What am I doing?

I'm about a week and a half from attending Kelley Connect Week. My travel plans are set, and I'm excited to be staying at the beautiful Indiana Memorial Union. It's hard to believe that I'm so close to starting the program. Lately I've been thinking about how I got to this point. I've been thinking about my (shall we call it) pre-MBA journey, so that I can articulate my story to the fantastic people I expect to meet during Kelley Connect.

Why am I pursuing my MBA? What kind of masochistic-traits must I have to put myself through sleepless nights in order to shell out thousands of dollars? What will this do to my family?

Before you begin to think, "This guy is just thinking about this now!?!" Let me assure you that I have spent ample – and I mean AMPLE – time considering these questions and a hundred others. It's just that now that I'm so close to beginning the program the main questions I had during my research arise again. Obviously this is typical for consumers. I will begin the program with questions swirling, then I will move steadily into the cognitive dissonance stage, and ultimately I will once again realize that pursuing my MBA was the best decision I ever made.

Any way... first thing's first. Why am I pursuing my MBA? I'm doing so because I knew that business is ever-changing and not that long ago it was pretty special to have an undergraduate degree. I knew that to keep pace I needed to become more aware... I needed to become more knowledgeable. I also wanted to give myself the challenge. I wanted to see if I could do it.

Being a relatively-new father and a naturally frugal individual, I was always concerned about the financial commitment of the program. I read countless articles espousing the pros and cons of the MBA ROI, and I drove my wife crazy with Excel analysis proving and disproving the ROIs. What got me over the hump is I realized that there's a price for quality. There's all sorts of financial reasons not to complete an MBA, but it really came down to one simple question: Do I think that the MBA will lead me to a better and happier life? And, the answer was a firm YES!

I've always said that "things work for you if you make them work for you." I think an MBA is exactly like that. I know I will make it work for me... and really, that's that.