MBA student who has lost his way

I am currently 19 and will be starting my MBA in the fall at Bowling Green State University. My undergraduate is in Supply Chain and Operations which I have found unbearable. I have always struggled with finding a career path for myself that I think will be enjoyable. Unfortunately, each road I have traveled down has been unenjoyable and caused me to leave them. These avenues consist of accounting, sales, and human resource. I know none of you can really tell me what to do with my career, but I was hoping someone could just provide me with some advice on where to go from here or some options to think about.

(I apologize in advance if this is the inappropriate place to put this message or if I have violated any rules. This is my first post and would love any advice fro future posts from other users. )

Maybe you should get some more real world experience before jumping into an MBA.

Thank you for responding promptly. I have thought of that a couple of different times, but don’t know where to start. Every time I think I am at the right position it doesn’t work out and I end up looking for more answers. That is kind of the reason why I decided to go forward with my education in hopes that I will discover my passion.

If you hated supply chain, accounting, sales and human resources, perhaps an MBA isn’t the right path right now. Honestly, it will simply be more of the same. Blah, blah blah without a connection to practical application. A job, even a fairly menial one, at a company that does something you like would be a great place to build experience and explore your ‘passion’ - or at least find more stuff you don’t like.

For those who don’t have a professional passion (including me) steering around things you don’t like is a perfectly viable path. At 19, with a BS in hand, you have plenty of time to explore, find a dead end, change course, repeat… several times. If it makes sense, come back to the MBA in a few years, you will will have a very different perspective and an understanding of how the classroom content relates to the real world. If you get you MBA @ 25, you will still be well ahead of your average worker bee.

Good luck.

It’s pretty difficult to suggest a career path without understanding what you dislike about your current one. I listed some questions below that might help direct us in aiding you.

  1. Why did you choose to pursue Supply Chain & Ops as your undergraduate major?
  2. What made you pursue an MBA and specifically why now at 19?
  3. What do you dislike about the field you are currently in?
  4. Have you had any professional working experience related to your major?
  5. What do you aspire to do?

AoDay,

Thank you for posting the following questions; I will try my best to answer them for you.

  1. The path that lead me to Supply Chain and Ops was a bit strange and long, but I will try to shorten it up for the sake of reading. As I had mentioned above that I started college when I was a junior in high school. I had always thought that I wanted to either be in a career with science. or business. Since the college I went to didn't offer and science majors I liked, I decided to pursue a degree in marketing. After a few classes I could tell it wasn't for me and switched my major to computer science, then biology, then accounting, and finally supply chain and ops. Overall, it was more of I needed to settle on a degree so that I didn't waste time and money. I also knew that with the degree it would help me stand out a little in MBA school.
  2. The main reason to go after my MBA is a little greedy and as I get a little older I can see that now. I have always wanted to make enough money to provide my family with anything they could ever want and I saw the MBA as a way to get myself to a career that would sustain that lifestyle. Again, I know it sounds greedy, but I think another reason I want to pursue the MBA at an early age is that there has been a lot of pressure on me to do great things by my parents, family, and friends. I feel that if I don't accomplish this at an early age then they will be disappointed and I will lose a little of what makes me stand out from the crowd.
  3. Honestly, I think it has a lot to do with the work life balance and the nature of the business. When working in Supply Chain and Ops there is a chance that I will be working third shifts and I know that can be hard on relationships as well as attending events for the kids in the future. As for the second reason, I am a very creative person who likes to think outside of the box and come up with solutions to problems that seem almost impossible to solve. With this type of career I don't think I would be stimulated and motivated enough.
  4. I have had a couple of job shadows throughout the business and have not been to thrilled with what happens in the day to day operations. I also had the chance to intern at a manufacturing plant last semester and must say that I found myself distant and not focusing on the work at hand because of the intellect disconnect.
  5. Ultimately I aspire to be in a career that pays 100k or more, allows me to have a work life balance with my future wife and kids, as well as stimulates my mind so that I don't tire of the job and begin to resent it.

I apologize if some of my answers sounds greedy or unrealistic, I know there is more than likely no job that will be able to fill all of the things I want, but any advice is better than no advice. Thank you once again for responding.

You won’t be more employable with an MBA and no work experience.

Seems that you need to take a job and grow up, and part of maturing is realizing that you can’t always get what you want and sacrifices are a part of living and supporting yourself.

"Ultimately I aspire to be in a career that pays 100k or more, allows me to have a work life balance with my future wife and kids, as well as stimulates my mind so that I don’t tire of the job and begin to resent it.

I apologize if some of my answers sounds greedy or unrealistic."

This does not sound greedy–it sounds like common sense! Nevertheless, you are a bit inexperienced to be choosing a career path at this point. Try to work for a few years, to see what you like and what you are good at. And do some travelling. People tend to learn a lot about themselves when they are travelling, especially internationally.

MBA is useful, but only when you know what you want out of it. Think carefully before you invest the time and money. Maybe a grad certificate instead or some work experience would be more helpful.

Is there a career center at you school? If so, you can do some career exploration there possibly. You have tried various majors but haven’t made the connection that it isn’t always the specific major that leads to career satisfaction, there are many variables, and often it has a lot to do with how you think about them. I agree with other posters that you are young and while educated, you lack work experiences to help guide and give you perspective. You haven’t lost your way, you are 19, you just haven’t found it yet, nor should you at your age. Also, life is not a race and it doesn’t always unfold in expected ways no matter how well you try to plan it out. The biggest lesson might be to learn how to enjoy the ride.

Just saw that you didn’t like marketing. Too bad–I was going to suggest marketing. :slight_smile: It’s more creative and less quant-y than other business specialties. Have you considered Internet marketing or (if you’re more quant-oriented) digital analytics? I find digital marketing fascinating because it’s changing at the speed of light – there is always something new to learn. And there are so many creative, crazy people working in the digital arena – e.g., at little start-ups where you can get in on the ground floor. Something to consider anyway. Hope this helps!!

Just replying back to your explanations in the same order:

  1. Normally the last 2 years of high school are when students normally begin to understand what major they want to pursue, so your indecision is not a surprise having started early.
  2. Pursuing a career that will lead to both personal and monetary success to help provide for your family is a great aspiration. Pursuing a career for the sole sake of monetary success whether it be for selfish or selfless reasons is a difficult path and might be part of the problem you are facing now.
  3. You shouldn't be thinking about the amount of time you are going to have for your kids in the future... you are only 19!!!! Careers today are different than they were 10, 20, or 30 years ago, just as they will be in the future. Also, work life balance is something that is developed as you grow older.

I don’t work in supply chain & ops but as a management major who took a number of ops management courses, I found them to be some of my most stimulating courses. I think your current dissatisfaction might be specific to your workplace and not necessarily the field (although possible)

  1. The majority of internship experiences for freshmen/sophomores (who are typically your age as undergraduates) aren't that stimulating. Traditionally, junior year internships (20/21 year olds in their 3rd year of undergraduate college) provide the most intellectual stimulation and require the most hard work as it is typically the last professional indicator to full time recruiters for 1st semester seniors. As someone who has accelerated the academic timeline, it's often difficult for firms to place you relative to your peers because it's a holistic process that is also largely dependent upon your behavior/social interaction. How would you fit in amongst your peers?
  2. It's totally fine to want to be wealthy, who doesn't? But being wealthy doesn't mean you will be happy, nor does working less hours. Don't look for a job that will fill those check boxes, instead look for a career that will keep you interested and stimulated. If you love your job, you won't mind working long hours and you will want to push the boundaries of your everyday work life, money follows that.

The thought that were isn’t a career out there that will be able to pay well and stimulates intellectually is an inherent limitation to discovering the opportunities you are searching for. It’s what has sparked the development of entrepreneurship courses across top business schools and led to the founding of hundreds of new companies within the past decade. It’s dangerous to reduce every option you have into a binary choice because it eliminates the possibility of creating/exploring a 3rd path which is in reality what you wanted from the start.

Overall, it sounds like a lot of the issues aren’t with the supply chain ops or business, but with your specific experience. Having to work “shifts” and focusing on day to day operations doesn’t sound like a career for an mba candidate which may be why you don’t feel stimulated. Try applying to some larger companies for more traditional internship opportunities at the corporate level.

I’m going to start with #2.

The perception that an MBA leads to piles of money is primarily driven by highly-ranked, high-powered MBAs - think top 15-20. In fact, I think that the average starting salary for all new MBAs is in the $50-60K range. And at Bowling Green State University, the median salary for MBA graduates is just under $48,000 (see [here](http://www.bloomberg.com/bschools/rankings/undergraduate_mba_profiles/bowlinggreen.html)), with only 62% of MBA graduates getting a job offer within 3 months of graduation.

An MBA does not necessarily confer a huge salary - you have to go to a top-ranked business school for that. Also remember that most MBA grads have post-college experience, and the salaries reflect that experience too. If you have no experience and an MBA from a mid-ranked program, your starting salary is unlikely to be a whole lot higher than you could’ve made with your bachelor’s.

Now let’s backtrack to #1.

It’s unclear to me whether you have any actual work experience post-college, or whether your hatred is dependent upon the classwork you took in college. Classes are very different from the day-to-day work in most fields. But the way to find what you like is to try things. Go find a job! If you like supply chain and ops, you can segue into science from there with some experience and coursework - operations research and industrial engineering are both related fields, and if you took some prerequisites as a post-baccalaureate student part time, you could eventually go into that field.

But you need some experience to help you figure out what you want to do, and what you don’t like to do. You need that before you go into a graduate program. Few people are going to want to hire a 21-year-old manager with no work experience.

If your parents exect you to have accomplished great things at the age of 21, then they have very unrealistic expectations. Feel free to ignore them. I know, easier said than done. But only YOU have to live your life - no one else. You don’t want to live your life on the basis of other people’s expectations. That’s a recipe for misery!

As for #3 - Yes there is the chance that you will work third shifts, and that can be kind of difficult on relationships and kids. But…you’re only 19 right now. You have plenty of time to work that out. If you went into supply chain now, by the time you are 25 you’d have 6 years of experience. You might be in management; you might have pursued a master’s; you’ll be in a better position to negotiate day shift work and better hours for your family. You also never know what might happen - you might change careers; you might not get married; you might delay marriage until your 30s; your spouse might also work mid shift; you may never have kids; you may not have kids until your 30s or 40s. There’s no use planning everything around a hypothetical family that you don’t yet have; you can make those decisions for your family when you actually have one.

I remember being there. I was making major career decisions on what-ifs that hadn’t happened yet. Don’t fall into that trap. You can work it out later. There’s no such thing as an “ideal” situation and people in all kinds of situations make it work.

5 - Like I said, an MBA doesn't automatically lead to a salary of $100K or more. But also realize that jobs with high salaries usually demand more work. There are few jobs out there that are going to pay you $120K a year and also let you have a 37.5-hour work week to be home every night by 5 to cook dinner or go to the kids' soccer games. You'll need to be prepared for some trade-offs.

I’m going to start with #2.

The perception that an MBA leads to piles of money is primarily driven by highly-ranked, high-powered MBAs - think top 15-20. In fact, I think that the average starting salary for all new MBAs is in the $50-60K range. And at Bowling Green State University, the median salary for MBA graduates is just under $48,000 (see [here](http://www.bloomberg.com/bschools/rankings/undergraduate_mba_profiles/bowlinggreen.html)), with only 62% of MBA graduates getting a job offer within 3 months of graduation.

An MBA does not necessarily confer a huge salary - you have to go to a top-ranked business school for that. Also remember that most MBA grads have post-college experience, and the salaries reflect that experience too. If you have no experience and an MBA from a mid-ranked program, your starting salary is unlikely to be a whole lot higher than you could’ve made with your bachelor’s.

Now let’s backtrack to #1.

It’s unclear to me whether you have any actual work experience post-college, or whether your hatred is dependent upon the classwork you took in college. Classes are very different from the day-to-day work in most fields. But the way to find what you like is to try things. Go find a job! If you like supply chain and ops, you can segue into science from there with some experience and coursework - operations research and industrial engineering are both related fields, and if you took some prerequisites as a post-baccalaureate student part time, you could eventually go into that field.

But you need some experience to help you figure out what you want to do, and what you don’t like to do. You need that before you go into a graduate program. Few people are going to want to hire a 21-year-old manager with no work experience.

If your parents exect you to have accomplished great things at the age of 21, then they have very unrealistic expectations. Feel free to ignore them. I know, easier said than done. But only YOU have to live your life - no one else. You don’t want to live your life on the basis of other people’s expectations. That’s a recipe for misery!

As for #3 - Yes there is the chance that you will work third shifts, and that can be kind of difficult on relationships and kids. But…you’re only 19 right now. You have plenty of time to work that out. If you went into supply chain now, by the time you are 25 you’d have 6 years of experience. You might be in management; you might have pursued a master’s; you’ll be in a better position to negotiate day shift work and better hours for your family. You also never know what might happen - you might change careers; you might not get married; you might delay marriage until your 30s; your spouse might also work mid shift; you may never have kids; you may not have kids until your 30s or 40s. There’s no use planning everything around a hypothetical family that you don’t yet have; you can make those decisions for your family when you actually have one.

I remember being there. I was making major career decisions on what-ifs that hadn’t happened yet. Don’t fall into that trap. You can work it out later. There’s no such thing as an “ideal” situation and people in all kinds of situations make it work.

5 - Like I said, an MBA doesn't automatically lead to a salary of $100K or more. But also realize that jobs with high salaries usually demand more work. There are few jobs out there that are going to pay you $120K a year and also let you have a 37.5-hour work week to be home every night by 5 to cook dinner or go to the kids' soccer games. You'll need to be prepared for some trade-offs.