Admitted to HBS, not sure if I should go. What would I do with it?

Hi there, o primate council!

So as the title suggests, I've been admitted to the holiest of holy. But now as I'm thinking and reading more about it, I'm more and more disillusioned with the idea of getting an MBA at all.

I work for an MBB consulting firm in a developing country (not India/China). At matriculation I'd have 2 years of this experience + a couple other big name internships during college. I majored in CS and can code, but I was never good at it and this is not something I'm interested in doing. I don't want to work in consulting anymore either, cause to be frank my experience was disappointing, even though I was/am top ranked the whole time. The disappointment is due to the fact that I didn't feel any of my cases really created value for the client. Mostly it was all fluff, fancy decks and bullshitting with elaborate models. I did develop advanced soft skills and learned a lot about how NOT to do business in many different industries though. I do kinda enjoy the lifestyle too, flying business and eating steak dinners and all. But being a professional bullshitter, eventually progressing to the bullshitter overlord/snake oil salesman role, is a deal breaker.

Ideally I'd want to get some real expertise (business development, product roles, general management) in an interesting industry, and I'm flexible here - it can be any kind of tech, pharma, healthcare, manufacturing, whatever - as long as it's not finance/professional services. And I don't like CPG for some reason, probably cause what drives CPG is yet another type of bullshit - the "our yogurt is soooo the best yogurt ever made and will cure AIDS, cancer and erectile dysfunction" type. Food is food and shower gel is shower gel, convincing the masses to buy mine is not valuable or impactful.

Now, HBS (or business school in general for that matter) has a lot of those familiar consulting-ish "management science" (lol) overtones to it. It kinda feels like an apple from the same tree. Not sure if I can really learn much valuable stuff there, but whatever, as long as it gets me on track to what I want. And there are two problems with that.

First, MBA in general is nowhere near as appealing now as it used to be in the past. It has just lost a lot of its cachet. In this regard it feels like I'm late by like 20 years, when MBB->HBS would be a golden ticket. Doesn't sound like it anymore.

2nd, the business school really seems to funnel guys like me right back into professional services. All the MBA jobs that I like (which at this point are mostly rotational GM LDPs at F500s) list 5+ years of relevant experience as a requirement. Same thing with PE (requires experience). Public service would be an interesting option, but I don't wanna go back to my native shithole and I'm not a US citizen (I am a legal permanent resident though, so no Visa issues). I could probably get a start-up job, but why would I need HBS for that?

With LDPs, startups, PE, public sector and brand management out of the running, what's left? I don't want to go back to consulting or, god forbid, banking.

The only two options that I see for myself after the HBS would be
a) corporate strategy at an industry major, then try to weasel into a P&L role (which is hard, as far as I know) and
b) International public service (i.e. World Bank, UN agencies and the like). Not sure if I'm competitive for those jobs.

Kinda lost and disappointed with my life choices in general. Should have gone to a good US school for some kind of an engineering masters and taken the industry line management route right away.

 
Hasish Vapoor:
Kinda lost and disappointed with my life choices in general. Should have gone to a good US school for some kind of an engineering masters and taken the industry line management route right away.

This it the first time in history someone accepted to HBS has said this.

 

Holy shit. I'm going through the exact same thing. HBS 2+2 admit, its been 4 years. Really don't feel like going.

I've looked at the classlist so far, and besides the finance kids (who they accept fewer and fewer of), no one is that impressive. The classes they are taking seem so outdated and useless, compared to what I have learned from working in the real world. Its going to be so hard to go form making money and learning so much, to paying to do work for professors who have 0 real world experience and for a degree that is both dying and teaches you nothing.

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