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The uncertain end of a valuable road: Wharton
By PAUL SHEPPARD.
19 May 2003
(c) 2003 Financial Times Limited. All Rights Reserved
Paul Sheppard has spent the past two years studying for an MBA at Wharton. This is his latest progress report.
Is it worth doing an MBA? It is a question that I have frequently asked myself. And as I prepare for my graduation next week without a firm job offer, it is one about which I have mixed feelings.
There is an end of era feeling on campus at the moment. A principal attraction of university life is that it is closeted from the demands and pressures of the outside world. Having complete control over your daily schedule is a luxury that few people have at any stage of their career.
Students are spending less time with their books and more on social activities. Parties are organised for last hoorahs. Yet they tend to lack the gusto reminiscent of our first year. Perhaps this is because many of the students coming to the end of their courses are still without jobs.
Nostalgic students are taking time to evaluate the value of their MBAs. Reflecting on my initial reasons for going to Wharton, many of my expectations have been exceeded. I wanted to broaden and deepen my business understanding.
Having conducted a straw poll of other graduating students, top of most people's lists is Wharton's academic excellence. The course is both rigorous and wide-ranging. I have learned from professors who are genuine pioneers in their fields and who are devoted to teaching students the fundamentals. Consequently, I leave with much greater confidence to tackle a range of managerial issues than I had before starting school.
However, unlike many of our predecessors at top US MBA programmes, few of my classmates graduate with the feeling that the world is at their feet.
I remember reading Peter Robinson's book, "Snapshots from Hell", based on his first year as a student at Stanford Graduate School of Business. Although Robinson discussed the trials of the job market in 1990, he was still able to get interviews with Robert Maxwell, Rupert Murdoch and Steve Jobs in his second year. I cannot think of any contemporary student who has lined up such an impressive range of meetings.
Most students, it seems, compete vociferously to get their foot in the door of leading management consultancies and investment banks.
International students trying to switch careers in the US have pretty much drawn a blank. The steady stream of rejection letters has given rise to a macabre sense of humour and a steely resolve on campus. However, faced with huge student loan obligations coupled with their own high expectations, many classmates are increasingly depressed.
Even those with jobs have taken positions in professions they were hoping to leave behind or in roles lower in the food chain than they had expected. As a result, many of my classmates leave with their confidence bruised.
The students who have been the most successful at leveraging their MBA have been those that have been most focused in their job search.
A friend of mine said that he wanted to come to Wharton as a stepping-stone from his engineering background into a career in financial trading. He has found a good job.
Another couple of students decided early on to side-step the standard recruitment process to take an entrepreneurial route. They are setting up a marketing consultancy that already has an impressive array of clients.
Another classmate will graduate as the chief executive of an automotive dealership in Brazil - he used his existing contacts in private equity to help secure himself a plum job.
However, approximately 40 per cent of the graduating class are still without a job. Most are grappling with a trade-off between taking a position in an area that is not their first choice or holding out to get the offer that they had originally decided to invest in business school to pursue. But there is an increasing caucus of students that would take almost anything.
Inevitably, jobless students are much more prone to criticise the school. This is the main reason Wharton was knocked off its number one spot of the influentialBusiness Week MBA rankings.
The career management, alumni network and Wharton's brand internationally have all come under pressure as a result of the tight job market. To anyone outside the business school world, it must seem a little peculiar that students place such weight on these factors in evaluating their education. However, it is indicative of the fundamental importance of securing a job offer to MBAs.
Wharton's career management office has historically been geared to helping students finding a way into investment banks and management consultancies. However, as Wharton has admitted a more internationally diverse, more professionally experienced and older class, the facilities have been slow to catch up with the broadening student demands. A new director of the career office has been recruited to turn the tide.
The alumni network is weaker than other comparable schools. This is, in part, because Wharton graduates tend to dominate fields in which networking is less important.
It is also a corollary of Wharton's laudable "roll your sleeves up" and meritocratic attitude, which is less self-congratulatory about the university you attended than some other leading US business schools. The brand suffers, in part, from the low profile and modesty of its MBA alumni.
The school, and the Dean in particular, are aware of the problems and are working actively to address them - and with some success. The graduating class is vocal about its proactive attitude to maintaining life-long links with the school. This was exemplified by the record graduating class gift campaign to which 98 per cent of the class donated up to $5,000 each, despite the depressed job market.
Hence, I leave Wharton with mixed emotions. I am definitely ready to live in the real world again, although I am uncertain as to where I will be in six months. And despite not having a decent job offer, I remain confident that my MBA education will be a great resource to draw upon over the next 20 years.
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发表于 2003-8-17 11:42:00
