Top 10 Reasons to get your MBA (ridiculous reasons included)

1. Change Careers

Among the list of reasons that many people go back to business school, probably the top one is to change careers. I would venture to say that half of my class came in to change careers. What’s the downside for career changes? Be prepared to take some steps back in pay, and status. The entertainment industry is notorious for having Harvard MBA’s working in the mailroom.

2. Career Advancement

If you are looking to rise in the ranks, these days an MBA is pretty essential. It gives you an opportunity to apply for higher level positions, take an internship in a higher level position, and more. Additionally, you can probably get a higher salary.

3. Intellectual curiosity

This is a high price to pay to satisfy intellectual curiosity. You could just read articles on digg.com and reddit all day for free.

4. Move to a new location

This is a great excuse to jump ship from your current location and move somewhere new. Moving to a new location is a tremendous personal growth experience and forces you out of your comfort zone.

5. Happy Hour

Let’s face it. No B-school experience is complete without a bit of excessive drinking. In the MBA world, we call it “networking.” Some of the benefits of “networking”

• Random Conversations
• Bar tabs that make your eyes pop out of your head
• You celebrate when the bar tab is below triple digits

6. Study abroad programs

It’s the perfect excuse to make up for not studying abroad as an undergrad. Get to b-school and plan your exodus for the following fall and you’ll be the envy of your friends and family. But, don’t forget to keep searching for a job while you are abroad. Or you may have to retire to the beach in some exotic location and open up a lemonade stand (maybe that’s better than being an i-banker)

7. New friends

The academic setting forces you to make new friends by default. Since you are going to spend countless hours together suffering through finance, marketing, and other things that are “useful”, you might as well make some friends in the process

8. Three more letters on the end of your name

Nowadays, acronyms are in. When you spend all day long (ADL) online talking people and LOL, what’s one more acronym? You get to hand out business cards that say MBA.

9. Undergraduate girls

If Playboy can make an entire series of DVD’s out of this, they must be on to something. This is your opportunity to be the next Van Wilder. It’s like getting to be an undergrad with 10 times the brains and 5 times the money you had the first time around. WARNING: This could lead to excess unnecessary purchases.

10. You get to wear a cap and gown after 2 years and listen to Pomp and Circumstance.