Best Advice For Executive MBAs

How much will it cost?

How long will it take?

Will it land me a promotion?

These are great questions for professionals to ask when they’re considering an MBA. Just one issue: they are leaving out the most important question every prospective student should ask:

Am I up for it?

Michael Thorne-Begland posed this very question when he was pondering a return to campus. At the time, he was serving as a chief DEI officer. He loved his job – and his place was secure. Still, the lure of business school was impossible to resist. Not that Thorne-Begland didn’t carry any reservations. In an Executive MBA program, he would be tacking on a 25-hour weekly commitment to his full-time job and family obligations, he says. Despite the added workload, he would urge prospective students to take the leap if they would answer “Yes” – or even “I think so” – to whether they were up for the challenge.

“Obtaining my EMBA was one of the best decisions I ever made,” he tells Poets&Quants. “I started the program when I was 52 and well along in my career. I didn’t love every minute, but I never once regretted the decision. It’s like having kids — more work than you anticipate and more rewarding in ways you don’t have words for until you’re in it.”

BE OPEN…AND HUMBLE

Fast forward two years and Thorne-Begland holds an MBA from the University of Virginia’s Darden School. Like many Executive MBAs, he switched roles during business school, becoming his firm’s Vice President for Venture Growth. This experience offers a word of caution for students who are up for the business school challenge.

“I wouldn’t get caught up with trying to figure out exactly what it leads to — thinking you need to know the role you’d move into once you’re done,” Thorne-Begland adds. “It positions you for a variety of different paths, most of which won’t appear until you’re in the program.”

In other words, being committed is only part of the equation. To fully reap the benefits of business school, Executive MBAs must always stay open to the possibilities. That starts with leaving your business card at the door, to paraphrase Antonie Jagga, a 2024 graduate of the National University of Singapore.

“Once you’re in the class, you’re there as a student, to learn, and share. Everyone is accomplished, everyone is senior, everyone is smart, and you’re not going to get the best out of the programme by assuming you’re the smartest in the room.”

Many times, this year’s Best & Brightest Executive MBAs were the smartest people in the room – even if they often sat back to listen and assess before speaking up. Looking back, they have plenty of advice to share with Executive MBAs following in their footsteps. Here are the practices that enabled them to squeeze the most out of their business school experience.

1) Get Your Support System Behind You: “Ensure you have the buy-in and support from your family before embarking on this journey. An Executive MBA is a ‘team effort’ that will impact your entire family’s routine and dynamic. I learned from fellow OSU Executive MBA alum, Brian Bowers, that you should have open and honest conversations about the commitment level, changing availability, and temporary sacrifices required. Listen to your family’s concerns and do your best to proactively address them.”
Jené Pulliam, Ohio State (Fisher)

“It will play a critical role in ensuring you get as much as possible out of your degree programme. This is especially important if you have young kids. Having a supportive family, babysitters, colleagues, bosses, or friends that can help you out can make the journey of combining work, studies, and family less stressful and more enjoyable. I don’t know what I would do without my support system!”
Assyl IKHSAN, INSEAD

2) Be Present In The Moment: “Value every class, interaction, and group project. These aren’t just breaks from your daily routine but opportunities for significant personal and professional growth. Embrace the full experience, allowing you to benefit from a richer perspective and deeper understanding. Be sure to ruthlessly guard your EMBA time, whether that’s study group interactions, onsite teaching weeks and weekends or extracurricular activities. If you aren’t fully present, you will be missing out on a lot!”
Alistair Wye, Cambridge Judge Business School

“When juggling the demands of a career, school, and personal obligations, it is easy to multitask and get distracted. You’ll bring your best self to each aspect of your life if you are able to focus on one thing at a time, and you’ll take the most from every experience if you aren’t dividing your attention. Ultimately, I found I worked most effectively and efficiently when I avoided being pulled in multiple directions at once.”
Louisa Brody, Fordham University (Gabelli)

3) Choose Your Focus: “Either pursue the program to gain a specific skill or go with the intention to explore and broaden your horizons. Trying to do both simultaneously can be overwhelming and counterproductive.”
Nathan Patrick Garlock, Columbia Business School

4) Never Forget – Business School Is A Team Sport: “My hobby before starting my MBA was competing in Olympic-distance triathlons. I had completed 18 prior to starting my MBA. I even used my triathlon experience as part of my application essay. I equated the stamina, focus, grit and determination needed to finish a triathlon to the skills I felt I would need to complete my MBA. This turned out to be true. What I underestimated is that triathlon is a solo-sport, and an MBA is a group-sport. The members of your cohort, faculty and administration are such an important part of the MBA experience. Getting over that finish line at graduation is a team effort!”
Greg Wallig, Georgetown University (McDonough)  

5) Prioritize Ruthlessly: “Balancing work, family, and school is undoubtedly challenging. It’s essential to prioritize ruthlessly according to what’s most important to you and what you aim to accomplish during the program. This might mean sacrificing some personal and family time, so it’s important to make those choices consciously and with consideration of your long-term goals. If you have a family or a partner, alignment on schedules is crucial. Be prepared for sacrifices and for missing out on certain events. The support and understanding of your loved ones are critical, so involve them in your journey from the start.”
Mana Yamaguchi, UCLA (Anderson)

6) Accept The Sacrifices: “Someone shared this with me when I entered the program, and looking back, it was great advice. They told me to accept the fact that during the program, I might need to adjust a few things in my life to make time for everything. This could mean ordering takeout instead of cooking dinner, accepting that your house may be a little more disorganized than usual, or asking my spouse to pull extra weight with chores. As hard as it was to change my routine and ask for help, I found it to be beneficial.”
Iwona Staniszewski, Penn State (Smeal)

“If you are thinking of doing it, you probably ought to. It’s no small endeavour so I always think people brave enough to consider it, especially an Exec MBA while working, probably really want it. But understand that something – probably a lot of things – has got to give. You will have to make some temporary sacrifices to create capacity so be intentional at the start about what those sacrifices will be. You will probably see your friends much less for example. But it is important to make these sacrifices so you can be as involved as possible in the experience – the two years really fly by!”
Adeola Ajayi, London Business School

7) Give Yourself Grace: “Be very mindful of your capacity going into the program, and how your capacity might change over time. Life events can quickly overwhelm you. Think carefully about taking on too much work simultaneously, and don’t be afraid to say no to things. Ultimately be kind to yourself. You’re not superhuman and sometimes you’ll have to take your foot off the gas to allow for rest and recovery.” Alistair Crawford, Warwick Business School

8) Embrace Being A Newbie: “The decision to go to business school is somewhat transactional, in the sense of going to get a formal credential, training, and build a network. However, I would strongly encourage folks to go into the experience not just as a simple transactional encounter, but something more immersive and experiential. In other words, for some folks, the executive MBA program can be a period of tremendous self-reflection, and personal growth. Embrace the change to be vulnerable and “the newbie”. As executives, business school can be quite uncomfortable being out of one’s comfort zone, particularly for those who have established themselves and where no one knows you’re the “big dog” or the one calling the shots can be quite uncomfortable. But I would encourage you to embrace that position of being the learner and being the person who may not know the most in the room. The executive MBA experience is magical in the sense of what you can learn from not just your professors but your classmates. Embrace that discomfort!”
Bernard P. Chang, University of Oxford (Said)

9) Understand Your Schedule and Priorities: “Take inventory of where you may need to make temporary concessions and where you are unwilling to make sacrifices. This may result in stepping back from other commitments for the duration of the program or having open conversations about balancing particularly intensive academic periods. You have to get comfortable with the reality that life may look different temporarily.”
Jené Pulliam, Ohio State (Fisher)

10) Don’t Wait: “Follow Nike’s advice and Just Do It. I mean it in all seriousness. Had I known the extent of the time, energy and effort, I absolutely never would have done it. Yet, from the first month of the program, I consistently have told friends, family and colleagues it is one of the top five best decisions I’ve made in my life – and I’m so grateful I did it. The level of confidence you build within yourself and your abilities is unparalleled. It is a bit of birth-through-fire, but at the end of the day, there isn’t another way to manage graduate school, full time career, and family. Yet, the knowledge, experience and tight-knit community are absolutely worth it.”
Laura Kreuger-Najera, Santa Clara University (Leavey)

“Do it. It’s a rare opportunity in your adult life to cultivate profound connections with exceptionally high-value individuals in an intimate setting. Most of us only ever experience something like that once or twice in our lives. Surrounding yourself with individuals who are equally driven creates a powerful synergy that elevates your own capabilities. Through my program, I essentially gained a board of 75 advisors and experts, each offering invaluable insights that have profoundly impacted many of my strategic and operational decisions at my company over the past few years – especially through our M&A process. So, take the leap and embrace the opportunity.”
Liz Castelli, UC Berkeley (Haas)

 

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