I recently met a long term friend of mine who has been struggling with his career. He did many things in his past and nothing worked out for him – not because he is incapable, it is more like he is too good for his position. He finally decided to go to B-school (top one) in his late 30s. I tried to talk him out of it – as ROI is not there at his age. You know what he told me: " I wasted 10 years in my life compared to those that went to Harvard. Now I am going to delay my retirements for 10 years to set things right!" What do you think? Is he crazy to think this way? Even he doesn’t care his age, what recruiters/firms will think?
i don’t think that’s too old.
Well they say 30 is the new 20 after all. Willy
If he enjoys all of it and this is an achievement/vindication in itself, then that’s worth more than the non-optimal ROI. You have to analyze the tradeoff in more than one space, not simply money.
I think you’re not getting the whole story here. If somebody is “too good for his position” and has been at that for 10 years, I say he is probably doing something really wrong, or he’s not doing the right things. Fine, so he may have high IQ or whatever. How is his EQ? How does he interact with other people at work? Does he work well with others? If he is really “too good for his position” then why doesn’t he get promoted? Just my 2 cents–trying to offer a different perspective here. It’d be a pity if he goes to that top B-school and the real underlying problem is a totally different thing–THEN he will be wasting even more years and serious money!
Geez, I’d love to go to [blah] school. Someone comes up to me and says “Joey, would you like to go get a Ph.D. in English Literature?” I’m there…
agreed, would love to go back to school someday. If he is single and without kids, b-school in the late 30s is no big deal. there were several people in their 40s in my class. most of those folks were “mid-career” and knew what they were doing afterwards - as a careeer change, might be tough (but not impossible). One can really live quite simply (and cheaply) without kids - but “with” the equation becomes much much more compicated.
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my first 2 years of college I was wasted, but not 10 years, that takes the cake.
the fact that he is ‘struggling’ (not sure what that means) could be due to reasons an MBA may not be able to address. That said, he will be on the high end of the age group in an MBA program but its better late than never. I dont agree that ROI is not there - even for someone who is not switching careers, an MBA can be very valuable.
Time is never wasted when you’re wasted all the time.
MFE22 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I recently met a long term friend of mine who has > been struggling with his career. He did many > things in his past and nothing worked out for him > – not because he is incapable, it is more like he > is too good for his position. He finally decided > to go to B-school (top one) in his late 30s. I > tried to talk him out of it – as ROI is not there > at his age. You know what he told me: " I wasted > 10 years in my life compared to those that went to > Harvard. Now I am going to delay my retirements > for 10 years to set things right!" > > What do you think? Is he crazy to think this way? > Even he doesn’t care his age, what > recruiters/firms will think? If he is struggling with his career, I don’t think an *average* MBA school will help. And if he thinks getting a top MBA degree will help him, it probably will. **But** they usually don’t let people in who are struggling to the top MBAs, they usually let the ones in that already have a stellar track record.