What MBA really taught me

In the fall of 2021 I decided to go back to college and get my MBA. I applied to and was accepted in the Executive MBA program at UC Berkeley Haas School of Business.

I already had 2 degrees - a Bachelor of Engineering in IT from the University of Mumbai (India) and a Masters in Computer Science from the University of Florida. I also had a fulltime job as an engineering director at Google managing an organization of 100+ with plenty of growth opportunities. Oh and I was (still am!) mom to an elementary-aged kiddo with all the parenting/household-management duties it comes with. Did I mention I live in Seattle, WA which would mean monthly flights back and forth to California for 21 months?

WHY the heck was I putting myself through this much torture???

I graduated from the program in June 2023.

Along with congratulations, I got a lot of questions about what I loved, what I learned and most importantly was it worth it?

My response is YES but probably not for the reasons you think. If you have a tech leader profile similar to mine then you don’t need an MBA to advance your career. Neither should you expect that it will automatically facilitate a major career change for you. However the journey of doing an MBA taught me many things that ultimately did lead to new perspectives and new opportunities. In this post I’ll outline my top 3 learnings.

1. Pushing myself to new limits

I mentioned in a previous post how pushing ourselves to be in the Learning Zone instead of the Comfort Zone can be helpful. By doing an MBA, I probably did push myself to the very boundary of Learning and Panic Zones but one surprising discovery was that the boundary of my Learning Zone grew and I was able to do more things that I didn’t think I was capable of!

I became better at prioritization in personal and professional tasks out of necessity. I became a better manager because I had to delegate more out of necessity because I was disappearing for 2 working days every month, sometimes more, for MBA. I also became a better report and employee because I had to be laser focused on my goals and expectations not having much extra time/energy to waste.

Overall the program helped me see myself differently and I redefined what I could do because of this journey. It certainly helped me later when positioning myself and telling my story for new career opportunities.

2. Taste of new beginnings

I often talk about the Tuckman Model in my Team Development sessions and even researched it further during my independent study course in MBA (more on this in another post!). After finishing MBA it struck me how much the model also applies to us as individuals.

MBA reminded me that new beginnings may seem scary but they also bring positives such as excitement, anticipation and the thrill of getting started. I remember going to the orientation session and meeting my cohort - there was so much excitement and energy in the room and it was contagious! More curiously, this thrill happened at the start of every course each term.

This taste of new beginnings helped motivate me when looking for new career opportunities by amplifying the positive feelings of excitement and anticipation and dissipating the negative feelings of anxiety and nervousness that come with a new job search.

3. Expanded Horizons

Before MBA my circle of contacts was all tech and even mostly big tech folks. MBA connected me to people from very diverse backgrounds - different industries, different roles, different career paths and different perspectives. It truly expanded my horizons in ways I would never have achieved without the scaffolding of the program.

MBA also helped me trade competencies and form a network of complementary skills. now also have amazing new friends on speed dial who are wizards at disciplines where I barely have a surface understanding - finance, legal, healthcare, hospitality, sustainability - you name it, I’m sure I now have an MBA contact for it!

These expanded horizons and new connections definitely boosted my ability to find interesting new career opportunities.

In Conclusion

I will say that a lot of what I gained from MBA was very much dependant on the program itself.

• Choosing an in-person program that also happened to be out-of-state set the environment that pushed me to new limits.

• Choosing a school like Berkeley Haas helped with the network aspect.

• Choosing an exec MBA vs other variants like hybrid/full-time helped me balance my job and parenting responsibilities while doing MBA but also ensured that the program had a firm completion deadline so it didn’t drag on for years.

• Choosing an exec MBA also ensured I had the same cohort throughout and the cohort was of similarly tenured professionals so we had some things in common (such as going back to school and juggling responsibilities outside MBA!)

If you are in a tech leadership role and are trying to decide if you should pursue an MBA, I hope this helps you. Feel free to ask your questions in comments below!