One Month After Completing My MBA

A full month has now passed since I completed the full-time MBA program at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. I now find myself sitting alone in my parent's house at this keyboard in Alberta, Canada and have had a lot of time to reflect on the past year.

After the program I took a fairly substantial road trip to see the Maritime Provinces as well as some of the major eastern US cities. The trip was a good way relax after the program. When the trip was over, I was back in Alberta and three weeks had passed.

I know that I should feel pretty good about life right now. After all, I'm a a professional engineer with a MBA from a top business school. However, I don't feel that way. I'm actually kind of down since I don't have a job and I have no idea where I might end up. The only comforting fact is that I have felt this way before, when I completed my engineering degree.

Right now, though, I am of the opinion that going back for the MBA at Queen's was a great decision and a solid investment. I learned so much about business, myself and others. After discussing just few of the topics we covered with friends and former work colleagues, I know that what I learned is of HUGE value. The MBA will definitely position me well for my future career aspirations.

I heard that convocation was a good time and a lot of the class attended. However, I did not return and only two of my six team members were in attendance. As I currently do not have a job lined up, spending the funds to return to Kingston for a couple days did not seem wise. The day after convocation, the school took out a whole two page spread in the Globe and Mail to post the photos of all the MBA graduates this year. This included graduates from all Queen's MBA programs (i.e. Exec, Accelerated, etc.). I remember how stoked I was last year to see that and know that I would be in there in a year. Seems a year has come and gone.

Just after the convocation ceremony, I received several text messages and even a phone call from my classmates congratulating me on our graduation. It was nice to know I was missed and even nicer to hear the familiar voices. That is one thing I miss the most - the people. I miss being part of a community of so many smart, driven, positive and fun people. You are often fortunate enough to have a few friends of this nature, but to be with 74 others is something else. I hope I get to see them again soon.

Other than the odd e-mail letting me know about a job prospect, I really have not heard much from my former classmates. The "water cooler" (i.e. online web portal space for posting messages) has gone quite. Only the odd e-mail from the Business Career Center staff.

As I mentioned earlier, I am without a job. To my knowledge, the employment stats one month after the program are pretty much the same as when we all left. This is likely due to the fact that a lot of people were moving, needed a little time to rest up after the end of the program and haven't had a chance to really further their job search, but I haven't heard from anyone, so this is just my speculation.

Now that I am in Alberta, I am ramping up my search for full-time employment. I have found positions to apply for through company websites, the Queen's career website, recruitment agencies and other industry career websites. In addition, I am arranging to "network" with past work colleagues, friends, and alumni that I have been in touch with over the past year. This is all part of the strategy imparted on us as we went through the program. It will be interesting to see how this job hunt compares with my previous ones. The economy is quite different from a year ago, but I am confident that I will find a job with in two or three months. All that being said, I didn't necessarily anticipate that I would be in this position. I really believed that I would find a job prior to graduation.

On another note, I still find myself with a kind of "highway fever" after going so hard. You get conditioned to ALWAYS being busy with learning, socializing, planning, studying, etc. that you find yourself constantly "chomping at the bit" when there is nothing better to do but enjoy a sunny day.

That is all I have to report one month out of the program. Hopefully in my three month posting I will have good news to write about. In the mean time, I will keep watching the blogs of the new cohort to see how they are fairing...