Career chats: Why some professionals chose to take their education further
About this video
Three professionals explain why they took their education further. One earned a master's and PhD in positive organisational psychology to study teacher wellbeing, one got an MBA to move from just executing strategy to building it, and one chose the CFA designation instead of an MBA to save about $100,000 of debt.
You'll be able to
- describe reasons people pursue advanced education, such as a PhD, MBA or professional designation.
- explain the difference between executing a strategy and building one.
- weigh the costs and benefits of different advanced pathways.
Key words
- organizational psychology
- The study of how people think, feel and behave at work.
- PhD
- The highest university degree, usually involving original research.
- MBA
- Master of Business Administration, a graduate degree in business and management.
- strategy
- A plan for how to reach a big goal.
- CFA designation
- Chartered Financial Analyst, a professional qualification for investment work.
Transcript
(upbeat music) - And I wanna do something where I figure out how to keep teachers happy and satisfied at work. And that's where I came across organizational psychology as a degree path. And so I applied to different programs and I ended up going with Claremont Graduate University, which is in Southern California and pursued their master's and PhD in positive organizational psychology.
And my research for my degree was focused around how do we ensure teachers are feeling that sense of thriving and satisfaction and happiness at work.
- By one, I got an MBA, right? I wanted to change my career, right? 'Cause I realized that I was a person that could execute a strategy, but I wasn't a person that knew how to build and think about the strategy. And so the reason why I got this, I was like, I would sit in a room and people like loved having me in the room.
They found value in me, but I was only an executor. Meaning like, "Hey Chris, go do this." And you just go do what you're told. Now, like after business school, I can actually look at the numbers, look at what's going on and say, "Hey, this is the strategy I think we should do and then I can help you implement it."
And so that was like very pivotal in my career to really change the trajectory.
- And at this juncture my career, I was thinking, should I go back to business school? Because of traditional trajectory Is that when you're going to business or you're going to investment in banking or investment management, you're probably thinking, "I'm gonna go back to get a graduate degree.
I'm gonna get an MBA and then I'm gonna go off to the running for the second part of my career." Instead, there was people that advocated that. I do the charter financial analyst, so I do have a CFA designation. Once I decided that I wanted to be an investment management or just investments in general, whether it be venture capital, private equity, I just knew that this is all I needed to do.
So I saved myself essentially $100,000 of debt. I have a, you know, from my perspective, if I had to do it over again, I probably would've gone to business school, but I also still would've done the CFA. (upbeat music)
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