“You may have won the small toss, outlander. But you won’t win the rest, so it makes little difference!!!” — Watto, talking to Qui-Gon Jinn
*won’t win the race.
I wonder, if by refusing to go to a #30 school, like Vanderbilt, you might be winning the battle but losing the war.
In another thread, you outlined your reasons for wanting to go to a top 5 B-school, and it made sense at the time. And I think it does make sense right now while you’re in your late 20’s. But I wonder–what will your resume look like when you’re 50?
What I mean is–if I’m a potential employer, and I’m looking at two resumes. One is from Black Swan, who never went to get an MBA at all, and one is from Grey Goose, who has a Vanderbilt MBA, I’m thinking, “Why doesn’t Black Swan have an MBA? Everybody gets one–even if it’s not from Harvard. I think I’ll go with Grey Goose. His resume is more powerful, because he has a Vanderbilt MBA.”
I realize that I’m from a different side of the tracks from most of you guys on here. I see the world through different colored glasses. I’m not in the same situation you guys are now, and (unless a miracle happens) I never will be. So it’s entirely possible that I have no idea what I’m talking about. I’m not Numi, and I don’t want to pretend that I’m a career coach.
But still, I have to wonder. When you’re 50, won’t a Vanderbilt MBA do more for you than no MBA at all?
Hmmm…you may be right. I’ve never thought of it that way.
For a long time, I thought Yoda said, “Always emotion, the future is.” (He actually said, “Always IN MOTION…”
If I’m 50, and people are still basing their hiring decisions on whether or not I have an MBA, then I have failed at my career.
“Well, I like candidate X, but in 30 years worth of career, I can’t find enough evidence to differentiate him from candidate Y who took some accounting courses at Vanderbilt 20 years ago. Lets hire candidate Y.”
You might be right. I just wanted to throw that out there, because I was thinking about it last night (for what reason I don’t know).
And I haven’t done a real in-depth study of the biographies of “successful” CFA candidates. But from what I can tell, at some point, an MBA is kinda like the CFA, which is kinda like a pair of pants. If you have it, nobody notices. But if you don’t, everybody notices. (I borrowed that from somebody else on this forum. Kudos to whoever originally penned it.)
I think that’s wrong thinking.
Agreed with BS
At 50 even a Harvard MBA is useless.
Depends on what you want to do…Vanderbilt is a good MBA program, don’t really see an issue with going there. Especially as you noted, your undergrad wasn’t good, this could be an opportunity to develop your core branding proposition and find value added synergies with your current skill set. Looks like iteracom has infected this forum.
Greenie you need to stop making threads just to do this At 50 your school means very very little. Its a small conversation piece. Your skills are 98% MBA vs CFA has been beaten to death. Not going there
At age 50, the Harvard MBA network could be priceless.
I agree with this and see it all the time. It is insane and I think points to the true value of the MBA. Go look at some boards or investment committees or who is helping who with their new ventures…its is riddled with ppl who know eachother from b-school, and more often than not good schools which have the alumni networks up to par.
Also agree 99% of time once you have your experience in place the rest takes a backseat, as I would argue it should.
Just to do what?
I realize that at 50 which school you went to means little. But whether you went to school at all may mean a lot.
Skills are 98%. I agree. But at the highest level of competition, the other 2% can be a huge difference. Running a 100-meter dash in 10.0 seconds will qualify your for the Olympic finals. Running it in 10.3 seconds will get you laughed out the door.
MBA vs. CFA has been beaten to death. I agree. Did I ever mention the CFA? BS is a CFA Charterholder. Therefore, MBA vs. CFA is not only a stupid argument, but it is an invalid one that makes no sense in this context.
The argument isn’t even Harvard MBA vs. Vanderbilt MBA. The argument is “any MBA” vs. “no MBA”. And I’m just asking the question–how many 50 year-old BSD’s have no MBA whatsoever? From my experience, almost all of them have some kind of postgraduate work–be it JD, MBA, or what have you.
I have posited the question to BS, and he believes that Vanderbilt is still not worth pursuing. I don’t really care what BS does. I just wanted him to think beyond the next five years, if hadn’t already done so.
But to say, “You should stop debating CFA vs. MBA” is a stupid thing to say. In no way, shape, form, or fashion did I debate the merit of CFA vs. MBA on this thread. We may have had differences of opinion on other threads, but I believe that here you are intentionally trying to obfuscate the situation.
If you think this is the case, I think you’re just completely unfamiliar with the game at that level. There are plenty of BSD’s in any organization with no postgrad work. Although I also think that will be pretty rare 15-20 years from now just because so many more people are doing masters work by default. But what I said stands true, and if you really think a masters makes any difference in 20 years (excluding the kick ass networks developed at top 10 schools), I think you just don’t get it. That may not be the case in Texas, but NYC and other major east coast centers are going to give it next to no consideration, whether you have an MBA or not when you’re 40-50 years old. They ARE going to really give a sh*t about how you’ve performed, what you’ve accomplished, and your experience in general.
I echo BS above. There are a lot of top chief execs with no name schools. They get there bec they produced results. No one wil hire you just bec of your school at that senior level Even a top MBA these days doesn’t guarantee anything. But they sure as hell boost your chances at big opportunities near the beginning o f your career where you can prove yourself. A poor boy in africa could be a genius that doesn’t get noticed bec he never gets that chance. A top MBA opens up a lot of those chances to get noticed. Thats real value there and why a lot of people emphasize a top 10 (or top 5 apparently on AF)
You’re missing the point iteracom. The discussion is mid tier MBA vs no MBA. So why you keep bringing up top tier makes no sense.
^ oh my bad. we evolved the discussion? that’s good.
Personally I think you just dont get an adequate ROI with a mid-tier MBA, so better to pocket that and work on something else.
Thank God!!! Somebody who finally recognizes the crux of the argument!!!
The argument is not “Which is better, CFA or MBA?”
The argument is not “Which is better, Harvard or Vanderbilt?”
The argument is not, “Should I go with top 50, top 20, or top 3 B-schools?”
The argument is not, “Does going to Top 50 or 20 or 3 increase my chances of getting a job?”
The argument is simply, “Is an MBA from a #30 school better than no MBA at all? And how will my answer change as I get older?”
We never evolved the discussion. That was the discussion from the original post.
And I said, in the original post, that I had different experiences and different views from most of the people on here, and that these differences probably explained why I thought the way I did.
Black Swan succintly answered the question that was asked, and did not answer a question that was not asked. He pointed out that my logic was probably askew because of a lack of exposure to the industry, and that “no-MBA” wasn’t as bad as I thought that it was.
Thank you, Black Swan, for actually taking the time to read something and think about it. You have used your 4th grade reading and comprehension skills to find the main idea of the post, and thought critically and responded in a manner that should be expected of any elementary-school graduate. You can now graduate to Junior High, unlike some others who will be held back.