Interestingly, I received the same question this week from four different people.  Thought I would write a post on the topic.

Truth be told, there is not a standard answer that applies to everyone.  If there is anything that is clear now, it is that all people are on different paths and often end up at the same destination through different methods.  (no, not trying to be philosophical…did you hear that tree?)  So it really depends.  The reason is people go to get their graduate degree, MBA or otherwise are for a variety of reasons and there are a lot of opinions on an MBA out there as well.

1.  Often people get their MBA to change industries.   This was the most common reason amongst my Sloan colleagues.  In fact, it was pretty ironical.  It seemed like 25% were shifting from consulting to banking, another 25% from banking to consulting, another 25% engineering to consulting or banking and the final 25% some other goal.

2.  Second reason, while not discussed as often as it probably should, many individual back to get their MBA for the education.  You do acquire a great set of learnings, many of which prove valuable for me every day.  I find myself applying principles (maybe not formulas or models all the time) but principles to many fundamental elements on how I approach things.  In many cases, in my field, I utilize it in technology strategy, process management, looking at disruptive technologies, market analysis or understanding different competitive threat scenarios/responses.

3.  Networking.  This I do believe depends a lot on the program that you enter.  I believe the education your receive (for the most part) is the very similar at all schools, in fact they use the same text books in most cases.  But the network(s) you build and develop in an MBA program is something you can leverage throughout your career.  This is, in my opinion, a critical lens to look through when deciding to get your MBA and which program to apply.

But I don’t view an MBA prescriptively.  If you do, I think you could be making a mistake.  It is different for everyone and there are a lot of MBA’s out in the marketplace now so the “punching the ticket” approach I see more often not providing the return on investment.

So, if you are asking whether to get an MBA, you need to ask yourself a couple of questions.  What are you trying to accomplish?  Where are you trying to get to in the short-term and the long-term?  You better know this going in because they pretty much ask you this question your first week.  And a two year MBA program flies by and many of your decisions about how to utilize your time are predicated on you knowing where you are heading.

And once you know that, what steps will help you to get where you are aiming to go with your career and how will the MBA experience help you in achieving your objectives.  To deep dive into one area, in the internet, media and technology industries, there are two fundamental schools of thought.  The first is that an MBA can fundamentally help you navigate an increasingly complex marketplace with market disruptions and consumers needs changing in a variety ways.  How to navigate it is a developed skill and an MBA is a sound foundation.  The second is the ‘street smarts’ method which is to head straight into the start-up environment and there is not any better place to learn than “doing it” either through a successful venture or even failing.  I’ve seen both work successfully.

Hope this helps…