We graduated on Friday, celebrated, said our goodbyes and people are starting to take off to their lives and careers in all corners of the world. After a busy first year and a long second year, it all seemed to end too suddenly and it left me with a sense of nostalgia and with a -frankly unexpected- sense of pride for being a London Business School MBA 2008.
Was it worth it?
A lot of people ask me these days. I ask myself too. The answer is clearly "Yes". However, as I reflect on the last 22 months, I realise that the MBA really was really a transformational experience, and as such it is not easy to weigh its value straight out of it. The magnitude of my "Yes" will probably only become clear in the next 5-10 years or so.
Have I achieved my goals?
(1) Like most of us, I came into the MBA with a decent career track, albeit limited to a very specific functional area. My first objective was to improve my understanding of business and general management. No question that the objective has been completely achieved, 100%, dead in the middle. LBS gave me the opportunity to study some fundamentals (finance, accounting, strategy, OB, ...) which I lacked, and many great electives. To all applicants reading this blog: if your goal is also to broaden your business understanding, an MBA is the right thing to do.
(2) My second objective was to advance my career, in terms of role, responsibility and salary. I guess most applicants have the same objective. As far as I am concerned, it has been partly achieved. Off course I am now off to a fantastic job, which I would only have dreamed about before, but the process of advancing career, role and salary is an ongoing one, and this is where it will take 10 years to evaluate success or failure of the MBA. The main learning I guess, and a word of warning to the applicants, was that there is a lot of hype surrounding business schools: salaries are not not likely to double the day you graduate and you are not likely to become CEO straight out of school. It takes time, and a lot of effort.
What was the hardest bit?
Without any doubt, the job search process, and particularly the amount of rejection that I had to deal with. A few numbers: In the second year I interviewed with approximately 28 companies. An average of 2 interviews per company. 56 interviews! Eventually, I received 4 offers. That means I was rejected 24 times over a period of about 10 months, or 2.4 rejections per month. I had never been turned down so much before, and I guess I am no exception compared to the rest of the class. In the end of the day, most of us have found fantastic jobs, but it was such hard work. So back to my advice to applicants: don't believe the hype and prepare to be turned down, battered, criticized, offended, ...
What was the best bit?
The people. Some of the class mates, with so many different backgrounds and so many different things to say. It has been a true privilege to share the past 22 months, they have added so much value to the whole experience, and I leave now confident that they will be happy to pick up the phone in the future when I will call. I guess this is probably where London Business School gets it so right with their emphasis on internationality and diversity.
What happens next (to fran and to this blog)?
Fran is leaving the UK after 4 years. I am off to the Netherlands, to work for one of my favorite brands in the world and to achieve extraordinary things. I am not sure I can disclose which brand on this blog (haven't told them about it yet), but there are clues here and there for those readers who really pay attention.
Franonmba (the blog) ends here. I thought about keeping it alive, but the truth is that the MBA is over and so should be the blog. I hope it was useful to someone reading. At least it was useful to me writing it, as it helped me reflect on what was happening and to crystallize a few ideas. So there will be a new blog coming soon, dedicated to the next experience. Check these pages every now and then: I will post directions.
farewell.
