Laura Hemphill followed this article up in “The New Yorker” shortly afterwards claiming that business school was a waste of time for many women as they were more likely than men to drop out of the workforce or have their careers interrupted a decade after earning their M.B.A.s, because of family considerations.
The journalist asks if given this possibility, wasn’t the most important thing for a woman to work as hard as she could and advance as far as possible while still in her twenties to have more savings, more job experience, and more bargaining power?
Hemphill writes: “Unlike medical school or law school, business school isn’t a requirement for a business career. Many successful C.E.O.s don’t hold M.B.A.s: Marissa Mayer, of Yahoo; Jeff Bezos, of Amazon.com; Ginni Rometty, of I.B.M. On Wall Street and in Silicon Valley, business school is often stigmatized as a booze-addled vacation; Marc Andreessen, a venture capitalist, famously observed that business-school graduates’ interest in a sector is a leading indicator of a bubble.”
Her article was perceived controversially by readers with one commenting: “I'm tired of women telling other women what to do simply because they share the same gender. Any person, male or female, should choose to go to business school if and when it makes sense given his/her specific, individual career/life path. Or he or she can choose not to. It's that simple.” And another one writing, “I strongly disagree with the premise of this article. Especially because women tend to have career interruptions, the business school network can help women restart their careers down the line. It is the network, as well as the skills & industries you learn about, that help you pick up again after career interruptions. Seeing b-school as a 2 year opportunity cost is extremely short-sighted.”
We wanted to get the opinion of Jo Woods, MBA Programme Manager, The Open University Business School. She wrote in an email about women in business schools:
“In her article Laura Hemphill does raise some interesting points about women and MBA programmes especially the programmes from elite institutions. And she is right to draw attention to these considerations. Debating whether the MBA route is right for you and choosing the right MBA programme is vitally important. For the 1,250 women currently studying the OU Business School MBA their motivations are very different to Laura’s. Many of them already have families and established careers and are on the MBA programme as our method of teaching allows them to fit study around work and life commitments.
The competitive culture of many traditional MBA programmes may be due to students not being in secure employment and the majority of students being male. The average age of MBA students on traditional programmes is approximately 25-35. Considering the relatively career-young, but clearly highly ambitious cohort it is unsurprising that some people feel the weight of competition. Our students are a world away from the competitive Frat-house culture that Laura mentions.
The average age of our MBA students is 38 and our method of study means that the majority of our students combine work and study. We have a good balance of men and women on our programme which is approximately 60:40, and women students are on the increase, bucking the global trend. OU students are surrounded by peers who are secure and confident in their employment. There is also a good cross section of age, gender and experience in a broad range of sectors which adds to the rounded experience of our students. I hear from a lot of our female students that the flexibility of the OU allows them to work around family and employment commitments and this is the only way they could study.”
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/currency/2013/09/why-women-should-skip-business-school.html
http://poetsandquants.com/2013/09/18/the-mba-mommy-track-how-life-choices-impact-income-career/