Is an MBA Right for You?

Bailey Butzberger
Forté Fellow

I’ve been asking myself the same question for about three years: is business school right for me?

After my first few intense weeks of school, I have my answer. It takes me hours to get my balance sheets to balance. I need to learn Greek in order to calculate probabilities. Every hour of the day is filled and not usually with sleep. I’ve never been so consistently busy in my life.

And I love it. Business school, as it turns out, is exactly right for me.

I was nervous about returning to school because of the quantitative nature of the work.  I’ve been doing curriculum design and training. There aren’t exactly a lot of stock valuation calculations in that line of work. However, business schools are prepared for people like me. Prior to even arriving on campus, SMU Cox was giving us online and optional in-person classes to preview the content of our Accounting, Finance, Statistics and Economics classes.

Classes are certainly still challenging, but you are far from going it alone. My classmates are extremely collaborative. It’s odd to think that I met all of them just a few weeks ago. You get very close very quickly when you sit in a room for 6 hours straight, sharing the frustration of working through difficult concepts and the ultimate celebration of completing all of your homework problems.

Even though the math doesn’t all come easily, it feels amazing to make learning my full-time job. I used to be the one designing lessons for other people, and now I get to be the one benefiting from other people’s knowledge. Being a student is a phenomenal thing.  Stressful, sure. Challenging, absolutely. But your sole job is to improve yourself. In three short weeks, I’ve learned a LOT in class. I’ve been to seminars on leadership, wealth creation, negotiations, and customer service. I’ve spoken to recruiters at Fortune 100 companies, practiced case method interviewing, created and delivered my personal elevator pitch, and joined the entrepreneurship club.

If these first few weeks are indicative of the huge amount of gain that I can expect in the next two years, then it’s one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. Business school is definitely right for me. And if you are up for a challenge, it could be right for you too.

Bailey Butzberger
Forté Fellow and MBA Candidate 2015
Southern Methodist University (Cox School of Business)