Thinking of Getting an MBA? Here Are Five Reasons Not To
If you got into a top-ten business school, go. You will earn $150,000 when you get out, you will have a good-housekeeping seal of approval for your business IQ, and you will have a great network. Also, the top business schools have such a wide range of applicants that the schools themselves are great at sifting through who should be in business school and who shouldn't.
If you did not get into a top ten school, then you're making a mistake if you attend. Really. People go to business school for the wrong reasons. Here are five of them.
1) You have no idea what you're going to do with your life
If this is the case, then how do you know you'll need a business degree to do it? Very few jobs outside of senior management in the Fortune 500 require a graduate business degree (even many of those don't). Right now you can choose anything. After you go to business school you can only choose jobs that pay enough to pay back your loans.
Economists are just now coming out with results from long-term effects of poor job markets; those who are most flexible in the type of work they accept do the best in a bad job market. So would you pay extra money and give up two years of your life in order to limit your choices? Be an adult and limit your choices yourself, on your own.
2) You want to be a Fortune 500 executive but didn't get into a top twenty school
Ladder climbing in the Fortune 500 is not for everyone, and things do not bode well for you if you couldn't figure out how to get into a great school. For one thing, the majority of executives in the Fortune 500 are ENTJs. If you are very far off from that Myers-Briggs score, really, think twice about thinking you know what you want to do with your life. Most people do not realize they're not cut out for senior management until they get to middle management and never get promoted. So, here's an idea: When your boss tells you, "I'll promote you when you get a degree," then you can spend a year in night school getting the degree. At that point, no one cares where the degree is from. You've already proven yourself. It's just a piece of paper.
3) You are doing a career change and don't think you are qualified
According to data just released from GMAT test-prep company, Knewton, most people who graduate from a second-tier school (or anything below that) will make less than $70K base. Which, according to Knewton, impair your ability to pay the debt racked up from business school. Why do you need to go to business school to earn that much money? You could spend the next two years getting real-world experience that, if you're any good, will have you earning $70K after a couple of years anyway. And in the non-business school scenario, you earn $70K with no debt.
4) You love to learn
Get a life. Everyone with a brain loves to learn. You don't need to get a degree to do that. You don't need a professor to do that. Get a library card. Read at night. Go to classes at a local university without enrolling. The sneaking-in-students are always the most motivated. Professors never throw them out. You can learn in any job, from any person, in any scenario if you have an open mind. And if you don't have an open mind, that's what you learn about first, and believe me, you won't find it in a PhD program.
5) You want to be an entrepreneur
Newsflash: You don't need a degree to be an entrepreneur. You need an idea. Ideas do not come from business school. In fact, business school takes up all the time you'd normally be finding ideas. Like, when you take an extra long time in the shower. Or when you hang out at a bar with friends shooting off stupid ideas until 3 a.m. All good business ideas started as stupid ideas. If you want to be an entrepreneur give yourself time to be stupid. And depressed.
According to research just released from the psychology department at Harvard, people who have lots of unscheduled time tend to have more daydreaming moments. That leads to depression, but also fresh ideas. And that sounds crazy in just the right way; recently Jeff Stibel wrote in the Harvard Business Review that successful entrepreneurs are manic in a delusional way and on the edge of mental breakdown in a teetering way all the time -- all traits you never see in a business school applicant.
Be honest with yourself. If you know what you want to do, just go do it. You don't need graduate school to give you permission. And if you don't know what you want to do, graduate school is a really expensive babysitting program.