Today more than ever we find ourselves asking the question if college is worth it or not, both from an undergraduate and graduate school perspective. In my mind depending on what you would like to do a bachelors is needed when it comes to white collar professions. The real toss up comes when one is looking to leave the workforce and head back to school to pursue an advanced degree. For some it may not be, for others it was worthwhile and pays back in more than just a bump in your salary. I will speak on my experience and if I feel as though graduate school was worth it for me.
As you may or may not know, I just graduated from the Marshall School of Business at USC with my masters along with a graduate certificate in technology commercialization. I definitely enjoyed my time at USC from a personal and professional perspective more than I even expected to when choosing to come to school here.
I think for one to really assess if their graduate school education is worth it is to come in with a set of expectations and goals and benchmark those against what really happens when you are on campus. For me I had a list of four goals that I wanted to accomplish, and if those were done I would call my time here at USC a success.
- I wanted to grow my network within the tech community here in Southern California
- I wanted to learn how to better assess businesses from an investor perspective and learn better ways to go about building businesses
- I wanted to feel connected not only to the school but to Los Angeles
- Increase my future earning potential
My first goal was accomplished by going around campus and really jumping in headfirst into the entrepreneurial ecosystem around campus, whether that be being a venture coach at the Blackstone launchpad, hanging out at the USC Incubator or the different events offered through the Lloyd Greif Center. As well as helping put on USC’s biggest startup event which was USC Demo Day. I can confidently say that coming to USC has plugged me into a network of folks that really want to build up the L.A tech ecosystem and this is not only people who go to USC or who have gone but folks who have came into speak and those affiliated with the university in other ways.
My second goal was accomplished by the nature of my program having an entrepreneurial emphasis. In two of our core classes we were tasked with joining one of our classmates companies/ideas they were working on and working on everything from customer discovery, financials etc and then pitching the companies we were working on in class to local venture capitalists or founders multiple times a month. The presentations would be 5 mins and then 5 mins of Q&A from the judges. What I loved the most about this is that people in my cohort were not only building software businesses so seeing how different types of companies can be built, assessed and funded widened my scope about business dramatically. One of my favorite classes called Investing in New Ventures which was taught by Scott Lenet & Selina Troesch of Touchdown Ventures shaped how I looked at how investors assess investing in tech businesses. In this class we were put into groups with a $5M dollar fund and were tasked to go find investments that fit our investment thesis and at the end of the class we had to present which of the deals we have found, did our due diligence on and assessed from a financial perspective that we would like to move forward with. Lastly Founders Dilemma with Noam Wasserman who wrote the very popular Founders Dilemma book really helped open my eyes on how to mitigate failure as much as possible when founding. Being able to look at entrepreneurship from both an investors perspective and an entrepreneurs perspective is an invaluable perspective to have in my mind.
I accomplished my third goal by simply hanging out and being out with folks from my cohort and from other programs. Whether that is tailgating during football season or going to Study Hall or The Lab just to grab a drink with folks and talk. Those moments and experiences both on and off campus gave me connections to people on a personal level that made USC and L.A feel a little bit smaller which was great when you are someone who was born and raised in the Midwest and moved out here from the East Coast. I also spent time exploring other parts of L.A whether it be Clifton’s downtown on a Saturday night or catching a stand up comedy show in Hollywood. One of the main things I wanted to make sure I did was discern the difference from liking going to USC and liking living in Los Angeles, which are two totally different things. Oh yeah, going to Mexico City while there is an earthquake can really bring you closer to folks as well :)
For the final goal as it relates to earning potential this is one I really feel like I will not be able to know until at least a year or more from now. Since I am more focused on how having the masters will enable me to grow my earnings over time.
In conclusion, USC was the best choice I could have made as it relates to graduate school for all the goals that I had. Below are the takeaways I would like to leave you all with.
- Create goals BEFORE you enroll in your program of choice
- Assess not only if the school/program is right for you but the area as well
- Opportunity will not be handed to you, you must seek it out
- Evaluate if the cost is worth it (graduate school is expensive)
- Think about what story your education is telling
Welp, Fight On Folks! Have fun in your potential educational journeys.
