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...

One Week After Completing My MBA

It has now bee one full week since I completed my MBA at Queen's. This past week has been filled with sad "good-byes" and promises to visit people in the future. We have also had several dinner gatherings. One of these was after spending a day cruising the country side in a pair of SUVs loaded with classmates to seek out local foods which we then cooked and ate. This particular activity has been done a few times and has become known as "super-happy-fun-day". It is amazing what you can find around Kingston.

I thought that one week would be enough time to reflect on the past year and write some key insights, but, alas, it hasn't. I will try to do this in a later entry. There is just too much going on with everyone moving and my search for full-time employment going strong.

A lot of the people who will make up next year's class have arrived in Kingston. Some have made contact with a few people in this year's class and some have managed to meet-up with their fellow classmates. From the few that I have had lunch with, during their trips out to the school, as well as those I have traded e-mails with, I can tell next year's class promises to be a fun group with many great minds. Very similar to this year's cohort. I wish them all the best.

Several people are planning to stay in Kingston as they help with "transition". This is an afternoon/evening full of events where our class passes along the student council to next years class as well as introduces them to Kingston. Since Queen's is a one year program, there is no second year students that can serve as a "knowledge transfer". "Transition" is our answer to this challenge. If all goes as planned, "transition" should happen on the 16th of May.

Convocation is on May 26th and quite a few of my classmates are planning on attending, but several will still be on exchange or will be travelling and they won't be attending. Although I am not planning to attend, as I will have just arrived back in Alberta, I may reconsider since it will be a last chance for us to see everyone together. Apparently convocation is really a spectacle at Queen's and more importantly I could see all my friends again.

After saying "good-bye" to many others over the past week, it was my turn yesterday. My wife and I finished packing and left Kingston yesterday. Today we are in Quebec City and will be in New Brunswick by this evening as we continue our trek to the east coast of Canada. We drove this far out from Calgary, so we figure a few extra days to complete the trip to the Atlantic is well worth the time and money. After that we will turn south and visit a few key US locations before heading west. Since we drove through Canada out here, we are driving back through the US. Should be a good trip.

My "team", team 426, from the program has dispersed to the four corners of the earth. Two of them are in Brazil on exchange, one has gone to Hong Kong and China to visit family, one is headed to India to visit family, one is headed to Toronto to look for work and I am headed back to Alberta.

The blog. It has taken on a life of its own. It has been very useful to help me keep track of time as it flew by and to help me appreciate just how much I was learning. However, it was started with a purpose, written with a purpose and will end with a purposed as I stated when I started this blog. Therefore, I will only be making a few more entries and all of them will be focused on the MBA and my experience at Queen's. I will write one month, three months, six months and one year post-MBA entries. There may also be the odd entry to update employment stats, when I find a job and if other significant events occur, but only if they are relevant to the purpose of this blog.

On a final note, I would like to thank the many readers who have taken the time to comment or e-mail me about the blog. It was great to know that people were finding this information. Even if it wasn't necessarily useful, I surely hope it was entertaining. I hope it has provided those looking at MBA programs with some of the answers they were seeking and I hope it has provided alumni with chance to reflect on their own MBA experience.