AdmitMBA360 Blog formerly Journey to my MBA

Journey to my MBA

Sunday, July 11, 2004

Why an MBA Now?

I’ve decided to limit my blogging for the next couple of weeks to 2-3 day intervals instead of the pace I’ve been going at which is once a day. I have two very important tests coming up, (GMAT and Class Test) over the next two weeks and as much as this Blog helps me process, it also takes quite a bit of time. In fact, I just read an article on blogging burn-out. I enjoy this weblog so much. I just can’t bear the thought of it becoming such a barrier to managing my most important immediate priorities.

Anyway, I just wanted to answer one last question about myself as I promised before slowing down my pace of blogging. The question I’ll be answering is, “Why an MBA now?”

Dave, your 36 years old… why now?

First some background.
After graduating from college, I was heading for Medical School and my world sort of turned upside down. I ended up not going. During the application process, I ended up taking a job to bring in some cash. I took a job that I thought would be so easy for me to do. It was to be a computer retail sales guy. I did that for a year. As it turned out, I was quite good at it. In fact, I was the number one retail salesman in the NorthWest (4 states) region of my company among all it’s 2800 affiliate branches spread across the U.S. My gross sales beat everyone. I honestly didn’t stay up late working at it either. I came to work, did my thing and left. I got raises and bonuses sporadically that year. It was weird to me how I was doing it. I merely tried hard to be a customer service oriented guy and I spent some time coming up with interesting analogies to explain computer jargon to people coming in saying they were computer illiterate.

I had been dating my current wife during this time and that computer sales job was up in Washington State where my parents were. After about a year and a half, I moved down and took a job in California to be with her. I had gone to school in the area and grew up in Southern California, so it was essentially home to me. My parents moved up to Washington State in my junior year of college.

Now, the why…

Since 1993, I had progressively taken on more and more computer technical roles at companies. I studied on my personal time to improve my knowledge and so this took a bunch of my time until, I went to a Church where I was invited to work and mentor College students. The idea was a good direction for me I thought. I always felt that College age students really needed good mentoring and encouragement. It’s challenging because college age to post college years requires a good deal of emotional growth in being able to manage all the adult hood things of life like money, work, relationships and education.

So began a journey of working with one pastor to find the first student and start a college group from scratch. I guess you could say it was a business startup. Fast forward 6 years and the result was a group of 150 students, 5 additional staff and activities, continuous ongoing strategy meetings, 300 e-mails a day, mentoring and meeting up with 10-12 students individually a week. The group ended up being 3 times larger than any Christian organization on the primary school we had targeted. I had student directors, staff members, ministry activities leaders, various other groups all reporting to me. I was spending no less than 30 hrs a week doing all this. Last I checked, the group is now at 300. It's interesting how a group can grow rapidly once it hits certain size milestones and you bring in the right mix of leadership and creativity. There 15 other Christian groups on this schools campus. The largest one compared to this group I help to start is 40 people now. Many of these groups had previously existed on campus for over 25 years.

Take a step back a bit now. I was working in IT. IT is sporadic in hours. Sometimes, you hit 60 hr weeks and sometimes less. I went from a help desk position early in 1993 to Senior System Engineer years later. With all the time I was putting in with College students, I had very little time to think about career development. There were many weeks when my hours at work and with college students would both kick up so much that I could count the hours of sleep I had on my two hands.

I know I should have put more thought into my career. My vision of where I wanted to be in the 5 yr , 10yr picture always had College students tainting my own personal goals. So I was only thinking about positions that could allow me to work and have time for College students.

I continued to do what I could at work to just get by in terms of knowledge at my job. This meant studying for computer certifications left and right when I could find spare minutes here and there. I studied during lunches, dinners while waiting for students to show up for appointments, even in the bathroom. I know that sounds vulgar, but I was seeking every spare minute to get the most done.

On top of all this, I was still dating my current wife. We had our ups and downs, but that took quite a bit of time as well.

All this time with college students and my work life changed 3 years ago when I got married. I started to realize that continuing with College students was leaving me empty. I was starting to think about what the core of my passions and gifting really were. I was always enterprising, strong in administration skills, strategizing, vision casting, creating new divisions of the College group to address different needs and recruiting students for different tasks and projects. I did this really well to be honest.

The decisions to be made became clearer as I began to realize that I was being called to go with one of the pastors to start a Church in Silicon Valley 6 months after I got married. I felt the conditions were leading me to do it. So my wife and I left all our closest friends and her family to start this Church. I ran Operations, Finances and provided organizational structure management to the new initiative. But I wasn’t getting paid. I would work 40-60 hr weeks and I was starting to wonder about my career and my financial status. When you get married, money matters a lot more. Not in the sense of wanting to be rich, but more in the area of having enough to know that you can take care of the costs coming in and do some occasional fun things. The Church is now over 500 and is the fastest growing Church on the West Coast for our denomination which has over 3000 Churches. Once again, I see my leadership helping to grow organizations. Although… let’s be honest. God has a say you know!

As I contemplated my future this last 3 years since moving to Silicon Valley, I started to reflect on my years working with college student and how my IT career advanced so little because I didn’t try that hard. (I kept looking for jobs that were stable and would give me time to work with students at night or be flexible to do lunches with students)

Reflectively, I saw Executive leadership as something that I loved and was good at. Starting from scratch or building something up from nothing and knowing how to change the infrastructure of the organization to accommodate growth and prevent stagnation due the decision making bottlenecks and to invest into people to get to those levels.

A couple of examples that show what I’m talking about were jobs where I was tasked to build consulting branches of IT companies that previously didn’t exist or to bring in more business. At one company, the gross sales in the first year alone exceeded 3 million dollars. Another company I went to had me initially managing 5 different companies IT departments. Dozens of introductory meetings with new companies later, it turned into 24 companies who depended on my being available to strategize with each company on IT utilization within defined budgets and support of existing IT resources. I would do some of the work, or I would bring in others from my company to help get the work done in a timely fashion. Eventually, when I left the company, 7 of those companies followed me and I ended up supporting them on the side.

Ok, so now back to my situation in Silicon Valley. After about a year, I stopped working at the Church to take a job bringing in money. I was starting to get paid from the Church, but due to other reasons, I decided to pass the baton on to someone else of what I was responsible for and enter the IT workforce again. From that point till now, I’ve taken on numerous contracts because the job market here has really sucked so contracts were the best you could get if you were new to the area. But in the last 6 months was when I decided to stick my neck out and take action on a business school possibility.

So you see, infrastructure, business, leadership, customer service, organizational change, mentoring… these are all things I’ve learned how to do and do better over time. It just makes sense to get the MBA and it seems that the decision to go get it is a natural step in my career growth.



3 Comments:

Blogger Dave for MBA said...

I think I may have to post the answer later. A little too long to answer that here. But for the sake of simplicity. My core reasons are 1) Want to get the most out of the education without juggling work and school(My old room mate got his MBA from UCI doing the part time thing. He was miserable during that time with regards to the quality of his personal life. As I'm married I don't think I want to go through that experience) 2) IT is terribly inconsistant with time spent at work and consequently, would cause me to lose numerous hours to cause me to consider myself a poor candidate in that condition 3) I'd rather build the more robust nature of networking that full time allows 4)

10:47 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...


Hey,

Are you not sure about the chances of getting into the schools you have dreamt for?

We have launched AspirantHunt, a platform for connecting MBA aspirants with admission committees of business schools looking for the right fit for their schools.

AspirantHunt helps in finding business schools that meet the needs of MBA aspirants. Register in less than a minute, fill your details, GMAT scores etc and you are ready to get hunted by the B-Schools looking out here for potential candidates.

Have a look into it

http://www.aspiranthunt.com


Wish you all the best

Anjali Goyal
AspirantHunt Team
AspirantHunt - Connecting MBA Aspirants to the Best Business Schools

8:55 AM  
Anonymous distance learning mba said...

Does the program provide a comprehensive preparation for the tests?
Are there classes for all sections of the GMAT and TOEFL? Are there opportunities to learn strategies for taking tests on computer and computerized test-taking

practice?

9:42 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home

Journey to my MBA Locations of visitors to this page
Stay up to date with this Blog
Monitor changes to links on the sidebars of this Web Site
Dave's E-Mail

Subscribe with Bloglines Subscribe with My Yahoo! Subscribe with Google Subscribe in NewsGator Online Subscribe in Rojo Subscribe with Pluck RSS reader Subscribe with Bloglines Add to AOL
Get Updates of this Blog via Email:

Powered by Squeet.com
Some Noteworthy Blog Postings
Cornell-Johnson Visit Experience-Dave
MIT-Sloan Visit Experience-Dave
Wharton Visit Experience-Dave
Darden Visit Experience-'04-Dave
Darden Visit/Interview Experience-'06-Dave
Darden Pictures-'06
HBS Visit Experience-'04-Dave
HAAS Visit/Info Session-'04-Dave
Columbia Visit/Info Session-'04-Axechick
Tuck Visit/Info Session-'05-Laser
Tuck Visit/Interview '06-Dave
Tuck Pictures1-'06
Tuck Pictures2-'06
--------------------------------------------------------------
Michigan Info Sess. Experience-Dave
Columba Info Sess. Experience-Dave
Tuck Info Sess. Experience-Dave
World MBA Tour Experience-Dave
Travel Guides-Dave
Columbia Open House I-Droodoggie
Columbia Open House II-Droodoggie
--------------------------------------------------------------
Application Essay Advice-Dave
Application Essay Advice II-Dave
MBA App advice-Consulting/Management-Dave
Good Essay question Prep-Uniqpath
The MBA Journey Begins-Dave
The MBA App Process-MarketWiz
Picking Target Schools-Sghama
Pre-App Tips-Bloghorn8
How to interact w/ B-School Staff-Dave
Managing Your Recommenders-ClearAdmit
Schools I Picked & Why-Anand
Import App Elements-Redwolf056
A Successful Essay(Chicago GSB)-PowerYogi
Why Chicago GSB-Paul Jan
Stanford GSB Dean on Essays
------------------ Application Process ------------------
Advice on Admissions Consultants-Dave
Why get an MBA now?-Dave
Why do I need an MBA?-Dave
Story of Tenacity-Dave
MBA App Advice-Dave
Maximize your MBA Info Sess. Exp.-Dave
Low GPA Stories-Dave
Introspect on being resolute-Dave
Why Attitude Matters-Dave
Wharton's Interview Policy-RedWolf
Dealing with a Low GPA
Tuck's App Review Process
UCLA's App Review Process
Wharton's App Review Process
Every Essay Tells a Story
Your Story is so Interesting
What is a great essay?
Am I too young to apply?
When is the best time to apply?
Applying and not sure where to start?
Is school XXX any good?
The B-School Admit Hate List
Hey Applicant, Lay off the Buggin
Should I interview on or off campus?(See comment)
MBA Tour/Info Session Tip
The Interview
------------------ GMAT ----------------------------------
Low GMAT Success Stories
GMAT Score Needed in Europe
GMAT Score Needed
GMAT Score Needed by Age
GMAT Score Needed by Country
GMAT Score Needed by Race
GMAT Score Needed by Major
Budgeting time for the GMAT
Breaking the 700 Barrier
--------------------------------------------------------------
The B-School Route to Career Change
Pre-MBA Resources
MBA Math Build math and spreadsheet skills
Article
MBA Resources show all
--------- Video Interview's of B-School Deans -------
Video Interviews of B-School Deans
------------ B-School Visit Experiences ----------------
Admin Director Interviews
Visit Reviews
------------ MBA Forums ----------------------------------
Business Week Forum
Wharton Student Forum
PagalGuy.com(India)
Chicago GSB Forum
Yale Forum


----------- B-School Articles and News-----------------
How B-Schools get their name
BusinessWeek(B-School Headlines)
The Economist(News from Schools)
The Financial Times(Business Education)
Wall Street Journal(MBA Center)
----------- Gen MBA Info ---------------------------------
MBAMap.com
MBABuzz MBA Blogs, Forum, App Stat Plotter
MBA Info
GMAC
MBAZone.com
MBA Studylink
MBA Jungle
MBA Game Plan
MBA Official Guide
MBA Depot
Top 10 MBA
Ivy League Admissions.com
MBA Podcaster
MBA Jargon
MBA School Directory
Admission411
MBA 4 Success
Military MBA


------------ MBA Program Summary for Applicants---
Accepted.com
BusinessWeek.com
ClearAdmit School Guides
MBAMap.com
TopMBA.com
TheMBATour.com
WSJ School Snapshots
WSJ Who's Recruiting Where?
MBAPrepAdvantage School Profiles
------------ MBA Foreign Related -----------------------
Canadian MBA
Infozee "Foreign MBA"
------------ MBA Conf/Foundations --------------------
Top MBA
The MBA Tour
The MBA Diversity Alliance
Forte Foundation
Catalyst Women
Knowledge@Wharton Podcast
Association of MBAs
------------ Resume Help ---------------------------------
Wetfleet.com
Resumeedge.com
Resumedeli
Darden Resume's
MBA Game Plan Resume Help


------------ Essay Help ------------------------------------
American Dream Project.org - (Dave's Pick)
Essayedge.com (Samples) (Getting Started)
MBA Essay Strategy(download)
MBA Game Plan Essay Help
Some Classic Advice from Wharton Boards
Clear Edit Automated writing editor
MBA Studio


------------- Interview Insight --------------------------
B-School Interview Braindump-Accepted
B-School Interview Braindump-Clearadmit
------------- Ethnocentric Assoc. ----------------------
P.R.I.N.A.
yKAN
LEAD Program for minorities
------------- Post-MBA ------------------------------------
MBA Concepts
------------- MBA Articles---------------------------------
If you want your application to B-School to stand out;first do your homework properly, and then apply early
Admissions Tip:HBS Essay #2
Writing good essays from an ADCOM perspective
Top 5 MBA programs Article
The Full-Time Advantage
Overcoming Procrastination
Why B-School is good for our Economy

MBA Ranks show all
Ranks by Industry Sector Show
--------------------------------------------------------------
Forbes ranking measures the graduates' return on investment
Economist ranking reports how students and alumni rated their MBA experience
BusinessWeek surveys students and corporate recruiters and measures intellectual capital
Wall Street Journal is a corporate recruiter based poll (21 criteria)
U.S. News & World Report evals student selectivity and placement data and gathers the perceptions of deans and program directors to develop the ranking
Financial Times poll measures career progression of alumni, program diversity and a school's track record in producing new ideas in management
--------------------------------------------------------------
BusinessWeek '06 Rank
BusinessWeek '06 Slideshow
Financial Times '08 (PDF) (Interactive)
US News&World Report 2009
Economist 2008 Rankings
------Wall Street Journal Rankings--------------------
WSJ 2006(US)
WSJ 2006(International)
WSJ 2006(Academic Discipline)
WSJ 2006(Women)
WSJ 2006(Ethics)
WSJ 2006(Minorities)
WSJ 2006(Industry)
--------------------------------------------------------------
Forbes Rankings 05' Results - 07' Results
MBAINFO.com Rankings
Beyond Grey Pinstripes 2009
DTU Research per School
B-School Research Rankings
--------------------------------------------------------------
Financial Times E-MBA Rankings '06 PDF
BusinessWeek E-MBA Rankings '05
Money's top 100 MBA Employers '06
US News Category Ranks '06
Financial Times Category Ranks
--------------------------------------------------------------
Asia B-School Rank 2000
Australian 2005 Financial Review
German B-School Rank
Computerworld top techno MBA Survey
Consus Group B-School Rankings
Entrepreneur.com top 100 Entrepreneurial Colleges
Find MBA Rankings
International Education Commission's Top 10
Marr/Kirkwood Comparison Rankings
Official MBA Guide:MBA Program Ranking and Screening

GMAT Resources show all
GMAC-Register for GMAT
---------- GMAT Articles ----------------------------------
GMAT 700+ Stories(download)
Why Prepare?
About the GMAT
How someone got a 760 score
How someone got a 790 score
Mark Rice GMAT Advice
Low GMAT Success Stories

---------- GMAT Forums ----------------------------------
Beat the GMAT
GMAT Club Forum
Scoretop.com-Forum and Files!
TestMagic Forum


---------- GMAT Companies ------------------------------
Bell Curves
GMATTutor.com
GMAX Online(Online GMAT Course)
Kaplan
ManhattanReview
Manhattan GMAT
Perfect GMAT
Princeton Review
Syvum.com
Test Prep New York
Test Prep Review(Online Course)
Veritas GMAT Prep
790GMAT GMAT Guru(SF based)


---------- GMAT Self Study Guides ----------------------
Corrections to Official Guide 11th
Advanced GMAT Math Study Guide
Deltacourse
GMAT Study Strategy
Micro Edu GMAT Prep Material
Probability Review(download)
4GMAT - Math Books (India)


---------- GMAT Resource/Reference -----------------
GMAT Scratchpad
Dr Math
Dr Math-Pascal Triangle
GMAT Official Guide Question Info
HyperGrammar
Krysstal.com
Manhattan GMAT Study Guides (Dave's Pick)
Math.com (Math Skills Review)
MathGoodies.com
Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary
Texas A&M-College Algebra
The Math Page (For Basic Math Skills)
101 Basic Radical & Exponent Review


---------- GMAT Tests ------------------------------------
PowerPrep GMAT CAT (Dave's Pick)
Ascent Education
Arco
Axxent
800 Score (Dave's Pick)
English Test
GMATBuster
GMAT Cram.com
GMATExams.com
GMAT Practice Tests
Gorilla Test Prep
Manhattan GMAT Tests (Dave's Pick)
R&B Consulting Prep Software
Realtestquestions.com
ScoreTop Online Verbal-Quant Tests
TestMasters
TestPrep New York
Upstart Raising GMAT Simulator


Financing your MBA show all
Campusprogram.com
FastWeb
Finaid.com
Financial Aid Podcast
Foreign MBA.com
FreschInfo.com
Fundsnet-Search Engine
Gradloans.com
Graduate Fellowship Database
MBA.com-Loan info
MBAInfo-Article
MBAJungle-Article
Sallie Mae-MBA Loans
Studentawards.com
Tuitionpay.com
US Government's E-Scholar
MBA Admission Consultants show all
Accepted.com Forum
AdmissionConsultant.com
Brody Admissions
B-SchoolAdmission.com
Cambridge Essay Service
Clear Admit
EssayEdge.com
Essay Solutions
Expartus
Global Now
ManhattanReview
Maxx Associates
MBAdmission.com
MBA Applicant.com
MBA Apply
The MBA Exchange
MBAGameplan Article
MBAPrepAdvantage
MBA Studio
Stacy Blackman
Veritas Consulting
-------- Brazilian Admin Consultants ------------------
MBA Empresarial
-------- Commentary on Admin Consultants ----------
Why use them?
Comments about some of them
Not all Consultants are good
MBA Life show all
Chicago GSB Online Newspaper
Chicago GSB Magazine
Columbia B-School Wkly Online NewsPaper
Columbia Spectator Daily NewsPaper
Cornell Univ. Daily Sun (Main Campus)
Cornell Daily News Service Highlights
Dartmouth Online Newspaper
Tuck Today Online Happenings
Duke News & Community
HAAS Weekly
Harvard B-School Online Newspaper
Harvard Gazette Online Newspaper
Harvard Online Magazine
Kellogg Online Newspaper
News at MIT
Michigan(Ross) Newspaper
Texas McCombs Weekly
Michigan Daily Online Newspaper
Stern Online Newspaper
Stanford Online Newspaper
Stanford B-School Reporter
UCLA Qrtrly Assets Mag
Univ. Virginia Daily Online News
Wharton Online Newspaper
Yale Daily Online Newspaper
Yale Herald Online Newspaper
Blog & Other Resources show all
IQ Test
Efax.com
Bloglines
Computer Interval Clock
T-Mobile Coverage Check
Picasa
Hello.com
YouSendIt.com Send large files
Sendthisfile.com Send large files
Understanding Blog Template Code
SSI Developer - CSS
Changenotes.com-Web Monitor
Fodey.comNewspaperclip generator
MBA Related Books
Search Now:

Site Meter