I received an e-mail from the Dean of the Business school after our convocation ceremony yesterday. Here was the introduction….

“Congratulations on your graduation from the Beedie School of Business. This is a significant achievement and a major milestone for you in your life and career. You have succeeded in a program that combines academic rigor with practical application, has notably high standards, and most importantly, provided you with opportunities to meet new people and confront challenging ideas.” That is certainly what I hoped for when I joined the program. This was not quite my experience though but more on that later.

It seems to me that the benefits of an MBA depend a great deal on who you talk to. Many successful entrepreneurs consider the program a waste of time. They believe you are far better off to actually do\create a business or a product rather than learn from academics. Many professors are incredibly intelligent but lack real world commercial experience and\or have successfully run a business. From a corporate perspective an MBA can be an important “enabler” for more senior positions later in your career. Completing the program shows a drive to gain valuable experience and acquire new skills needed in executive life. I think there are merits to both points of view.

The MBA “gravy train” for major academic institutions is being disrupted by innovators like the University of Phoenix who are offering similar content delivered online for a fraction of the cost. I think business schools obsessed with their brand in light of this very stiff competition are misguided and have lost focus on their core mission. I thought Tony Hsieh of Zappos had a very profound insight when he said that brand is a lagging indicator of culture. His point was that organizations need to align their employee and customer experience to achieve outstanding results. Established universities need to deliver world-class education, foster an entrepreneurial culture and supportive ecosystem to truly differentiate their products and services from their online competition.

A couple of thoughts in terms of my personal experience as an MBA candidate:

1. If students choose not attend most lectures and rarely participate in group assignments how valuable can the MBA credential be?  This suggests to me that as long as you pay the “substantial fees” you earn the credential\brand. This is not rigorous or high standards. I think this is one of the reasons why MBA’s are not as held in as high regard as they used to because of perceived grade inflation. Obviously there are a lot more people with the credential now as well.

2. To charge higher prices established universities need to deliver premium instruction, preferably original research or at least the latest research from talented and engaged professors. The problem from a prospective student is you only find out how good the instruction is after you sign up for the program. My experience was that lecture quality was very inconsistent. It’s fine to tell me about the world-class academics on staff but if I am not taught by many of them frankly who cares? Some professors had little grasp of technology even though it was an MBA with a technology specialization!  One course had content was quite dated with examples that were relevant about 1o years ago. Fortunately many courses were excellent, taught by dynamic professors or incredibly experienced veterans with compelling stories and connections to boot! I would have paid a lot more for some courses and not at all for others had I known what I know now.

3. I was really impressed with the efforts the Beedie Business School make to provide a supportive eco-system for students to develop business ideas. They offer a variety of incubator programs for new ventures and provided free passes to the excellent BC New Venture Competition lecture series. I was fortunate to work with a great group of students that developed an iPhone app called QuakeAware as part of the program. A great way to make your MBA count is to apply the learnings to an endeavour as part of the program. Without a doubt working with this team on our pet project was the highlight of the program for me. I regret not making more of the incubator resources the University offered.

4. Burnout becomes a real issue the further you progress in the program. I became a father towards the end of the fourth semester which made a tough schedule occasionally unbearable. While my wife rapidly lost weight after the birth I continued to expand because I was eating junk food and drinking coffee late into the night on a regular basis. Needless to say this was bad for my health and not sustainable in the long run. Fortunately I was not alone. Many other members of my cohort joined me in the “pleasantly plump” brigade. My patience for “light lectures” of questionable value wore thin towards the end as the personal sacrifices I needed to make and the price I paid was not certainly not worth it far too often.

5. I really enjoyed the safe environment for students to share their perspectives on their professional challenges. Most lecturers made a point of encouraging discussion which was often insightful and thought-provoking. I learned that the challenges in my organization were not unique by any means and that in many instances Sage was ahead of the curve in our industry. I highly doubt I could have had these type of conversations over an e-learning or online course as it takes sometime for students to get comfortable with each other to share what they really think.

Was it worth it? All in all I think so. I have a broader perspective on business. I have a solid platform to move from the technical to the business side of my organization. The program has already proven beneficial to at least half the cohort. Many have moved up in their organizations or moved on to new employers already. The MBA is as much a test of endurance as it is a test of intelligence. I promised myself I would do this and now I have. I am pretty proud of myself actually!