Halfway through the workday on Monday I headed home again with what had now turned into a nasty head cold.  I spent the next two days in bed resting, trying to recover.  This was terrible timing not only because I had a pile of work to get through at work, but also because my GMAT test was scheduled for less than two weeks time.  I made the decision to postpone my exam until November 2nd because without the ability to study hard and maintain my mental fitness, I would not be capable of getting a score that accurately reflects my ability.

The time recovering gave me some time to think about what I want to be doing in 2 years time, 5 years time, 10 years time etc.  I have always come up with business ideas that I’ve thought have had great potential.  Some have been small from simple low-maintenance websites to the enterprise-sized eBay-type ventures.  Why haven’t I pursued any of them?  A number of reasons.  One of them has been my visa situation in the UK and the fact that I’m not ready to return to Africa yet.  The biggest and most pressing reason is I lack the business knowhow to start my own company – raising capital, writing a business plan, accounting etc.

I definitely have the desire to be an entrepreneur.  One of the major reasons I switched from being a programmer to being a business analyst was because I wanted to be closer to the business processes and decisions that were driving the company, and learn more about “business”.  The rest of the skills need to start and run a business I need to learn.  The next part of the puzzle is working out how to get to there – to the point of starting my own business.

The entrepreneurs I’ve read about who went to business school either started their own businesses straight out of business school, took business development jobs at major companies, worked for startups or took other types of jobs in fields they were interested in starting businesses.  Since I am probably going to have a loan to payback at the end of my studies, starting a business outright does not seem like an option, unless something amazing happens: angel investor or winning a business plan competition.

I have read about and come into contact with ex-city bankers who have started their own businesses and done really well.  This seems to be a common trend and does make sense because these people are usually highly motivated and very switched-on.

I dislike the idea of working for a major corporate, so I believe the best option for me to work for a startup once I’m finished with business school.  A good alumni network of entrepreneurial people will make finding a job at a startup a little easier.

Another thing I’ve realized from my research is I find venture capitalism highly appealing, but I need to do some more research into it and it does sound like you need some entrepreneurial experience.

Hi, I’m Paul. There are over a million MBA programs out there and I’m struggling to choose which one is right for me. I thought that writing a blog would help me to collect my thoughts and help me decide which schools to go for.  I might even write something entertaining, insightful or helpful to other / future applicants. So here goes.

About six weeks ago, I went to an MBA fair in London where a host of business schools gave presentations and there was an opportunity to talk to admissions officials and school alumni. Unfortunately for me, I had a terrible hangover and had just come down with a dose of the man flu; I was feeling terrible at best. To make matters worse, I pulled out my seldom-worn suit which I bought 4 years ago for my first real job interview to find that it looked like a suit from the 80s, when baggy clothes were in fashion. (Losing weight is great for self confidence and your health, but it can be terribly expensive when you have to replace your entire wardrobe).

The real reason I was going to the fair was to break the ice and to make the whole MBA application process feel a bit more real. I didn’t have any questions prepared. I didn’t really have any questions yet. I thought that if I listened to other people’s questions something would come to mind and I could break the ice and the conversation would flow from there.

At this stage I had only been studying for the bloody GMAT test, scheduled the D-Day, started looking through the many rankings and done a tiny bit of reading on some school’s websites. My primary selection criteria at that stage were warm climate, potential for work in the area afterwards and a good rank. The reasons for my criteria stemmed from a desire to get off Mud Island (pessimistic name for England), to get out of Europe and to experience a new culture before returning to my homeland of South Africa. (Being South African, the cold and wet really get to me.)

Back to me feeling terrible at the MBA fair – actually, I arrived too late for the first round of presentations, which unfortunately meant that I missed one of the Hong Kong schools on my list: the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Why Hong Kong? Briefly – warm climate, close to China, and I guessed: the Hong Kong people are more used to westerners and probably more accepting of western culture.

Because I was late, I milled around outside scoping out the scene, feeling even more ill. I had also started to feel extremely nervous – not knowing what to expect, whether I’d fit in, would I make a good impression etc. That is when the soul searching began… Should I really be doing an MBA?

I sat outside in the autumn sun pondering, feeling ill, and wondering whether I should just call it off and go home. It felt like there was some sort of invisible barrier at the entrance to the hotel hosting the event – a barrier I had to cross.

The time came for the second round of presentations and I plucked up the courage, got up and went in. First barrier crossed. I went to the second Hong Kong school presenting at the event: the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. The presentation was given by a part-time HKUST MBA grad who is now the director or head of admissions (no names, sorry I’m really bad with names). Her presentation was very good and informative, but I had read their webpage through and through already. However, she did say something that was very important and very pertinent.

She said that when deciding whether to admit someone into the MBA program the most important thing is that the candidate knows what they want from an MBA. What do you want from an MBA? Somehow, I’d got to that point and I hadn’t done enough thinking about why I wanted to do an MBA and what I wanted from the experience. I was befuddled; there was no way I could convince someone else of my intentions, let alone myself.

The presentation overran and we scuttled out, making beelines for our next presentations of interest. I wasn’t very interested in any schools presenting in the third round (mainly because I wasn’t interested in the big class, 2-year American programs at that stage). Nevertheless, I walked into the University of Texas at Austin‘s presentation as I had no questions for any of the HKUST admission presentation team, only questions for myself. Besides, it would be good to have something to compare the HKUST presentation to.

The UT presentation was completely different from the other presentation, but was still very informative and interesting. But I wasn’t really concentrating as I kept asking myself questions that I didn’t know the answers to yet. What do you want to get from an MBA?

During the presentation my man flu felt like it was getting worse. I left straight afterwards with the reasoning that I wasn’t ready to talk to any adcom members and I certainly wasn’t well enough to make a good first impression.

On the train back into the countryside, I started reading the material handed out by the HKUST team. I have to commend whoever put the marketing together – it is of an excellent quality – dense, but very readable and insightful. The reading helped me to start to formulate the answers to my questions and I decided on an action plan: do some career research and write a career plan that I can believe in.