[原创]MBA with no W/E

cannedpineapple

Agree. For most people, applying straight away doesn't make sense. It was simply my experience, when I applied, that nobody else had given (or, could give) me the other side of the story- why it may be good to apply without work experience.

This is the main reason I write my own experience: so that CDers, particularly the minority for whom applying straight out of school may be a good choice, can get a balanced perspective.

stellaecon

I'm sure that an MBA w/o WE can benefit a limited few, and this probably makes the most sense to them. However, you need to know that to most people, MBA is still about finding a better job. Not everyone can enjoy the luxury of spending $$$$$ on school without thinking about the next step after graduation. For those that apply simply trying to expedite career path, they will find themselves utterly wrong.

by the way, Jason, what are your career options after school then? Maybe you can share it with us so people know if it's realistic for them.

cannedpineapple

stellaecon> Agreed. For all of us, we study partly because we want to find a better job. But there is nothing magically different about you just because you got into and graduated from a business school. If business school is first and foremost about finding a better job, and therefore you spend as much time as you can recruiting, then have you really improved as a professional by the end of it? Debatable. This is what I mean by 'we have different goals'.

That piece of paper- MBA- does indeed give you more options. But some people take those job options as the chief and primary goal of business school, because you learn most at a workplace, while some people think that business school is still 'school', and you learn most at 'school'. I fall into the latter camp.

I am going to do sales, in a media company, selling advertisements, after business school. I wanted to work in the media pre-business school, and I want to do sales to learn the economics of the media business. This is extremely realistic for anyone- anyone on this chasedream forum can go and do this right now. You certainly don't need an MBA to do what I am going to do. This is what I wanted to do, so in my second year, I did not even bother looking for another job. I was presented with the option I wanted, and so I took it. It just so happened mine was an easy option, because most people don't want it. All the better for me

But like I said, the MBA has been more than finding a job, which is why perhaps my choice of job may sound strange. I have a specific plan in mind, and that plan lasts for the next 10 years, at least. So I'm not bothered. I got into the MBA programme with the aim to learn, and that's exactly what I've done. At the same time, I realise that part of that may be because of my own naivety, having not worked before, that I think that you can still learn certain things about business from a school environment- be it working with others, classes, and so on. Some people might think this makes me green behind the ears, that I will learn the 'truth' when I start working. They are no doubt right. There is much for me to learn. But at this point, what they see as my curse, my inexperience, I see as a blessing. I think that work experience, too, blinds people to the value of certain types of learning. Inexperience works both ways. I am inexperienced in knowing how to function in a work environment; they are inexperienced in knowing how to learn in a school.

I'm glad we agree that an MBA w/o WE can benefit some, though not all. The same can perhaps be said of any applicant to an MBA programme. Which, interestingly enough, coincides with a key question that all schools ask. Why do you want an MBA, why now, and why at our particular school?

Lastly, to answer your question directly- since I realise that my options are not what most people are looking for. My fellow classmates with no work experience are going to be doing the following things after graduation: PE, Real Estate, Banking, Consulting, General Management, Entrepreneurship. There aren't that many of us, which may explain why other industries (eg. non-profit) are less represented. We have found that the industries that traditionally have high turnover (consulting, banking) are much less open to hiring students with no work experience, since in effect they merely want to 'rent' your services for two years. On the other hand, we have had much better success finding employment in industries like PE, General Management, Entrepreneurship, where they look out for loyalty, for someone to stay a long time- these tend to be more willing to look past our obvious lack of skill-sets and look to our learning ability.

Having said that, some have still been successful in something like consulting. But not me. I think I truly got what I deserved, because I really wasn't spending as much time as these other guys were doing recruiting. But everybody knows that we only have 24 hours a day... and everyone has to make trade-offs. You can't have it all, and what matters most is that you're happy with what you do have, and what you've had to give up.

BTW, the need to make trade-offs in business school is perhaps something most who haven't pursued an MBA don't understand. When you apply, you look out for, I want to do 'x, y and z'. But the moment you go into business school, you realise the choice becomes, 'I am willing to give up a, b and c'. Everyone starts out thinking they can do 'a, b AND c'. But soon you realise- say in recruiting, you wish you only had to spend one hour a day doing it, but there are people around you spending five hours, ten hours- every free moment, even, networking and doing more. So you realise you gotta do more if you really want to get the job, and you do, and eventually all you're doing is that. I didn't do this, which is why I said, I probably get what I deserve.

Anyway, to link this to my experience, I have chosen to give up something which a lot of my classmates, with more experience, haven't chosen to do- perhaps because they value the learning you can glean at the workplace more than I do. This is where my inexperience comes into play. Nonetheless, as I've mentioned above, I think inexperience works both ways, and it's interesting to me that it is the youngest (most experienced with school) and oldest (most experienced with work) guys at business school who have tended to make similar choices as I have.

Jason

monicaasia

constructive advice

cathyzq

赞成楼主

cissechen

Thanks for your sharing. Support ur point.

meixiang

I agree with you.     without working experience,I still want to go to business school.

sisleycheerup

参考参考~~

zstggd

besides MBA
We still have a variety of choice...
: )
Thx LZ