I’m no longer an MBA student.


I’ll keep this one short for now, and get into a bit more detail tomorrow when I’ve got more time:

I withdrew from my MBA program today.

This is a good thing. The fit wasn’t right at all, it wasn’t what I wanted to do, and it didn’t make sense to pay tuition and forego salary and spend a year miserable and stressed for something I didn’t want.

And I don’t regret having tried. I’ve learned an awful lot about myself in the last month or so, and sure, I’m out a bit less than a semester’s worth of tuition, but it’s completely worth it.

Today was hard, though. I told my group after class this morning, after our last group presentation of the block. That went fine, as did the administrative stuff in the grad office, except for watching the program administrator click OK in the “Withdraw student completely” dialog. I ran into Prof. McIlkenny, the program director, on my way out of the office, so we went into his office for a few minutes to discuss it, and that was a bit emotional. But everyone I’ve talked to has basically said that it’s clear I’d thought it through and that it makes sense to them. It certainly does to Candice, and it certainly does to me.

I just told Dad a half-hour ago, which was the last “must tell in person before posting”, else I would have posted earlier. That went well too, although he had to go to do city council things related to tonight’s provincial election.

So, what now? I’m excited. I’ve got a real opportunity to decide what I want to do. I belong on the technical side, and I’m going to take a bit of time, not too long, to figure out exactly what I’m after. I’m going to spend some time getting my Perl flowing again and maybe picking up Ruby and Rails.

But if you happen to know a small to middling Internet company looking for an intermediate to senior Unix sysadmin or an intermediate Perl programmer (or, I guess, a junior-quickly-progressing-to-intermediate Ruby programmer, but I’m not sure I can afford “junior”), I’m on the market again.

Also, if you’re in my class, I wrote a little note over on Facebook.


6 responses to “I’m no longer an MBA student.”

  1. I’m glad you had the courage to do what had to be done. I never really saw you as a ‘suit’ to begin with, so I hope you can find something that is more up your alley soon.

  2. Good for you. I read your last few posts about this topic with interest. It sounds to me like you are making a wise and informed decision.

  3. You’ve thought about this decision for so long, and I know it was a tough one. I know the future holds a lot more joy for you than you thought it did, and I’m so glad you took the risk to pursue it. :-)

  4. a big step, but obviously one you’re comfortable with. congratulations and good luck on your next endeavour – whatever it ends up being!

  5. I know you did the right thing for you and for us. I’m glad you took the steps to withdraw from the program, even if they were hard to do. <3

  6. Rich, Kudos on: 1) making the decision to try the MBA route; and 2) being honest enough with yourself to know it’s not right and to make the (painful) decision to change paths again. I’ve done similar things in the past… sometime over a beer I can tell you about my start down the M.Ed path toward teaching in a public high school. I took a pretty severe financial hit for leaving that path, too, but it wound up ultimately working out with great opportunities. You do have to do what is right for you – and congrats on making that tough decision. Dan

    P.S. And if I hear of anything, I’ll let you know.