Getting an MBA from Rice University, a Buyer’s Perspective
By: Robert Dougherty
Rice University is a great school in the great city of Houston, Texas, but what do I know? I am clearly bias as an alumni. As you might be considering embarking on a journey that is an MBA and considering which school to go to, let me help you with a bias perspective, a buyers perspective of a Rice MBA.
What is an MBA?
So before we get to deep, let’s talk about what an MBA is. MBA stands for Masters in Business Administration. Now this may seem silly, but its important. Unlike other masters degrees an MBA isn’t a science degree, well kind of. It isn’t an art degree, well kind of. Its a degree that combines topics like science, math, psychology, design, and technology. It’s a degree that helps you understand how to better manage businesses and the people who work in them, which is everybody. An MBA isn’t only for corporate hacks or finance bros. It’s for non-profit leaders and future CEOs. What an MBA teaches you is how to lead and how to make critical decisions and know that they are the right ones (spoiler: You never really do). If you are considering a career move an MBA might be right for you. Any discipline from biology, medical, legal, or don’t know what I want to be when I grow up can be a good fit.
So what else is an MBA? Its expensive. Its hard and there are clearly many shortcuts to getting one. What do I mean short cuts. You can work for more years and do jobs that MBAs do. You can start your own business, which many MBAs do. You excel and reach the highest levels of your careers without one. So, why get one. Well the reasoning for me was three fold.
More Money. Getting an MBA generally will always be a positive ROI. Here is why: if you are at the top of your career it will help you grow your businesses and gain skills that help your organizations succeed. If you are at the beginning it will earn respect and lead to an early promotion.
Network. If you have ever heard a life coach or an influencer say you are who you generally hang around, then an MBA makes sense. You buy the network and become part of an exclusive club of wealth, high achieving people trying to make it in the world.
Learning. The things you learn in your MBA will be very personal and applicable to your daily life, at least it was for me. It can help you attack problems and designed a path for your career. By going down the journey you become good at all the things you might not have been (Marketing, Finance, Operations, People).
Now that you know what it is, it is also important to know what it is not. It is not easy. It takes a ton of time and commitment. It will require you to compete, collaborate, and even travel around the world in most cases. If you are looking for a degree where everybody wins or where you have some up with some idea, this is not for you. An MBA teaches skills and require you to test those skills in the real world. In multiple instances I worked with real businesses on real problems. The class format was a case format which meant class was showing what you learned, not lectured.
Why Rice?
For me the journey with Rice was exactly what I was looking for. Being in Houston allowed me to have a closer proximity to campus, but it also gave me access to a huge community right at home. Rice is different in 3 key ways. First Rice is international. Many of the students you will meet are from around the world. Additionally, every Rice MBA is required to do a global field experience where the student goes and helps a real business in a foreign country. Growing up international business always fascinated me. Second, it is a great entrepreneurship school. While that might seem like an oxymoron, I guarantee its not. Now a days entrepreneurs are well educated. With Rice, you learn how to be an entrepreneur inside and outside of large organizations. You learn about organizational dynamics and design thinking in a way that truly pushes you to innovate. Finally, Rice stands out in strategy. For an MBA strategy is the center of every business. It’s a statement on where you win and where you don’t. How you want to compete and how you won’t compete. With Rice’s program they have academics and industry experts who teach the classes. The program forces you from start to finish to consider the importance of strategy and competitive advantage. When you finish the program you do a capstone where you do a full strategic look at a business and help them grow.
Things you learn
In an MBA there are a series of skills you learn across a series of topics. Generally, the courses you take fall into one of the following categories:
Strategy
Operations
Finance / Accounting
Marketing
Organizational Behavior
These are all the main skills around businesses are un. There are several topics across each that are niche to what you are learning. For example; entrepreneurship falls under strategy, process improvement under operations, pricing under marketing, ect… For me the breadth of what you learn was interesting. From six-sigma and lean to power and influence in organizations.
People you meet
Now one of the really great benefits on an MBA is the people you meet. The things you will have in common with your peers are that they are all hungry to succeed. Everyone there will be motivated to learn and push you to learn as well. Especially at Rice there is a community that is trying to innovate and discover better ways of working. It will be uncommon to find alumni that won’t want to meet with you if you reach out. The Rice community is strong and willing to help. The second thing about the people is the professors. Many, if not all, of the professors have experience in the field in addition to successful academic careers. The negotiation professors have negotiated multi-million dollar deals and the pricing professors did pricing for retail and consumer brands. Its the commitment to unconventional wisdom that stood out to me. There were moments where we learned about practices that were outdated as shown in academics and other instances in academics where practice prevailed. At Rice the faculty and staff push students to come up with better ways of doing things, not just learning from a book.
Places you go
Lastly, the places you get to see when you study at Rice is amazing. I was able to work with a real business in Santiago, Chile. The experience has help me contextualize the world in an entirely different way. It gives me the credibility in international business and helps me appreciate other cultures. I also had the opportunity to leverage my university contacts to negotiate a land deal in costa Rica and work with a water non-profit in Nicaragua. If you are open to the opportunities, then Rice will allow you to go all over the world and help people.
