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[aminassian7]

I wanted to get your view point on the best course of action I should take. I have 10+ years of experience in finance working with derivatives, hedge funds, and fixed income portfolio management. I am currently 35 years old. I have CFA and now will be going to UCLA for a masters in financial engineering. It is a 1 year program. I want to parlay my background into a management role in the near future as all of my roles have been at the analyst/associate levels. I also don't want to risk getting pidgeon holed in a "numbers crunching" role. I would like to look at Wharton's EMBA program, but my concern is that EMBA programs are geared for people with fair amount of management experience which I don't really have. Would my background still be suitable for EMBA. I also would like to know if applying to school like Stanford and Harvard would make any sense ( assuming I get a strong GMAT score and very good grades in grad school) and would my above mentioned reasoning be valid to pursue a MBA at this point of my career. I greatly appreciate the advice.

[VP_MBA_Guru]

Hi Amina,
Thanks for your post - to be honest, I dont know too much about EMBA programs, so you might want to contact the schools directly.

One thing to consider - while you are at UCLA, you should be able to access some of the MBA program's career resources. I would urge you to network with MBA students/alumni, attend career events/conferences and utilize Anderson's resources. If you are proactive, you might be able to make the right contacts that can get you the post-MBA job you are looking for.

Regarding H/S - those programs are possibilities, but since H/S lean toward younger students, it might be more difficult to get admission. Sorry, I am not trying to discourage you, but it is what it is.

Good luck!

NP

[aminassian7]

Thanks so much for the feedback. I greatly appreciate the insight.

[VP_MBA_Guru]

No problem - happy to help!