Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

I am a senior at the University of South Florida. I will be
graduating Summer of 07` Suma Cum Laude, with a degree in Economics. I
have decided to live my life through owning my own businesses; I am
certain of this. I do not yet have the networking or product required to
do so, so I am consulting you guys for my next step. I have thought about
continuing to go into the Harvard Business School in the Fall, but I
would like some input on the best possible graduate school to get where
I wish to be; perhaps graduate school in this manner is not
appropriate. I appreciate any help
you can provide. Thank you,
SGT Steven Wilson
US Army Combat Medic


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Name: Steven M. Wilson/Goal: Self-Employed/Motivation: Happiness/Lifeline: 813-401-2272

I would definitely move forward to Graduate School. If your corporations grow, you will be in the position to move on to other larger corporations. You could own businesses like you said, but you could use them for a stepping stone.

Experience is just as important as education.  Have you considered getting a job and going back for an MBA while you work?  Often times the employer will pay for a good chunck of it.  Check out the top 10 Part-Time MBA schools and see if any are of particular interest to ya.  Just a thought.  You will meet many like minded people in MBA school.   

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Travis Tschepen
Hibachi Bros. LLC

--My goal in life is to be as good of a person my dog already thinks I am.--

Thank you for the advice. I have recieved consistent advice to continue on to graduate school. Where to attend is my next step, though Harvard sounds very promising, aside from the immense cost.

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Name: Steven M. Wilson/Goal: Self-Employed/Motivation: Happiness/Lifeline: 813-401-2272

Steve,

I really wouldn`t go straight to business school without getting some experience first. Many business schools, especially the top schools, require a certain number of years of work experience including management experience. Without some "real world" experience (job or your own business) you won`t get nearly as much out of b-school. You need to have experienced real-world issues and successes, bring in stories and questions, and be able to apply what you learned to things from your past to gain a complete understanding.

I attended Babson College for my MBA (#1 in Entrepreneurship for 12 years in a row) and had an excellent experience. I learned as much from my classmates as from the professors. And networking is a huge part of b-school. My network is much stronger now and I have friends in all aspects and industries of business that I can tap. If you come in with no experience or network of your own, you won`t be nearly as valuable to your classmates which may affect your ability to tap into their experience ad network (maybe sad, but true).

Best of luck in whatever you choose.

Doug

I appreciate the candor. I realize the difficulty in my plans with little seasoned experience. My problem is deciding which field to concentrate my experience on. I do not enjoy Healthcare, despite being a Medic Veteran of the Army. The networking will be very important to my success. I am thinking an Investment firm to gain some ground and then go into school, but I worry about losing my potential to gain fellowships and such now with my strong grades, vs. getting a company to pay for it, me having to commit a few years to them, and then losing sight of my goals. I am young enough to sort it out as I go, but I want to make the right decisions at the right times.

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Name: Steven M. Wilson/Goal: Self-Employed/Motivation: Happiness/Lifeline: 813-401-2272

There was a really cool link to a blog about this, whether or not an MBA is good or bad. I can`t remember the site, nor the thread, but the upshot of the story is that an MBA isn`t always a goal.

The argument is that what students learn in a graduate course is usually a number of years behind the times. Meanwhile, those out in the marketplace are learning to think fast, live by their wits, and are honing their adaptability skills. I tend to go with this latter argument, but maybe only because I hated school and never bothered to go beyond the basics.

I`d argue that if anyone wants to live their life running their own business, the very first thing is to decide what business? Humanity has produced goods and services for well over 150,000 years, and whenever there`s an exchange for a value, it`s a business. That means just about anything can be a business, insofar as someone will exchange a value for whatever "it" is.

Before running off to continue an educational career, why not take some time to first decide on a business, then see if it will work? After all, if it`s a success, you can always hire someone to manage it while you complete your post-graduate studies. On the other hand, if it`s not a success, why would you need to know how to manage it? Right?

I see the validity of going to school to develop a networking structure, but is it worth the money and time? Can`t a network be developed without a history of schoolmates? Sure it can! So what else, other than a network of contacts, does the extended time in school gain for you?

There`s a time to invent things. Then there`s a time to learn from others who`ve been in a similar field. But when you have no field yet, and haven`t decided what to try to invent, how does continuing education further your actual goal of living with your own business?