Good Decision/Bad Decision: Skipping Business School
Good Decision/Bad Decision
Today’s subject will hopefully be part of a regular series of Monday posts. As you recall, I recently started Gratitude Wednesdays. This series will focus on my past decisions to shed light on some financial wins and losses. My hope is to discover what I did right, and help others avoid my mistakes. Whether epic fail or triumphant victory, these were my decisions. The topic for today is skipping business school.
Did you get your MBA? Was it worth it?
Good Decision
I went to medical school at Northwestern University. Sometime during the first year of classes, a flyer went around the building regarding business school. There was a joint MD/MBA program that medical students were encouraged to apply for. By putting in an extra year of class time, we could graduate with not only an MD but a degree from Kellogg also.
My wife jumped at the opportunity. She argued that it would be only one year of my life, and the extra education could be invaluable. She saw in me something I was trying my best to ignore, the fact that I had a mind with just as much interest in business as medicine.
I batted the idea around for a few weeks but eventually decided that I was not willing to invest the extra money and time. I based my decision on a few basic principles:
- Medicine was my dream and I was impatient to get started as soon as possible.
- I figured that I could always go to business school later.
- You don’t need an MBA to run a business.
Although I second guess this decision all the time, I have developed and implemented multiple businesses with fruitful returns. My art website, concierge practice, real estate holdings, and consulting gigs have all been successful without the benefit of in-class education.
Bad Decision
As my interest in the business of medicine has grown, there are several reasons why having an MBA from as prestigious a school as Kellogg would have been helpful. A number of the Chief Medical Officer positions in hospitals, start-ups, and established businesses all require a graduate degree other than medicine. If I ever truly wanted to leave the patient care arena, my options for high income positions would have been much greater.
It would also have been nice to understand the philosophical as well as structural underpinnings of how business is practiced. When I started running my own ventures, I had no idea the basic accounting or planning involved. I was a complete novice. Although I stumbled through (with the help of my mother the accountant), I would have been done much worse without such an experience oriented pedigree (my stepfather was a CEO of a healthcare company).
In Summary
Not going to business school was probably one of my bigger mistakes. Although I have been fairly successful and have learned the necessary skills to optimize my companies, there were really few downsides to the extra education.
Adding another 20k of debt and postponing my medical career for a year sounded like a big deal at the time, but now, in retrospect, would have been a small price to pay.
Would my life look radically different today?
Possibly. I might be running a multimillion dollar healthcare start-up and not have enough time to write this blog.
For another take on business school, Check out this post by ESI:
Also of interest is Good Life. Better.
My Worst (Best?) Money Decision
Did you go to business school? Did you benefit? Share with us your experiences in the comments.
Wow DocG, that’s a shedload of degrees, I still can’t get my head round the US process that seems to encourage getting many multiple degrees, at at a very high cost no doubt.
Yah. We love letters after our names!
It’s never too late. Most people who get their MBA do so after working for a while anyway. Depending on how bad you want it, you could still go for it.
Good point. I could always go back.
I did not get an MBA, but I did get a Masters in Engineering while I was working. By the time I completed it, I had a different opinion on education. I believe the purpose is to teach you how to teach yourself. Based on all of your business success, I believe you already had the ability to do just that. And you did.
I think many of us learned on the fly. For the most part, this works. Graduate degrees, however, can help with job opportunities.
I actually do have a MBA. I Got it age 49. It was partly online and partly on campus. It was a physician only class. I got it through Auburn University. The CMO of my hospital went to the same program. I was thinking of leaving medicine completely and become a healthcare stock analyst. Some events happened in my life the prevented me from really using it. I think education is always useful.
Intellectually, I think going to business school would be fun!