Personal Peerspective-Persuing Mba

Personal Perspective Paper--Pursuing MBA

University of Phoenix

It is said that going through an experience where one almost dies changes one's perspective on life. During a very painful recovery process from a serious accident, I realized that I had a few regrets in life that I wanted to remedy if I could. Chiefly, I wanted to step off the corporate merry-go-round to live a less stressful life and spend more time with my family. I decided to go about the process of creating my next career in a systematic, linear manner: I looked up the results of a past personality test I took relating to best jobs for me, listed my skill-sets, asked myself what I am passionate about and what excited me enough to spend the effort to be successful, and what kind of job would allow me to go through many surgeries and physical therapy in the next few years. I also asked myself what I did not want to repeat about my last career. After analyzing my catalog of possibilities I decided on business consulting. This would allow me to choose my own hours, schedule my time around my recovery schedule and take advantage of my considerable experience in all levels of multi-national manufacturing concerns.

With a consulting career in mind, I now had to decide how to make this happen. I imagined myself already in my career at a client's office describing the work I just successfully concluded. I worked backwards from there to figure out the steps I needed to put into place to make this scenario happen. I knew I already had the equipment and contacts required, so I set to work on my brochure and marketing campaign. Upon listing my experiences and accomplishments, I researched the qualifications of my competition and realized that an MBA was essential.

Once again, I took the systematic approach to this decision and asked myself a few questions: 1) Do I enjoy studying and learning new things; 2) Can I make the time to commit to this program; 3) Can I afford an MBA and is there a return on investment; 4) Do I have my family's support; 5) If I don't become a consultant will the MBA still have a return on investment in another job. After answering yes to all these questions, I had one more positive to consider: I was becoming very bored spending all my time in a hospital bed or at home in bed recovering. If I did not somehow start getting that rush from a sense of accomplishment I would dive into a deep depression. Quitting a very demanding job cold turkey was starting to take its toll on me. I decided a Masters in Global Management would not only look good