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To MBA or NOT? That is the question! Jajaja
All joking aside, the quest for an MBA is now a very serious decision to have to make in our lives.
My take on the necessity of an MBA is to prepare for the future. While having a bachelor's is currently helping me, I am seeing the limiting aspects it as on career advancement. For example, I did a job search a few months ago and was hit with the reality that most advance positions require an MBA education. Although I have 4 years of solid work experience, sometimes it's not enough to get your foot in the door. Another reason I am very motivated to get an MBA is for the long term realities. I am a career woman who will eventually decide to raise a family. This will put me out of the work force for at least 5 years. This means that once I come back to the workforce I need to have enough credentials, previous work experience and industry knowledge so that I can hit the ground running. By having an MBA to cushion the blow, it means a more stable and secure future for me in the long run.
Another important aspect of obtaining an MBA is the experience. I often think about how challenging but fun classes will be as I work with other working professionals with a variety of skillsets and knowledge. I thrive in these types of scenarios so for me having the MBA experience is going to be a difficult but enjoyable experience. At my current job I constantly work with people from all over the world and it makes my job more entertaining and difficult but I savor the experience.
My dream is to have an MBA from a top program and be sought after by top firms. I know that these invitations will only come from my own hard work and a having reputable MBA program next to my name.
Getting an MBA is an extra but necessary stepping stone in our lives. We live and work in a fast pace world and that means having all the necessary tools to keep going forward. Most importantly, having an MBA means going through a rigorous, challenging and beneficial experience for your long term future.
So for me, “to be” is “to MBA”.

Hey Cynthia!

Thanks for your response, that's a great way to start off this contest. Come back on the 19th to see if you win one of our prizes!

Best,
Bea

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Beatrice Kim
Beat The GMAT

I believe human potential is unlimited. My goal in life is to the best person I can be in all aspects, namely, physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. I feel when I can improve in all of these aspects, you would magnify your energy and be able to reach your highest potential.
I feel the need for an MBA as it will help me gain the necessary business skills which would help succeed as an entrepreneur. I see myself as a spiritual entrepreneur, helping serve the society and at the same time making money for myself. Apart from this, an MBA would add solid credentials to my resume and the brand would help me build credibility with my customers.
Also, the amazing and diverse peer group in a top MBA program would help me learn about different people and cultures, which in turn would help me broaden my perspectives and understand the world better. I see an MBA as a wonderful learning experience in this amazing journey called Life!

Hey ilovemyself,

Awesome entry! thanks, stay tuned for when I announce winners on Monday, March 19! So far, you have a 100% chance of winning!

Best,
Bea

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Beatrice Kim
Beat The GMAT

Community-based organizations need more MBAs.

I work for a small advocacy organization that serves some of the poorest communities in Los Angeles County, and we rely heavily on foundation support. We were only a few months into the new fiscal year when we were denied our largest grant request of the year. When I updated our cash flow projections, my Executive Director and I saw a significant budget gap in the upcoming months. We reviewed our revenue streams to find possible ways to increase our income.

To address our big problem, I, along with two other staff members, formed a corporate fundraising committee to seek and secure corporate giving. Our organization has never successfully secured corporate support in its ten-year history. Furthermore, the three of us did not have any formal fundraising experience.

What happened next happens often in community-based organizations. As a committee, we learned as we went. We made a lot of mistakes on the way. The proposals we felt good about failed to yield the desired results. In fact, none of our proposals were successful.

I am not opposed to learning as you go, making mistakes or attempting something entirely new, but with an MBA, I would have saved myself and my organization a lot of time. With an MBA, I will be able to draw from best practices from all sectors to recommend innovative and proven solutions. I will have the skills to identify critical issues, conduct research, perform market studies, analyze financial data, deliver realistic action plans and craft successful proposals and communication materials.

I need an MBA because community-based organizations need MBAs. After business school, I plan to serve community-based organizations in different capacities- staff, consultant, board member and volunteer. When I become more effective, the organizations I support, by extension, will become more effective. Effective organizations are more capable of meeting their mission, and we owe it to our constituents and communities to become the best organizations we can be.

edit!

I’m proud to belong to a country which is a leading name in the emerging economies, shining bright in the field of technology, culture and innovation, but feel equally sad to find it grappling with the issues of poverty, unemployment and illiteracy at the grass-root level. Appalled by this glaring disparity evident here, I wish to make conscious efforts into elevating the under-served to a respectable living.

After completing my Engineering with a minor in Financial Management from one of the finest Engineering institutes in the world, I kick-started my career at one of the big four consulting firms, accredited as one of the best places to start a career. I leveraged my analytical skills to solve complicated client problems working in communion with excellent peers in a competitive environment. The campus to corporate transition enhanced my confidence and I realized my potential on technical front. I always felt privileged to have attained the highest order of education and work environment and was motivated to give it back. With my major in Energy Technology and effective mentor-ship from the Industry-best, I decided to dedicate my efforts into Solar technology for its natural potential to solve energy scarcity & climate change issues. Working as a project manager for a reputed Solar consulting firm, I am involved in implementation of utility scale projects, business development for alternative Solar applications like Cooling & electricity, organizing conferences to promote policy discussion and awareness. I have previously attempted to run a small food business employing immigrants from one of the most backward states in the country, known for its skilled and hard-working laborers. The business reached as much as million rupees in turnover catering to a small residential zone. Unfortunately, it didn’t survive since I failed to standardize the work culture which could enable it to self-sustain. India has anywhere between 10 mn to 30 mn unemployed youth and another 60 mn people are expected to join the workforce in the next 5 years. This experience coupled with my entrepreneurial enthusiasm motivates me to start an ‘inclusive’ business which caters to the bottom of pyramid, thereby generate employment & fight poverty.

I’ve learned my lessons from doing business in past & I’m now equipped with an understanding of ground realities. I wish to pursue an MBA to get a holistic view of business management which takes care of the weak-links in my managerial skills. I wish to advantage from the diverse student profile which brings in their real-world business problems & their solutions. Interactions with reputed professors will help me develop, plan, organize and implement a business model that would perfectly match Indian scenario & my aspirations.

"Why do you need an MBA?"

With an MBA, i plan to lead a Software & Internet firm, preferably Fortune 100. I have a strong passion for strategy and operations. I would like to see myself 10 years down the line, using the experience and methodologies to deal with complicated business decisions such as Strategy Planning, Operations analysis, Merging and Acquisitions. It is a dream - A dream i am willing to chase.

An MBA covers a wide range of disciplines from leadership & team dynamics to finance to management and so on ... The list is not exclusive. To achieve my dreams of leading a big firm, i would first need a lot of confidence but also need the knowledge of how decision making (which includes knowing all the above elements of business) is done in reality, and also the set of specific tools used in this process. An MBA would provide me with the required Knowledge and Tools for my dream. Additionally, an MBA would help me in networking with professionals who have been in such industry and made such decisions. It would be great to learn from their experience and wisdom.

This dream was not born overnight.
After graduation, I was recruited into a Energy based Product firm. I was inducted into my job role which basically dealt with analysis of business requirement and mapping it to technical change requirements. The changes are to be done on an ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) software which manages companies data from Finance accounting to Supply Chain to Business Data Mining and so on ... So i was basically looking at business requirement, which dealt with understanding what business wants , why it wants now, how can it get it. And the requirements comes from our company offices & plants all over the world (literally - from over 50 different countries). My work nature was the initial source of understanding different operations in a firm. Gradually - I started to like Strategy & Operations field and was actually wishing that some operational blockage happen in the system and i would be contacted with details ... kidding.

Some of my achievements : I was promoted in 6 months of joining the organization to a higher job profile. I became the global process controller as part of my initial assignment. I was made the Workload Manager within 9 months of joining the new team. Additionally, i am the planner for telecommuting process for the team.

I have made a quantitative effort to learn company dynamics on my own. I have completed Statistics and Economics beginner courses to understand a little bit of business fundamentals. Currently I am taking part in GAME THEORY Online course from Stanford. If i pass it, i get certified for the same. The course as such deals with understanding people's psychology and strategy when decision making. With an MBA, i would be immersed in many such courses with rigorous practical training. I think i would need an MBA to get to my dream, and get there fast.

Cheers

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"Hakunamatata" - No Worries.
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Topic: why do you need an MBA ?
To me, MBA is an essential of journey to my personal life-long achievement. Coming from a developing country in South East Asia, I have prolong experienced a harsh condition, in which people have to pay great effort to achieve relatively small target. I'd like to take my share to help myself and others break the bound of hardship and to live more fulfilled in life. MBA is a great chance not only to promote my entrepreneur spirit but also to learn from the bright minds of the world and become a professional in business field.
First and foremost, businesses and especial small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in my country are the drive of economy. They're source of innovative & dynamic business, creating jobs and improving quality of life. I have entrepreneurship and I'd like to promote co-operation of SMEs in my country to create great synergy power, boosting efficiency and productivity. Good business not only needs excellent financial numbers but also needs give back to its community, inspiring other by good example, improving living standard in part or in whole. Entrepreneur spirit is the most crutial thing I like to comprehence from MBA program, from the internship term and from the peerage.
Given An MBA is a great means to approach the world of extraordinary minds bearing the make-difference mojo, I could share and learn from them the inspiration of making a better world, how they view it under their own circumstance. That could substantially broaden my perspective, get vote for or against my solution,team up to find the right approach and best solution under particular circumstance. And absolutely I could widen my network in such a diversified environment of which is important in business.
Last but not least, studying at an MBA program is a prominent way to become professional in business field. Having a MBA degree doen not mean I absolutely get the right solution for all problems, but it could help get attention to my thought and my contribution is considered. A good command of knowledge, a wide network of professionals and reputation from the MBA empower me confidence to confront the obstacle and tackle it down.
Getting into a lucrative industry with high compensation package is one of the most objects everybody studies MBA aiming at. Nonetheless, to my point of view, improving quality of life is indeed more important than the previous. MBA is not a solution once the career comes to a dead end, MBA is a door opening to a better position and chance to challenge limit of innovation & life. We make it to live success and fulfilled in life.

Why MBA?

To some I'm know as the chicken lady. It's not the most glamorous title, but it's well earned.  Several years ago, I was asked to move to a Sufi retreat center in the middle of nowhere Pennsylvania to start a farm-based preschool. Since I had a background in education and farming and was looking for a new opportunity to continue my study of Sufism I’d begun several years prior, I packed up my entire life and began my stint as a Laura Ingles stand in.   
At this community farm, I noticed many of us drove 60 miles to the local health food store, while being surrounded by 140 acres of green pastures.  So after hundreds of hours of research, conversations with local farmers and a whole lot of prayer, I began Peaceful Poultry. Within in the first three months I pre-sold my entire season’s worth of 1200 chickens to approximately 100 customers. After filling the need in our community, I expanded my customer base to include chefs, organizations seeking halal and kosher meat and foodies from Pittsburgh to D.C.

In a few short years, I learned more than I’d ever dreamed I’d know about chickens and raising meat in an ethical and spiritual sound way.  I also learned, though, that while I was pretty good at raising chicken, I was really, really good at business. I loved creating my business plan, working with local banks to secure business loans and finding strategic solutions for the problems I encountered.

It didn't take me too long to realize that underneath the dirt stained clothes and tired body was a social entrepreneur waiting to get to work.

Through my experiences I've come to be a firm believer that the social issues we face as a nation and as a global community can best be solved using entrepreneurial practices, and that corporations have the opportunity to make the most positive impact on society via the choices they make.

It is my greatest desire to become a major player in the world of corporate social responsibility and social entrepreneurship and I believe getting MBA is the best way to prepare me and support my transition into this line of work.

An MBA curriculum will help me develop new skills, strength my ability to analyze and implement new ideas, and add value to the companies I will be working for. The diverse group of people I connect with will expose me to new ideas and ways of thinking that will not only shape the work that I do, but the person I become.

Getting my MBA is as much about the journey I will undertake to earn it as it is about the doors it will open for me afterwards, and I'm ready to begin.

why do i need a MBA??

The answer to this question two years ago would have been indisputably- “I don’t need an MBA”. I had joined army straight out of my school and gained my graduation from the best military academy in the nation. I was excelling in my job, leading men in counter insurgency, saving lives in rescue missions and doing a lot of good for the community using my position and resources at my disposal (otherwise called WHAM- winning hearts and mind). Overall I was fully satisfied with the military as a lifelong career.


Then came along a day when the story of my life took a twist. I was teaching enlisted men how to handle a grenade when one of the grenades exploded in my hand. It took 8 months in hospital before I could join back duties. The doctors though had saved my life but were unable to bring back the movement in the fingers of my right hand. Due to the disability in right hand, I could not be allowed to go back to my previous position. I was tied behind a desk with mundane paperwork. Though my promotion prospects remained the same as they were before the accident but all the challenge was gone with no hopes of return.


Hence, after a lot of deliberation I decided to quit from my 8 years of military service and embrace the corporate world in quest of a position that would offer me both challenges and leadership position, in spite of my disability. After 4 years in training and 8 years of service all aspects of my life, from physical bearing to the way of interaction are set as per military standards. Towards this end, after a lot of research and interaction with veteran officers who had joined the corporate world, I came to a conclusion that I need a MBA to gain a smooth transition from military to corporate world. A MBA would provide me with both the theoretical knowledge as well as practical insight into the way of functioning in the corporate world. It would provide me an opportunity to suitably transform the lessons learnt in my military service and apply them in the corporate world. It would also provide me with suitable contacts and exposure to the business world, in the form of internship. Basically a MBA would open doors of the corporate world and help me reach those leadership positions that seem impossible due to my lack of exposure to the corporate world.


Finally, In short, I need an MBA to understand the nuances of corporate world and get off to a flying start in my new career.

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MBA is just a means to an end. Don't let it ruin your day.

"KFC was able to commercialize chicken in the global market and we Indians still haven't been able to commercialize masala dosa, which is one among the world's most favorite dish". Great people never started off with great things, but with a simple idea. 3 years after my post-graduation I would have started my own consulting firm providing Startup consulting and business process consulting solutions for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs).

The idea never came up at once. Year 2008, I flunked in an interview with one of the indian bschools when I was asked this same old question and I never had a convincing answer, it was a failure but an enlightening experience as from then on I started learning more about myself and what I wanted to do in life. The MBA plans were subsided but I still had the drive within. I ended up joining a one of the top IT firms, but the work lost its glamour once I got used to the system. Yet it was a life changing experience once I started involving in Ecs, one of them was the Food committee, where I met an software engineer turned entrepreneur who inspired me a lot. He revitalized my curiosity to learn new things and adapt to changes and welcome it warmly. I started gathering information to start my own venture. At the same time few of my seniors and colleagues encouraged my enthusiasm, helped me find my strengths and weaknesses and what I wanted to do. I already have a family business which I would take up in sometime, so why not help others in whatever way possible. And then came this idea with my passion to learn new things. Then I switched my career to take up greater responsibilities, a more challenging role and real time business experience, managing my family business for the past one year.
 
Back to the old question, why MBA ? It all depends on the goal, which I want to achieve and where I am now. I want an MBA with specialization in Entrepreneurship and General management. Over these years working with the IT firm and in the family business I have acquired a specific set of skills - ideas, creativity and innovativeness, high analytical skills, communication skills, basics of management, processes, leadership skills, presentation skills, resource allocation, inventory management, payroll processing, the art of negotiation and crisis handling. I believe these skills are necessary for anyone who plans to start his/her own venture. Apart from these there are certain aspects which I still need to learn and I believe an MBA would help me to do so. Firstly, Entrepreneurship program concentrates on business planning and execution, which is the foremost thing I need to learn. Second, I don't have real time consulting experience - I need a career switch. Third, 'A friend in need is a friend indeed' - A bschool is an opportunity for networking. Though I am interested in learning new things I cannot be well versed in nuances of every industry, but to be a consultant I need to be or I need to know someone who can help me with it. Fourth, I need to learn more about marketing. Targeting local entrepreneurs is quite difficult; I always have a tough time convincing elders in our business whenever I think of introducing some new ideas. This is something important as majority of the local entrepreneurs have no more than high school or undergraduate qualification. Fourth, Bschool experience is not about learning but as much as an experience itself with what you can contribute and learn with highly intelligent, fast paced, energetic, highly aspirational, varied experienced individuals and like-minded people. I bring in a good amount of practical difficulties, knowledge and on hand experience with business which I can share and much more to learn from other budding entrepreneurs and experienced people as well. Fifth, the alumni, the most important aspect of all, where you get contacts and alumni groups with expertise in specific fields. A passion for ideas, learning new things, people and client service are the ones which drive many consultants. I believe I have all afore mentioned qualities along with the experience an MBA gives would help me achieve my goals in a more effective, quick manner.
 
Altogether I hope it was convincing enough to have answered the question. 10 years down the line, I would have made considerable achievements and would have helped a lot of local entrepreneurs. My firm would have expanded, so will be my ideas and I personally would have helped an aspiring entrepreneur commercialize at least one Indian product in the global market not to mention, the masala dosa.

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Getting defeated is just a temporary notion, giving it up is what makes it permanent.
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