YMBA

After an unprecedented flurry of engagements, I’ve been invited to 9 weddings and 3 stag dos in 2020, disappointingly without a single clash, which means that 12 of my 52 weekends next year are booked out before I’ve begun thinking about where I’ll be trying to sing Auld Lang Syne to ring in the new year. 23% of my precious weekends are gone already.

Everyone loves a wedding but being a wedding/stag do attendee is both time and capital intensive - presents, Airbnbs, flights, 7am beers in Stansted airport etc. Whilst reflecting on my limited weekends and trying to work out how I'd make the most of my 40 free weekends, I changed tack and decided that instead of focusing on living for the remaining weekends I have free, perhaps I’d be better off focusing on the other 5 days a week.

Whilst common for people get to their late 20s and decide whether they want to take relationships to the next step, there’s no such socially standard period for reflection on your career to decide whether you want to marry it or give it the boot (forgive the tenuous metaphor). The big difference with careers is that if you decide your current path isn’t for you then you don’t have the chance to be single, download Tinder and date a few different jobs/industries to work out what may, or may not, work for you. Gaps in your CV and regularly changing jobs being seen as negatives means it’s difficult to do anywhere near the same level of due diligence when changing jobs as you may do in your personal life.

I have noted a similar, but more understated, increase in friends interested in making or breaking their careers. There have been murmurings of those who are considering making more conventional career changes: banking to tech, consulting to tech, law to tech, anything in the City to tech. Then there are those making bolder moves: insurance to environmental sustainability, product manager to osteopath, a friend considering leaving law to pursue a career in writing TV shows and another who tried to set up a recruitment consultancy based out of Colombia.

These could well just be early mid-life crises but it was only when I joined the working world (and LinkedIn) that I realised there was more to life than accountancy and it was when I left London for a brief sojourn in Spain that I had my eyes opened to the fact there is more to life than sweating on the Northern line each morning. The fact remains it's quite hard to make a big jump several years into a career.

It’s also quite difficult to know if you actually want to work in ‘tech’ or you just want a free lunch and an occasional nap in a nap pod. You have various resources available (LinkedIn, Glassdoor, your network) but you can't know what the day-to-day is like until you’re there.

I made the transition from Finance to Tech and have few regrets about my decision, partly because now the only time I wear a suit is at those aforementioned weddings but predominantly because I get a much greater satisfaction from delivering actual products and solving problems than I do from delivering PDFs or financial returns. I’ve loved aspects of both sides of my career but I'm unashamedly still trying to work out my path.

Like any other over-entitled millennial I really want unlimited holiday, free beer on tap, regular unwarranted promotions, equity, mindfulness sessions, everyone to be vegan, daily timeouts to let LinkedIn know I’m hustling and ideally a 7-figure comp package whilst saving the world from the impending environmental crisis. But in practice I’d just like to find a job that suits my strengths, weaknesses, likes and dislikes. A good salary, free beer and yoga are all nice-to-haves but ultimately, I’d like to be able to feel like my Mondays are as worthwhile as my Sundays.

So when I decided to leave my last role I decided now was the time to take some time to be single from my career, reflect on what I’ve done so far and make sure my next step is in a direction I want to go. I did a bit of research and settled on an MBA as the right avenue. Several applications, a GMAT test, a few interviews and 1 year later, I’m heading back to university in September.

Rather than just showing off about how popular a wedding guest I am, I’m writing a series of articles on my MBA over the next year: why I chose to do it, whether I think it’s been worth it and what I learn as I go along.

For the uninitiated, an MBA is a full-time generalist management course which typically brings together a global student group from diverse working backgrounds from bankers to ballerinas (seriously). The focus is on experiential learning so over the next 12 months I’ll be doing internships, live consulting projects and creating my own new venture plan as well as sitting in lectures. We also get to choose various electives so have a chance to explore numerous functions, industries and businesses at a high level and specialise where we want to.

For me I know I love working in with data and in Excel – I find building large models satisfying but I don’t like working in it exclusively all day to assess the credit worthiness of a prospective investment. I love the fulfilment and easily quantifiable performance of sales but I find doing actual sales a bit too repetitive. I like the security and structure of large companies but I love being part of a growth project and feeling like what I’m doing is making a difference. I also love solving problems and working with Saas products so I’m looking to find a happy medium between my tech and finance experience.

As such, my current aim is to end up in Venture Capital or an intrapreneurial position within an accelerator programme where I think I’d be able to get a balance of all the things I like. I’m also working on my own project too and every MBA student I’ve spoken to tells me they changed their mind several times along the course so I plan to keep an open mind.

Career motives aside I’ve found I’ve wanted more of a challenge and to carry on academic learning the older I’ve got. I slightly regret taking a more cavalier approach to my undergrad and my ACA where I probably could’ve done a bit more work.

So I see it as a chance to take a step back, to learn about things I’m interested in, expand my horizons, reflect on wider world issues and establish career plans. The other big positive is exposure. At my interview of 40 candidates I met only 3 others from England and, Brexit or not (and I really hope not), there’s a big world out there full of opportunity and I’d like to learn about it. I also wouldn’t mind finding somewhere with better weather to live.

There are negatives to taking a year off work and going back to study but having the unforeseen opportunity to go to Cambridge aged 30 and to spend a year learning from interesting people, living in a college, to go to a University Challenge trial and to give it a (very long) shot at making the Varsity match at Twickenham - I can’t wait. Ultimately though, it’s just a great excuse to say no to a few weddings and avoid flying to Bratislava anytime soon.