Why MBA and why now for Veterans

A few people have asked me why an MBA and why now. I'll try to write this from the perspective of a veteran with some civilian experience.

As I was leaving the military I had a difficult time choosing between going to an MBA program versus going straight into industry. At the time I had a great offer from GE in my hand (November) and had yet to hear back from the MBA programs I had applied to. My wife and I discussed our situation and decided that going to work was the best course of action for us because I was pretty sure I wanted to work in energy and rotate among different business functions (pretty much what GE was offering me). I thought that if I went straight to GE I could either skip studying for an MBA or do an MBA on the side.

I left the military to pursue a career in business because I thought that I could make a bigger impact in business rather than the military. At GE I was working in the quality function as a six sigma guy and learning a lot about operations. The more I learned the more I wanted to study operations formally. GE had a certain way of improving operations, but this did not correspond with what I was learning about how Toyota operated (the model operations company).

Ultimately, I left GE to learn more about operations and investigate opportunities at other companies and industries. In the military I was taught to be happy with the positions and units I was given by my branch manager, but while at GE I learned that I could be most productive and happy by pursuing positions and companies that I fit in best. I knew this theoretically, but making the decision to leave GE for business school was a difficult one.

Leaving a stable job in a booming city (Houston is doing very well right now due to all of the oil and gas companies in the area) was very difficult and scary. I think it would have been less scary if I did not have a wife and two young children that I was responsible for. I went from receiving a pay check to receiving tuition bills. So far one month into business school I have not regretted my decision at all, but I do consider myself blessed. Not everyone has the opportunity to leave work for graduate school. 

Why leaving GE was difficult

Related to my post about why MIT LGO and why now is this post about why I decided to leave GE and pursue a full time MBA. This post is about why it was so difficult for me to leave GE and come to MIT.

1. Unique rotational program for junior military officers.
At GE I was hired on under the Junior Officer Leadership Program (JOLP). What that really meant was that I was working as a Lean Six Sigma Black belt and rotating amongst different functions in GE Power and Water (the Aeroderivatives business which has now been subsumed into the Distributed Power business). Not many other companies of GE's caliber offered up true rotational programs for junior military officers. I did receive an offer from Siemens for the Sales and Marketing Development Program but the salary and rotations were really geared towards those straight out of college and not the military.

If you want to know more about the program you can see the link below:
http://www.ge.com/careers/culture/us-veterans/junior-officer-leadership-program

2. Opportunity to work in a great industry.
The energy industry is one that I have a great deal of respect for and interest in because it underlies most of what allows modern society to operate. I had a taste of working in that industry at GE and I would not mind working in it post-LGO.

3. Adding up a few more moves for the family.
Moving with a family is difficult and thinking about the added stress of a move to business school, a move for an internship, a move back to school, and then a further move to a permanent job was a bit daunting. After a year in Houston we were just making friends. 

Moving- Part 3: Preparing our toddler

Isn't it amazing how much children know? Many times surpassing our expectations of them. Our toddler continues to surprise me with how sensitive and aware he is about what is going on around him and how much he picks up from me and John.
The last time we moved, Isaac was too young to understand (or maybe he would have but I didn't try! gulp!), but now that he is 2.5 we put more effort into preparing him for the transition.

We showed him the pictures of our new house.

We counted down the days until the movers would come to take away all our things and then the days until we would actually get on the airplane to go to Boston.

We also borrowed books about moving.
Check out: Moving to a New House by Nicola Barber which Isaac really liked and related to right away with the pictures of people packing things in boxes.
Do not check out: Moving House by Mark Siegel which is actually about a house that moves.....great story...just doesn't fit the occasion.. (yeah...definitely one of those times i wish i scanned before reading to him....)

Since packing our own boxes was a long process, I think that gave him more time to get used to the idea. We involved him as much as possible in the packing process, such as letting him write on the boxes, and put things in boxes.

Finally, we took lots of pictures of our favorite places in Houston and said good-byes to our friends.

I also told Jonah (our 7 month old), but he just cried...

Interesting Operations Question: Should homes be designed to be modified

Below is a very interesting post about the Netherlands where architects and the government are collaborating to create affordable homes for first time home buyers. The interesting thing about these homes is that the interiors are designed to be easily modified according to what the user requires (I think... The article digresses into a history lesson on the 'Grow Home' in Montreal which I think is similar). So if a new home buyer's family includes only himself and a significant other, then the second floor of the home may include one large bedroom. When (and if) the family expands then you can add modular walls to create more bedrooms, thus re-configuring the home as needed.

I think that the ability to reconfigure your home is a very interesting feature that may be important for mainstream home building.

Article from treehugger:
http://www.treehugger.com/green-architecture/grow-home-back-these-flatpack-houses-dutch-first-time-homebuyers.html?utm_source=feedly&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+treehuggersite+(Treehugger)

Article about the 'Grow Home' from the Atlantic:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1991/02/living-smaller/306205/?single_page=true

Moving-Part 2: Let's pack our own boxes!

Guest post by Susan (John's wife)

Our goal for moving progressed from, "Let's save money as much as we can!" to "Let's save our sanity as much as we can!"  

And here's how it went down:

First, we thought about loading up a truck and taking a road trip to see all our dear friends and family on the way to Boston. It would be a big trip! So memorable! With stops at Fort Leonard Wood, MO, St. Louis, MO, Evanston, IL, Cleveland, OH, Northampton, MA to Cambridge, MA (quick shout out to all our friends and family in those cities!). 

This thought was quickly revised when our littlest Kang (oh, how I love him!) cried in the backseat on a 30 minute road trip to H-E-B during Houston rush hour traffic.... No good.

So maybe not big road trip. But maybe John can drive the truck by himself. That means Susan will have to take one (wonderful) nursing baby, one (wonderful) toddler all by herself through airport security, ride in a 3+ hour flight, push the double stroller to baggage claim, pick up the pack and play and the suitcases, and somehow push the stroller and the bags to get outside the airport to meet a taxi, and.... No good.

So maybe John doesn't drive the truck. But maybe we can save on miles and get these tickets that have one stop. Our trip would start out leaving Houston around 1pm. After an hour and a half layover, we'll arrive in Boston at 8:44pm. Probably get to the new house around 9:30pm with one (so sweet) nursing baby and one (so sweet) toddler who have not slept well all day and will be up way past their bed time.... No good. 

Wait, we already got the tickets.... No good.

So maybe we don't save on miles and spend more money and change the flight to a non-stop flight that arrives at 3pm. Good! So good!

Oh, and what about our things? Well, maybe we can save money by packing our own boxes. Boxes? Yes, that we can do. Let's pack our own boxes! 

Where did we get the boxes?

John found them on usedcardboardboxes.com. 

It came with tape, markers, and packing paper. Really awesome.

As for other logistics:
We used moveline.com to find a moving company.
We used Plaza Auto Transport to move our car.

By the way, we decided Isaac's room is the best place to store all the boxes. So now our toddler's room looks like this:

Moving- Part 1: "Where going, Momma?"

Guest post by Susan (John's wife)

Well, there's a reason why John's the LGO fellow and not me... because I think moving to Cambridge is enough of an operations problem for me! Seriously. It really is.

So first, we had to decide on a destination. In the words of our toddler, "Where going, Momma?"
We went back and forth and back and forth (and back and forth) about trying to get on-campus housing or not. We were really torn because we liked the idea of being on-campus with other graduate students and their families and the activities and resources for kids (hello playground right outside my back door!). Not to mention the great cost-savings. But we also liked the idea of moving straight into an apartment and trying to get settled before school started. Finally, after countless hours on housing.mit.edu and more hours on padmapper.com (mostly John doing the hard work there!), we decided to try to minimize the number of moves and move straight into an apartment.

Home to MIT Sloan (only a 12 minute walk!)

This decision was also greatly helped by the fact that there was a list of apartments from LGO '14s and '13s who were leaving. John was able to visit several places during Open House for admits. We are really grateful for all the LGO's who were so helpful during this decision process in sharing their insights with us. John was really helped by an LGO '14 family (Mike and Jamie Chun) who generously hosted him when he visited MIT for Ambassador Day and Interview Fest. (Small world: John and Mike both went to West Point and Jamie and I were both psych majors at Smith College! Also, my maiden name is Chun! No relation though. If we were it would have been a really small world.) It turned out that the Chuns were going to leave for his internship so we'll be moving into their place, which is bittersweet for us because it would have been so much better if we could have been in Cambridge together!

We liked the location of Kendall Square because of the proximity to school. We really like to spend a lot of time together as a family and cutting down on John's commute time will help with that. Being close to campus will also be convenient for when we want to participate in any of the on-campus graduate family activities. We also hope to be able to use our home to welcome others (as the Chuns so generously did with us), so if in the future, you or someone you know is in need of staying somewhere, please think of our home! So we will be paying much higher rent, but we believe that for the reasons mentioned, it is worth it.

After we had an address, planning the operations problem of moving could begin. John is so future-oriented that planning comes so naturally for him. This is obviously a big blessing when it comes to things like planning our move and I am so glad that he is good at it. But sometimes I find myself saying things like, "can we plan what we're going to do next weekend instead of next year?"  

Why LGO? Why now?

Why LGO (http://lgo.mit.edu)?
I think this question can be divided into two questions: Why a full-time MBA and why MIT LGO?
Why a full-time MBA?

To provide a little background, last year (Fall 2011) while applying to GE I was also applying to full time MBA programs. I had gotten into Northwestern's MMM program (MBA/MS Engineering management) and was sorely tempted to take that offer rather than GE. What turned me aside was that I thought at the time that I wanted to dedicate my career to the energy industry. Moving to GE in Houston seemed like a no-brainer at the time rather than taking time off to go to school.

When I started at GE (April 2012) I thought that I wanted to work in Energy. Through the Junior Officer Leadership Program (JOLP) at GE I was planning on experiencing working in various business functions to gain a broad background in how a large industrial business operates. During my time at GE I realized that I had holes in my business know-how. Also, even though GE is not a top-MBA recruiter, many of the executives at GE had an MBA. After realizing that I did want to pursue an MBA, I had to decide between going full-time (and leaving GE) or going part-time while working.

I applied to and was accepted into UT Austin's part-time MBA program in Houston and was preparing to join the class of 2014. Before classes started, I realized that I wanted to pursue a full-time program rather than a part-time program. I ultimately decided that if I was going to get an MBA I should go full time and try to go to the best fit program I could. I did not want to ever regret my decisions, and I am sure I would have regretted not pursuing a full-time MBA later on in my career.

Two years during this stage of my career seems like a long time to take off, but I think in the big picture it is not that long. I have heard numerous people further on in their career tell me that they wish they would have taken time off to go to school (and a few who were glad they went part-time as well) and really immerse themselves in an MBA program. Having 100% post 9/11 GI Bill helps with the cost of school (I will only have to cover living expenses).

Why LGO over other MBA programs?
After I decided to pursue a full-time MBA I had to think about which schools to apply to. What helped me with this decision-making process was that at GE I had a chance to interact with colleagues in many different functions. While working as a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt I found that I enjoyed working on process improvement. This translates pretty well into MBA programs focused on Operations.

The main two programs that came to mind when I thought of Operations was Northwestern's MMM program and MIT's LGO program. I applied to both programs and was accepted by both. Deciding between the two programs was very difficult for me. At Northwestern I would have had more freedom to pursue different internships (MIT LGO internships are primarily with partner companies), in addition to living close to my wife's family. In the end I chose MIT LGO because of the strength of the overall program. The business programs are peer programs, but MIT's engineering school is arguably better than Northwestern's.

Also, another large draw towards picking MIT LGO was that the program was so closely tied in with industry partners (called 'partner companies' at MIT LGO). The list of partner companies included most of the companies I would like to work for post-MBA (http://lgo.mit.edu/partner-companies/partners/) so having a guaranteed internship with one of the partner companies and exclusive recruiting with them sounded like a great deal. Many of the partner companies exclusively recruit from MIT LGO for their post-MBA operations roles. Also, it did not hurt that I would not have to pay any tuition at MIT (LGO has a generous fellowship) compared to having to pay around $20k at Northwestern.