[Part III] How I decided about MBA and Masters
The decision
Part I: Change is scary, and so is staying the same
[Part III] The decision
Chapter 11: My Decision
After shadowing Susan at MIT during the admitted student’s visit weekend, I flew back to my childhood home.
“Welcome home” my mom texted me, “bread is in the oven.” Upon arriving through the door half past midnight, I was greeted by brown butter and cinnamon aromas. On the kitchen table sat a loaf of flat and lumpy banana bread.
My mom is an experimental baker—she never follows a recipe and although she has a few baking staples (banana bread, oatmeal cookies, apple pie) they never turn out the same way twice. Sometimes she’ll be unhappy with the way her quick bread rises or the wateriness of her pies. After 3-4 rounds of the same kind of failure back to back, her frustration would migrate to me as the one hearing her disappointment and being disappointed myself at the thought that the heavenly banana bread I tasted a month ago was a one time fluke. “Why don’t you follow a recipe,” I’d silently chide.
I dug in to tonight’s banana bread, starving for something I’d been hungry for a while without realizing (the last time I was home was less than three months ago but it felt like ages). A ton of rich chocolate chunks were strewn in the bread with swirls of sourdough and mashed banana. I imagined my mom throwing together half of the baking ingredients on our countertop when creating, only half-intentionally, this cross between a sourdough bread loaf and chocolate chip banana bread. The hybrid was something my taste buds would have never experienced if it weren’t for her instinctual baking habits. It was like crack.
People overemphasize following a recipe. My personal take on baking (as someone who has avidly read baking books for years) is that if you add enough sugar to flour and eggs, it’s probably going to taste good whatever you do. Although, after I complimented my mom on her banana bread, she proudly told me that she didn’t add any sugar to it at all.
There’s no recipe to life that specifies just how much schooling to add to it. The decision I made was particular to my circumstances, personality, and values. If you had similar options as me, the choice you go with could be something totally different. That’s normal.
Personally, my “why” for grad school is amorphous. First, my “why” was that it was what I would do if I had millions of dollars, but I don’t have millions of dollars. Second, I wanted to follow in the footsteps of Cassie Kozyrkov, but she told me that I don’t need to go to school and that I shouldn’t try following her footsteps because luck played a big role in her success (she’s like a loaf of my mom’s banana bread that turned out especially tasty somehow). Third, it’s because it sounds like an interesting life experience and it could let me redefine my life. But, there are a lot of interesting life experiences and opportunities I’m discovering locally, and I don’t need to uproot and pay out tuition for that. Lastly, I want to learn material that I can apply later on to a career that suits me better than the career I’m currently in. To know how material I learn can apply to a career that suits me, there’s stuff I need to figure out. Being in an environment where I have constant access to people working on interesting challenges would help with this, but I would follow Cassie’s advice and treat grad school as a last resort because the degrees are very costly. Currently, I do have lots of access to people working on projects interesting to me. If in time, I discover I need grad school to go deeper and to talk to more academics and others in that setting, then I would consider going.
To maximize the use out of the opportunities and courses I pay for at grad school, I would take the chances I have now to try out different interests, and then go to grad school, if needed, to dive deeper into one of them that I find a strong passion for. So, I’m delaying my decision on grad school. I know, that’s not too exciting. This may be the third grad school decision I’ve made, but it won’t be the last.
I’m putting off the decision because I first want a strong reason for going and to know what interests I would focus on there so that I can maximize my time. If I don’t have that within the next year, I won’t go.
But, if I didn’t defer enrollment, which program would I choose?
I realized that I have a history of putting myself through leadership development programs and hating them. Maybe they’re an acquired taste. I also hate Zumba after trying it once, but maybe if I force myself through it a few times I’ll eventually like it (I should try that).
Stanford’s courses were from the get-go the ones I was the most interested in, and the degree is focused on technical learning rather than leadership development unlike the dual CS/MBA degrees which do have a required leadership development component.
For Berkeley, I actually got into Industrial Engineering and Operations Research instead of the Computer Science department, and at Berkeley, that limits which courses I’d be able to take. For Stanford and MIT, I’d be able to take similar CS courses.
I also considered the diversity of classes available. Stanford has more courses related to decision science and the future of work, topics that interest me, and unlike MIT LGO, its program allows me to pick courses from a variety of departments for credit.
Another learning opportunity, research-assistantship, is possible at Stanford but rare among LGO students. I could apply for research grants and conduct independent study at Stanford if I wanted to. Stanford has several research organizations that interest me: Stanford AI Alignment, Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, Digital Economy Lab. MIT often collaborates with these and there’s an equivalent to Stanford AI Alignment called MIT AI Alignment. As an MS&E student at Stanford, research is more common than at MIT as an MBA/MS dual-degree student.
Thinking of value in terms of employability, the MBA + MS in EECS + guaranteed 6 month internship offered by LGO surpasses the MS in MS&E at Stanford. Several people have said this and it definitely makes sense. MBAs and MS in EECS are stamps of credibility and can be very versatile. On the other hand, people also say that the Stanford network is very strong, and it is located in Silicon Valley, so I might have an easier time networking my way into a job there.
Also, remembering that how much energy I have is what really matters, not what labels I carry next to my name, I would say that I’d feel more energized at Stanford than I do at MIT. It’s more likely I’ll want to put effort into networking when the weather outside is warm and I’m happy because of sunshine. Also, it’s a new place I haven’t been before, which gives me more to discover. That said, I’m not sure if I would fit into the culture.
Given all the above statements, I’m would choose Stanford above the other programs. I ended up committing there because you are allowed to commit and then decide to defer as late as August 31st.
Chapter 12: How I Would Make the Decision Faster
It took me over a quarter of a year to come to this decision. I gathered information through coffee chats, webinars, coaching sessions, and school visits and pieced it all together in the end, just in time for the decision deadlines. I think I could have made the decision faster by picking one of these strategies:
Shadow students and decide
Each school visit requires about a day and needs you to travel there. I was a bit fortunate to be able to do this, and think that in the end it gave me a comprehensive amount of information I would be able to make a decision on without looking for any other clues.
It’s critical to ask enough questions and talk to as many people as possible on the campus you’re visiting in order to make the most of the visit. Relying on a single day or single perspective is risky, but you lower the risk with the more critical thinking you bring in.
Maximize optionality
When I realized I wasn’t certain about any of the programs, I could have worked on making decisions that would give me the longest time possible to decide. I could have just focused on negotiating my ability to defer all the admittances. Or I could have just chosen the most flexible program. Stanford had me at “defer.”
It’s nice to have decisions be one-and-done, but I tend to like keeping my options open until the very last minute where I have to decide. You never know what will change. For example, when I deferred my admission to the first masters degree in Chemical Engineering, I had no idea that Covid would happen and lead to me reneging a job I had lined up.
One way to make the decision would be to optimize how long I had until I made a decision to go to grad school or not, since I am pretty ambivalent about going to grad school now, but may have a stronger desire to go later.
Listen to your energy
As I wrote in Part II, listening to your energy is a solid way of making decisions. It makes logical sense because if you aren’t energized to do something, how successful do you think you’ll be at it?
This is different than saying “Anyone who wants to go to grad school should go” or “Trust your gut” or “Listen to your intuition.” That’s because people may want to go to grad school for the wrong reasons—reasons that aren’t connected to this being the thing that will fill them with energy each day. People are also bad at predicting what they want. Their gut and intuition may lead them astray on this.
Really try to imagine the life of a graduate student. Go an shadow someone to test it out, if you can. Will the atmosphere be enough to enliven you despite BS degree requirements? Will the stress of not having a job locked down free you to explore new opportunities, or eat you alive? Will you find the culture at the school resonant or dissonant? Compare alternative options besides grad school. Where will you feel the most energized to follow your core values and achieve the goals that are actually meaningful to you?
Minimum set of criteria / questions you need answers to
This strategy is a simple one but also a good one. There are a lot of questions you could get answers to: What’s it like living in X city? How do students spend their time? How good are the professors? But lots of these questions will lead to extraneous information that is a) not worth the time and b) potentially going to distract you when it’s days before the decision deadline and you’re sifting through all this knowledge in your head. I recommend coming up with your own minimum set of criteria and pieces of knowledge you need for this decision. If I were to say what the criteria are, I would list the following checks. Not all of these must be met, but I feel people going to grad school should be able to find one reason to go to from the list below.
How are you trying to grow these next two years and what do you need to grow?
Before talking about external outcomes that result from school (e.g. new job) think about internal changes. If you’re open-minded to different options, you can get a new job without going to school. Internal changes (feeling more connected to yourself, having a stronger technical ability, etc.) are what I would put more dollar value on when thinking about whether grad school is worth the investment. If grad school is the best way to get the things you need to grow, then strongly consider it.
Do you have a clear idea of what career you want?
If so, and you know another degree is useful for the pivot, strongly consider grad school. Finding this answer requires research.
Do you already have networking opportunities and chances to work together with people who have similar ideas?
For me, moving to a city gave me the communication I was lacking. If communication with people in an academic setting is what you need, then consider going to grad school.
Chapter 13: What I would have done differently
The #1 thing I would have done differently: do all this reasoning before I apply, and do not apply unless I knew I wanted to go. Even if my GRE was expiring this year.
While master’s programs are usually lax and lets you defer 1 year, MBA programs often only allow deferring in very special circumstances. It apparently annoys them when you ask them for a deferral, and if you apply a second time after you turn down a deferred acceptance, the likelihood of you getting the opportunity again might be lower.
Deferring 1 year isn’t that long. Things can change a lot in one year, but only when something major and rare happens. Things change to a larger degree in 2+ years. You don’t want to stop yourself from going to school in 2+ years by withdrawing after deferring. Some schools might not actually care and deferring might not impact your ability to enroll many years later, but I would suggest looking into it and ask people at the specific schools you consider.
The process of applying is expensive. MBA programs also make you pay deposits, and if you defer and decide not to attend in the end, you might lose deposits of up to $5k. To save yourself this cost, you can apply once you did the research and are certain you want to go.
I would just take the GRE a second time rather than apply to programs I would need to defer acceptances at because I’m not certain I would want to attend yet.
Maybe it makes sense to lean towards applying early if you consider age as an important factor. I do think that the younger you are, the more you grad school programs make sense, because you do not have the same opportunity cost as someone with more work experience.
Right now, I’m exactly the average age that people go into these graduate degree programs, which means that every year, the likelihood that I would want to go into the program decreases. That’s based on a statistic, which of course may not hold up to real life circumstances.
Chapter 14: The Trigger and the Threshold
When I tell people my plan for deferring, some tell me not to defer. I tell them that I have until August 31st to decide and move on from the conversation, because I’ve already thought about this.
When the time comes, I can make the call on whether to defer or not. I say that somewhat shakily because I have very little clue how the next four months will go. But this is how I think I will make that call.
The Trigger for Going to Grad School
Once I gather the following requirements, that can trigger me to go to grad school:
I find my passion so that I know where to direct myself during grad school
I have proven out what ideas I would want to work on while I’m there
I have the feeling that I would be energized and excited to be a student
I know that grad school is the best way for me to go the direction I want to go in, and just networking with people on my own and learning via experience won’t be enough
The Threshold
I get what the people who tell me not to defer are thinking. As a confused, moderately dissatisfied person in her late twenties, I only have so much time to figure things out in life. The world won’t wait for me, and what is on the other side of going to grad school could be much better than what I’m experiencing now. Can I take another year of not knowing what passion I want to pursue? Will a year of wandering be a year wasted? Will I be losing anything from not being decisive earlier?
Going back to school guarantees a radical change in life that will help me meet lots of new people while enriching my knowledge of some domains that can help me along my career. A job after graduating isn’t guaranteed, but I would come out of it knowing with more certainty what kinds of jobs I want to pursue. If I’m feeling directionless now, that means that something I’m doing in life isn’t working and I need to find a solution fast.
If I reach the threshold of how much directionless-ness in life I can handle, then I could decide to go to grad school as a way of turning things around. I would rather not this be the reason for me going to school, but maybe it is a valid reason. I do think that school could be fun. The tuition and lost salary are factors I can mitigate by working while I’m in school, trying to graduate as soon as I can, or just accepting it.
How realistic is it that I can find a trigger before exceeding my threshold of directionless-ness?
How passionate do I have to be to call something my passion?
How much clarity do I need before I know that I’ll be able to make good use of my time in grad school?
How positive does my experience outside of grad school have to be to show me that I don’t need school in order to turn my life around?
These are all fuzzy thresholds and to answer these questions, I’ll go back to what I learned from making past decisions. I might write another post on this. But in all honesty, there is no way to be certain about the correct answer because even with the fullest analysis I could do, no one knows what would happen on the road not taken.
Chapter 15: What’s Next
First, I’m exploring. I’m looking for new options that call to me. I want to discover as many interests as I can. I’ve been going to conferences, talks, and just chatting with people. Ideally, by increasing the work I share with the world and completing more side projects that I initiate, I might learn what I like through doing. The ecosystem I find myself in as a result of leaning into my interests may spark the cross-pollination of ideas and discovery that I need in order to crystalize the things that truly excite me.
Stay tuned for more posts in the future about how I choose a passion and how I align what I do with that passion.
I'm preparing for my GMAT this September, would love to connect with you!