Why Go To Business School?
Hey all, my school has a deferred admission application for its business school, and thinking about applying to it has me wondering: why do people do 2 years in IB + 2 years in PE just to go back to B-school? If you're making $300k give or take, is it really worth it? It doesn't seem as if you learn anything groundbreaking by taking 2 more years of classes. Plus, instead of making about $600k in those 2 years, you're spending about $200k, so it just seems wild to me that anyone would actually do this. Can anyone key me in as to why? And maybe some alternative options that are out there? Thanks
everyone has their own reasons - to oversimplify mine, i did it because i saw it as a riskless way to try a career path outside of finance plus broaden my network. if i found something i enjoyed more, the ~$200k spent during MBA would be worth it. although expensive, if you save during banking/PE you should be fine. if i ended up back in finance, the foregone compensation was well worth it for me.
banking/pe seems really attractive when you're not in the industry, but as you find out about yourself more and what you value and are good at, it isn't necessarily a great fit for everyone. i'm very happy to be using business school to be getting out of finance and have made a fantastic group of friends from diverse backgrounds going into diverse industries.
Sure, when I entered school I was looking primarily at medtech/med device and tech PM roles. I had done a deal in the medtech space during PE and really enjoyed it and ended up going down the healthcare rabbit hole during my first year while loosely recruiting for tech PM roles. As much as people like to push the narrative that pre-MBA PE will allow you to transition to any role post-MBA, this simply isn't true, especially in the case of tech PM roles. I wasn't very competitive for those roles (consultants with technology and product experience, those with tech industry experience, and ex-engineer folks were much better positioned), After doing a deep dive on healthcare verticals (payor/providor, pharma, med device, etc.), I liked a lot of the industry dynamics and landed a product internship in med device for the first summer. I worked on product development for a very technical product which I really did not enjoy - I had no ownership over the actual work being done, didn't enjoy the regulations of healthcare, it was a cutting edge product so marketing was not very influential in sales, and so learned that I didn't want to be on a highly technical product as I didn't really add much value (didn't major in BME or anything useful for the field). I also realized, given my personality, I wasn't going to "chill" anywhere I went - to do well I would put in a decent amount of hours even if I was working in a 9-5 industry.
Given that experience, I focused on recruiting for marketing roles within tech for full time. I wanted to be able to drive analytics and build out an adjacent skillset, while being in an industry with great growth prospects. I landed a role at a large e-Comm company (not Amazon lol) in a marketing capacity that I'm hoping will give me further insight into the types of problems I enjoy solving while pushing me down the GM path. I don't have it all figured out by any means, but I am excited to try something new and the company I'm joining is well known for internal transfers which was a huge plus if I decide marketing isn't a great fit. TBD how this journey turns out but I'm excited to start.
Within the career search I had come to a few realizations about myself during my last PE gig that I made sure to integrate into my search. I realized I valued relationships and a collegial environment despite being a fairly reserved person (I actually enjoyed banking more than PE for that reason...), I love ownership and becoming an "expert" in things (really disliked being a generalist which I was for all my pre-mba gigs), I am not driven at all beyond a certain point by money (took a $30k paycut when lateraling between PE gigs and had no impact on my happiness), and a few other things. I am still figuring the career thing out, and from the many alumni talks I've attended at my school, seems like people spend a significant amount of time post-MBA doing that as well, I'm just glad to be taking a step in the "right direction" for myself.