, a former partner at McKinsey, deadpans that my job is high beta – high-risk, high-reward. He's right. The job is great. It's one of those rare gigs that let you make a direct impact on an industry leader. There's a definite opportunity cost in leaving.

So why pack up, move to another continent, and attend London Business School?

Two reasons.

I had my career eureka a few years ago in the midst of raising a first-round of financing for my startup. Up until that time, I had always thought of myself as an entrepreneur. But as I began to work with the venture capital community, a thought struck me: Should I be considering early-stage venture capital as a full-time profession?

I was bitten by the startup bug early on. My freshman year at Stanford coincided with the birth of Mosaic Communications. Mosaic, of course, became Netscape and one of the Web's first success stories. In the wake of its IPO, I began to juggle a typical set of college activities — classes, writing for the school paper — with a more peculiar set — advising local startups, being a founding employee of a Web startup (which sold to KPMG), joining Sun Microsystems' strategic technology team, etc. All of this culminated in my attempt to start a dot-com in 2000, which ended when my founders and I decided not to take the money we were offered (for a litany of reasons).

It also sealed my decision to want to enter the venture-capital industry. This decision still catches some people off-guard.

Given the interest in venture capital, however, most understand. An MBA is pretty much de rigueur for the venture profession.

There are still a few holdouts. I still affectionately get "the lecture." Technology entrepreneurs don't need MBAs, I'm told. Look around. Does Steve Jobs have an MBA? Larry Ellison? Bill Gates? Entrepreneurs should start companies, not dilly-dally at venture funds or at business schools.

One friend, who sold his company for a quarter-billion and made the cover of this magazine, has been stalwart in his advice. Return to entrepreneurship. Start a company. My old boss, a former vice president of Microsoft, still gets a kick out of recalling that every recommender I turned to — including himself — sat me down, delivered stern caveats about why not to do an MBA and told me to go think about starting a company before handing me my recommendations.

In the end, though, everyone understands.

All this may explain the desire for an MBA. But not necessarily my choice of school. That's usually the next set of questions I get.

Why London? Why not Stanford? Or Harvard? Do you really want to live and work in Europe? (I'm not sure. It depends.) Stay in technology? (Definitely.)

Wouldn't Harvard or Stanford make a much better fit then? After all, if you really love high-tech, they say, you're far better off at Stanford. It's right down the street from the epicenter of venture capital. Why pack up and move to another continent just to attend business school?

Earlier this weekend, I read an interview with Jeffrey Garten, the outgoing dean of Yale's School of Management, in The New York Times. Garten asserts that schools are not doing enough to prepare students to operate in a global economy. That may be true of American schools, but I don't think the same could be said of the European schools. Schools in Europe are forced to operate in a far more global climate.

As much as I want to play to my strengths, I think school is all about the chance to plug weaknesses. I grew up in cosmopolitan New York, spent a year abroad in the Middle East and worked for the world's largest technology company, but the truth is I don't know much about business overseas.

The way I see it, technology development is increasingly dispersing overseas. Software is inherently fluid. We can argue about how long this phenomena will take to become wide-scale, but it's a clear long-term trend in the industry. There have been an explosion of articles describing the Indian, Chinese, and even Eastern European talent pools. All these markets have some comparative advantages over the U.S. (although some clear disadvantages as well).

I'm not sure how many individuals like myself, who have a good grounding in technology and an interest in international business, exist. My feeling is it's a small number. I'm hoping scarcity is on my side. Partners at funds whom I keep in contact with seem to think I'm making a sound move. My fingers are crossed.

As far as school goes, John Mullins, a professor at London Business School who holds a Stanford MBA, put it best. Twenty years ago, Harvard was the top dog and Stanford's reputation was being established. People raised an eyebrow if you chose Stanford over Harvard. Today, Stanford's become the pre-eminent business school for entrepreneurship and technology, and is pretty much on par with HBS. There is something about London Business School that feels very much like Stanford did back then. For a 40-year-old program to rise to world-class status in such short period of time only portends well for its future. I think London's emphasis on international business will only work in its favor long-term.

I know I'm taking a gamble. I'm making a bet on a school that's largely unknown in the United States, passing on my alma mater, and moving to a country where technology seems to mean individual taps for hot and cold water.

I'm not worried. I guess it's because I'm such a big believer in serendipity. Sure I fret over financing, readjusting to student life and lost salary. I know I'll always wonder if I'm sidelining myself in an ever-changing industry. But I have faith.

Years ago, when all my high school classmates found themselves applying to the same set of colleges in the Northeast, I decided to be different and go to a school 3,000 miles away. At the time, all I knew about Stanford was that it wasn't Harvard, it wasn't Yale, and it was supposed to be just as good. I may have had a grand belief that I could lie out in the California sunshine and work on a tan while my classmates were slogging through another New England nor'easter. (Nobody ever told me about Bay Area rain.) What I never expected was for Stanford to introduce me to high technology and Silicon Valley. That made attending it one of the best decisions of my life.

I like to take risks. Going off the beaten path works well for me. It's the same attitude that took me to Yemen (another story, another time) and it's what is leading me to London. I'm excited. This is going to be a brand new adventure. I can't wait.

Grant Allen: Who I Am, and Why B-School Is for Me (Wharton)

"From my $135K investment, I hope to gain a sound set of management skills, a grounding in finance and marketing, a diverse and successful set of lifelong peers, plus personal branding..."

CONSULTING TO PHILADELPHIA.  As a thus-far career consultant, it continually amazes me how much time you devote to logistics. Meetings, deadlines, deliverables, travel – they define your life. Who's interviewing Ms. Soanso and Mr. Bigswingin'? That pack's due when? Who's finalizing our flights? And which airline has the prime frequent-flyer program? (Answer: Continental.)

Winding down my job this past June, I remember sitting in my Cleveland hotel room at 11 p.m. sketching out an agenda for the next day's client meeting, idly wondering if I made the right choice staying at the Ritz Carlton when the outmoded Marriott was so much closer to the client. My thoughts were thick from the molasses politics of the day's meetings and the client's oracular business jargon . . . "Vision Meetings" and "Domain Capabilities" . . . Let's throw it up against the wall and see what sticks, then we can get down to brass tacks. It was a too-real case of b.s. bingo gone acutely awry.

This is an admittedly clichéd example but, as with reputations, clichés usually have some basis in fact. Mostly, though, I found the industry to be exciting, inherently varied, and quite rewarding. Yes, arduous travel can be part of the equation and client inertia can boil your blood, but that's the job and it requires patience, leadership, keen communications, and mental dexterity to tender value and succeed. I loved it.

For me, consulting provided a broad business education rather quickly by letting me "have at it" with a slew of business problems across a broad industry spectrum. These often enervating, sometimes migraine-inducing problems provide variety (I get bored fantastically easily), creativity (I used to oil paint, now I get paid to think), and challenge. Gaining the necessary hard skills so I can continue business leadership and problem-solving at a higher, general-manager level is the major impetus behind my decision to attend business school.

Specifically, I've decided on Wharton. I started August 3 so there was little time for far-flung, post-work summer trips to Southeast Asia or fantastic KAOS gigs like they have at Kellogg. Penn instead has a mandatory pre-term where you brush up on math, stats, and microeconomics, attempting to close the skills gap with the Wall Street wonks in accounting and finance. Except for the math test you must pass (the hurdle is a 55%; surprisingly, folks still failed), Wharton Pre-Term was in reality a month-long happy hour meant to coalesce the class and introduce everyone to Philadelphia, cheesesteaks, and college (again!). It was an absolute blast.

ME IN AN AIRLINE PEANUTSHELL.  Some highlights from the G.R.A. resume: I graduated from Duke in 2000, where, according to Tom Wolfe, "the roseate Gothic spires and manicured lawns" play backdrop to a jock-obsessed, anti-intellectual climate. Hogwash. Yes, basketball's big, but Duke's much more. I was a civil engineering major but eschewed my formative passions of art, architecture, and design in exchange for a promising and hopefully lucrative career in Internet something-or-other . . . maybe start my own sock puppet online pet store or better.

In 1998, I founded a Web design company, A-k Presence, and was immediately haranguing clients, building Web sites while abroad in Australia, and developing managerial skills shepherding programmers at Duke and MIT. I also interned with a "Big 5" e-strategy outfit and oversaw marketing for OnCampusRecruiter, a now defunct dot-com.

In 2000, I accepted a full-time offer from a young firm in Boston named Nextera (also now defunct), where I "helped build a beta site for an incubated financial services dot-com," among other things. Mostly I played foosball. The whole experience was so 2000 — the Aeron chair, exposed brick, leverage your core competencies rigmarole. And, yep, I'm 22 and never had a real job, so you better listen up.

To the surprise of everyone except everyone, we were all soon laid off. I spent the next two-and-a-half years in multifarious roles: project manager for a Delaware IT firm, helping with a faith-based philanthropy group in Cambodia and Vietnam, waiter/bartender in Boston's Beacon Hill, and working with high-powered attorneys and Ph.D.s down in Washington developing epidemiological damage models in support of nine-figure asbestos bankruptcy settlements.

I thought about applying to B-school, but I decided I needed (and wanted) a broader consulting experience beforehand. In 2003, I moved to a 60-person strategy consulting firm in northern Virginia, Dean & Company, where I worked as a generalist strategy consultant for telecom, banking, and even weather forecasting clients. "Typical" projects there were not, but Dean's consulting practice does skew towards data- and operations-focused cases. I traveled about 25% of the time, and, generally, the people were mind-bogglingly intelligent and quite quirky, but I guess those go hand-in-hand. The experience certainly lived up to its educational expectations.

THE WHARTON WAY.  So that's it. I still consider myself a consultant, going so far as to interview for and get a paid MBA consultant position with Wharton's Small Business Development Center where I'll be working with sub-$10M firms looking to grow or change their business (stay tuned for more on SBDC). As far as my in-classroom experience, I'm looking to build my hard skills, especially in finance, hence the decision to attend Don Trump's "School of fin-ANTS." Like Duke, though, Wharton is so much more. I'm actually planning on steering clear of all the intense finance classes with the Gordon Gekko wannabes, instead getting my quant base out of the way quickly and shifting focus to marketing, entrepreneurship and general management.

Wharton is major-based and aggressively academic (though not nearly as much as, say, Chicago, I think), so you really have the opportunity to learn more from a skills perspective than you would in a purely case-based environment. Wharton prides itself on substance, navigating the fine line between textbook skills and the real-world experience that I think this is crucial to attaining both the "CEO perspective" and the operational know-how to control details and be successful at all levels of an organization.

Wharton has also impressed me with its driven community. To a high degree, students mold the experience, driving curriculum change, club formation, career development, and a very full social life that always has you going, talking, drinking. I think our next event is Walnut Walk, where the school goes bar-hopping wearing formal business attire up top and bedtime apparel (boxers for guys, for girls I don't know what) down below.

More dramatic than this re-entry into such a collegiate social life, though, has been re-entry into an academic environment as immersive as Wharton's.

Missing the occasional class is not an option and case preparation is prerequisite; pity the fool who gets cold-called in marketing without adequate analysis in paw. And then there's the equally odd-feeling transition which I can already feel sneaking up on me of re-entering the "real world" this summer and then after school. Assuming an entrepreneurial tech or private equity firm doesn't nab my interest, I'll be moving back into consulting (yes, more case interviews come February!). Ideally, I'd then move into an internal strategy capacity to gain greater operational exposure. My long-term goal is to get into VC and start my own technology company focused on wireless software and emerging applications, but not necessarily in that order, while also keeping up my nonprofit involvement.

Getting my MBA at Wharton is an integral piece of this career jigsaw puzzle. From my $135K investment, I hope to gain a sound set of management skills, a grounding in finance and marketing, a diverse and successful set of lifelong peers, plus personal branding that will follow me as I move from consulting into private equity, business ownership, and wherever else I want to go.

BESTING THE BEAST.  As for applying, begin early, know what you want, and be very ready to answer the question: Why MBA? Why now? Why our school? You need to have these questions down. Yes, you need to knock out the GMAT, get your recommenders prepped to say wonderful things about you, and write about the time you saved XYZ Company from impending disaster while in your ample spare time leading the construction of an orphanage in Zaire. (Of course, you run and win marathons and paid your way through Yale, too, running a hedge fund on your laptop.)

Seriously, the messaging is crucial. You have to sell yourself as a low-risk admit who is self-actualized (not just type-A) and able to get the most out of their specific program. You need to really add to their community. So, know what makes you unique. I thought at first as a Caucasian consultant with an engineering background and scattershot extra-work leadership, I was bland. I then invested considerable time highlighting my uniqueness (work overseas building churches, founding a cancer advocacy nonprofit with my physician father, you get the idea), and saw my unique story begin to bubble to the surface. Only one of my core essays discussed work.

Definitely read your Montauk book, take your Kaplan course, do what you need to. But also take a week or two off, sit on the beach, meditate, swim with the dolphins, whatever. Just take the time to know the WHYS. Unlike law school, there aren't any stats keeping you out of business school, only a disimpassioned individual or an inarticulate message.

Truly, don't be afraid to demonstrate excellence in a niche that excites you, even at the expense of your job. I've seen countless people succeed in the B-school application process without the Goldman Sachs analyst credentials or the McKinsey pedigree. I've seen the 620 GMAT succeed with HBS, heard of a few 3.1 GPAs in my class here, and know that my friend who played hooky in India for a few years (albeit with a start-up tech firm) will soon be making that all-so-hard H/S/W decision.

What differentiated these people was a predilection toward leadership and excellence in whatever they touched. Banking, consulting, NGO, politics, you name it — they took the bull by the horns and made good stuff happen. Then you just have to take that example of impact, tie it to a set of well-conceived future goals, and turn the whole ball of wax into a tight marketing message. Piece of cake, right?

Thanks brother!!

So much to read!! I extremely like the LBS story!!!

Thanks, JKMBE. Great post.

Thank you for the posts.

Very inspiring essays!

thanks a ton, i really like your story so much! appreciated..

and your English, so deep!

hope to talk to you one day.

my msn: cathy20086(A) hotmail.com