2 months to go!

I only have 2 months left until I graduate with my MBA. If you'd have asked me a few years ago if I'd ever get an MBA, I would have laughed at you. My undergrad degree was in Psychology. I also took a lot of classes in Logic and Philosophy, as well as Linguistics. At the time I really had no idea what I'd end doing with a Psychology degree.

I occasionally mused about pursuing further education and eventually becoming a Psychology professor. But my interest in that diminished significantly as I neared graduation. I also toyed with the idea of becoming a Lawyer. My dad is a lawyer and until quite recently he'd always suggested that being a lawyer was no fun. So in retrospect, I'm glad that didn't pan out.

I also thought about Architecture. I loved architectural drafting back in high school. After I graduated I went back and took an Architecture class at the University of Calgary. For whatever reason though, that also didn't work out.

I worked for about 4 years after college, and as I saw how different companies operated and how incompetent some people in executive positions could be, I began to gain a rudimentary interest in business. Taking the GMAT (test required for entrance to an MBA program) had been on my to do list for quite some time.

As my dissatisfaction at work increased I finally got to the point where I was sufficiently motivated to start an earnest attempt to get into business school. I began by making a list of about 100 schools that I would consider applying to. Over a period of several months I narrowed this list down until I only had about 8. The schools I left on my list were:

• University of Victoria
• University of British Columbia
• University of Calgary
• University of Alberta
• University of Toronto
• Cornell University
• University of Arizona
• Arizona State University

These schools all had different application deadlines and so I finished them in the order they were due. The first two that had to be completed were Cornell and ASU. I had mostly completed the applications for the other 6 schools, but I hadn't submitted any of them yet when I received an invitation to interview at ASU. I was given the option to do an in-person interview in Tempe, AZ, or to do a video-chat interview from wherever I was at the time. I chose to go to Arizona so that I could see the campus and get a feel for what the school was like. I really enjoyed the interview and the campus tour, but I continued preparing my other applications while I waited to hear from ASU.

During this time I also got a denial letter from Cornell, which was disappointing, but not unexpected. Then I got accepted to ASU. I was thrilled about it. So much so that I dropped all my other outstanding applications. So it ended up that I applied to two schools and got accepted at one of them, Since then most people I've talked to have said that I would have been crazy to want to go to Cornell. It's a great school, but apparently Ithica, NY is a miserable place to live for most of the year.

So after the most intense (by far) two years of my life I find myself here about to graduate. I've got only two classes left to finish in the next 8 weeks. Now I have to move on to another stage of life. I am certainly not ruling out further education, but in the immediate future I must find a job. Not just any old job either. I have to find the kind of job that will allow me to pay off excessive student loans! I'm currently working for a medical device company as an intern, but I'm not 100% sure that there will be a permanent position for me there. There is also the complication that I'm not an American, which generally scares off most potential employers.

Anyway, I didn't say it was an interesting story. Ha ha ha.