Can a MBA offer creative career paths for a right-brainer?
I agree with the others who have said that free education is always a good deal and no degree can make you do something you don’t want to do :). I keyed in on your comment, “… design is frequently viewed by Business as a tool; not something that inspires real change. I think there is something deeply flawed with the American corporate ethos. I think it needs to be fixed. I see potential opportunities to 1) fix it from the inside…” If you decide to stay in Business and try to change it from the inside, I think you will find a MBA quite useful to help you understand things from the perspective of Business — which I think you will need in order to see how to frame the change. If you haven’t come across the book Tempered Radicals, you may want to check it out. It’s about how to change corporations from the inside. If, on the other hand, you decide you want to choose path 2 (emerging industry), hav
An MBA doesn’t set you down a career path. An MBA gives you more tools for your internal toolbox. Whatever you choose to do in life, an MBA can help you get there, especially when you consider that every single person in this world markets themselves every day to reach their own personal goals. I cannot think of a single career path that would not be in some way relevant to the education you will receive. If it is free, and you are interested in it, go for it. Other than the time and energy you are putting into it, you lose nothing this way, and have the potential to gain quite a lot. A Master of Busines Administration doesn’t turn you into a capitalist drone, it helps you understand your own Business and the Business of others better, whatever that business may be.
I have an MBA. I’m left wing. I read Adbusters. I shop at Whole Foods, eat organic, use cloth diapers with my kids, do extended breastfeeding, show up at nurse-ins, walk most places, write wingnut letters to various government officials and do a lot of stuff that my classmates would think is a bit hippy-dippy. I have a consulting and information products company. It’s my mission in life to help other people create sustainable knowledge businesses that help move us way from a dependence on resource-based industries and that help people lead rewarding lives. When I’m not doing that, I do freelance writing and all sorts of fun stuff. But it’s not just me. It’s certainly not everybody from my MBA program. But it’s not just me. And it is rarely anyone who graduated $150k in debt. So, if you want to have the greatest flexibility with your career, a Harvard degree may not be the answer. That being said, an MBA is a tool kit. You can do many things with it.
