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Post 84

The value-added and the value-perceived of an MBA

16-Feb-2014

I was the other day riding a high-speed train to Madrid when I couldn't help hearing a conversation between two business-men that were sitting next to me (besides, they were speaking rather loudly). They were discussing the use (and value) of an MBA in the business world. That inevitably caught my attention as I've just enrolled in one this year (which takes all my spare time and keeps me from writing here, I apologise for the poor throughput of posts lately). One of them supported how useful it always is to have such a pragmatic view of a business, while the other thought that it is the other way around, that such a tight focus is a double-edged sword, and that it all comes down to the competence of the candidate, sometimes for the better, and the other times for the worse.

That left me a little puzzled. I had already asked this question to HakerNews some time ago, and the answers I got were somewhat negative. Then why did I still enrol? I guess the first thing that comes to my mind is my obstinate passion to be learning continuously and improving my skills. I already have a technical education, experience and background that allows me to face technical problems with confidence (I end up solving the problems I already know how to solve, or else I first learn from the literature and then I find a practical solution), but I feel my professional career needs a veneer of business to achieve a more compelling profile. In addition, my commute takes me quite a lot of time and I wanted to profit from my reading time while being on board of the train. Thus, getting an MBA made sense to me. Do I think of ever running my own business? Of course I do, although I also enjoy taking my job at the big company (which I like very much) as my own business, bearing in mind that my employer is my customer, and that I must always deliver a service a little over his expectations. In the end, it pays my bills, it allows me to reinvest in my own education, and I feel fulfilled with my work. However, in order to fully develop this compelling profile I'm seeking, I also reckon it is of utmost importance to take care of my online profile so as to explore new business opportunities and to make commitments to freelance projects on the side. This is great for getting better at what I do. I have long directed my efforts towards this goal, I have gathered positive feedback, and I am determined to follow this path.

Before I bring this post to a close, I recently found a piece of evidence that supports my decision to enrol on a MBA in order to polish my professional profile. On this month's edition of Emprendedores mag there's an article that depicts some entrepreneurship ideas, and in addition to the ones directly related with tech consultancy and tech transfer, many of them are related with strategic management, financial management and customer management. It is to note that the three of them are comprised in the syllabus of an MBA.



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