Sunday, March 2, 2008

B-school falacy





So BusinessWeek came out with their Top 100 B-schools list for the year, and of course those annoying zoobies made the top ten (this is for undergraduate programs mind you). The Utes did not show up to play and did not even make the top 100 (how sad is that).
I've pretty much complained since day 1 that I think my MBA program (at the U.) is a waste of time and money. Sure, I've learned a few things, but by and large I've missed out on a lot of things too. I spent most of yesterday studying with some people from my class who spent the better part of an hour rubbing in the fact that they will graduate in May and I still have till the end of the year (long story).
As part of my self prescribed self help therapy I've compiled a small list of things I would have rather spent my time doing instead of going to school for 4 hours a night twice a week after working all day. Here they are in no particular order:
  • Watching good TV (before the writers strike) I got a DVR to combat the fact that I missed The Office every Thursday but it was too late, the writers strike hit, and now I'll I've got are crappy reality shows!
  • Cleaning my house (yes that's right) with a 1 year old and a wife in law school, our house looks like a war zone of laundry, kid messes, legal briefs, and last week's dishes pretty much all the time. I hate it, I can't stand it, It drives me insane, and most likely causes damage to my already fragile mental health, but I have no time to stay ahead of it, so I just have to retreat to my bed in the fetal position and deal with it.
  • Watching college football on Saturday's: I usually spend the better part of my Saturday either studying, or painfully walking the shampoo aisle of Target while my wife sniffs every bottle of herbal essence. I used to be a sports nut when I was a kid, and I seem to have rediscovered my love for football this past year, in part because when we moved to Daybreak I got a flat screen and ponied up for the DirectTV HD. Once you experience it, you'll never look at football on an SD set the same way again. It's beautiful! But alas, I can't watch as much as I'd like for the aforementioned reasons.
  • Pleasure Reading: What do I care what some freaking Harvard (snob) Professor thinks about "Emerging trends in Supply Chain Management related to Chinese Export Policies" ? Don't get me wrong, I am a bit of a business book dork (Seth Godin Rules), but I find most academic writing to be boring, too theoretical, and basically unhelpful (hence my buyers remorse with the whole $30k MBA program). I can think of at least 10 books that I would have read by now, and I don't think I've picked up an issue of Macworld in at least a year (but that' partly because I don't want to torture myself with what I can't have).
  • Exercising: I was looking at the recent blog post my wife made on my Birthday with pictures from our wedding (Isn't she hot!) She still looks great even after having a kid (love ya' babe) but I'm twice the guy I was in those photos, and not in a good way. I had to buy a different pair of pants to wear with that suit because of my additional girth. I have a free full size state of the art gym down the street (another shameless plug for Daybreak) that I have not set foot in except when giving tours to people I work with. How sad is that?
  • Spending time with my family: Having our first son during this time where we are both in grad school is not something I would recommend. I feel worst about the fact that I have not been around as much to watch him to funny things as a baby (though I'm glad I'll be done by the time he's old enough to throw a ball and do really fun stuff). I've also missed spending quality time with my wife. Our date nights consist of trips to Walmart or Target when my mother in law is in town and willing to watch the baby for a couple hours...and you know how I feel about spending time at Target, not exactly "quality time."
So in summary, I would not recommend doing an MBA while you're working. Unless maybe you got your undergrad in something that really doesn't have any marketability in the job market like...Sociology. Then I think you probably need to go back to school because you didn't really understand the purpose of school in the first place. But otherwise, don't do it if you can avoid it. You'll probably never get the Return on your investment and you'll spend the whole time wishing you were doing something else.
OK I'm done venting now.

2 comments:

Leslie said...

Aw, Cam, just wait until we have to start paying our student loans off. Then you'll be really bitter.

Svenhardicus said...

Cam,

Fallacy has 2 l's.

Leslie,

Unless you have man junk, get off our blog.

b.s.