The value of a good education
When I was about six credits shy of my undergraduate in business adminstration, I decided that school wasn't worth it for me. My grades weren't that good (although they weren't that bad either). I felt like I really wasn't getting enough for my money and I thought the "piece of paper" simply wasn't worth the cost.
Five years ago, I surprised my wife when I told her I was going back to school. This time, I was going for an IT management degree. I now had two more years to go to earn a degree. I was determied to have high marks on everything I did.
Something surprised me. I expected to learn about IT related things. I expected to learn about programming, network and project management and even product design. I learned all that. What I didn't expect was how much about business I learned in my IT classes. I think that I was the only person in the program that had a strong business and sales background, so I may have been the only one to have seen so much apply to business.
Near the end of the program, I surprised my wife once more when I told her that I was going to continue so that I could earn my MBA. From a timing and cost perspective, it was not really a smart thing. I expected the "piece of paper" to open some doors for me. What I didn't expect was how much I could immediately apply. I didn't expect that I would be able to apply the knowledge from my business program into my IT responsibilities.
The most important thing that I learned was that IT really doesn't matter if it doesn't address the business problem. If business has a problem to solve, business doesn't care if it is IT that solves it or anyone else. Now, all of my IT discussions revolve around the business case.
You will be surprised what you might learn if you take the time to learn it. Once I realized that I didn't know enough... once I decided that there was something that someone else could offer, I found that I didn't know nearly what I needed to know to be successful.
Corey Smith is the Vice President of Innovation at Fisher’s Document Systems.
Corey Smith is the Vice President of Innovation at Fisher’s Document Systems.
Corey Smith is the president of Tribute Media a web development firm providing high performing, industry specific websites. He is a businessman, writer, technology fanatic, graphic designer and web developer. His greatest passion is teaching, consulting and speaking.
You can find him on Twitter, FaceBook, FriendFeed, and LinkedIn.
You love this post, right? Don't be afraid, Share it with someone...
Submitted by Ken Stewart (not verified) on Mon, 03/17/2008 - 13:33.
So this doesn't answer my question ultimately, Corey... It does answer it in a round about way, but is where you get the graduate degree more important than what you learn in the business program?
Submitted by Corey Smith’s Business and Technology Blog » More money for (not verified) on Mon, 03/17/2008 - 14:10.
[...] the past, I wrote about the value of a good education, but I still get a lot of people that want to try and quantify the value of an MBA degree in terms [...]
