What’s good, y’all. I’d like to start this entry by thanking my mother and the other readers of my last entry to hit me up after reading about the passing of my aunt last week. Her funeral was earlier today and it felt strange not to be in attendance. My thoughts were with my family back in VA all day long though. One of these days, I’m going to have to buy a private jet in order to get anywhere at the drop of a hat. Being geographically separate from my family is pretty daggone tough when it comes to issues like this.

Anyways, on to more upbeat things…the email below is one of the funniest I’ve received from a reader in the time I’ve had this blog. This reader wanted to know if I think I might have gone overboard with all of my degrees. I guess I do have a couple more than average, huh? She probably wasn’t expecting an email as long as I sent back, but, since she asked something about me, I wanted to put a little more time into thinking through and answering her questions.

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CR wrote:

“This may be a personal question, but: 4 degrees? Do you ever think that you spent too much time/energy/money on school? I am actually on my way to my third degree, but feel like I need another, but 4 just seems CRAZY…what do you think? Has it ever been an issue? In terms of recruiting/student debt/managing your life plan/finding space on your resume…? Thanks!”
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My response:

CR,

I hope this finds you doing well. I’ve got to tell you up front that your email literally made me laugh out loud. I’ve been asked the same things you asked before, but no one has ever put it how you did, which I found to be hilarious. I guess you could say that it’s a personal question, but you’d be surprised at some of the other things I’ve been asked over the years I’ve had this blog…so, your questions are fine. I thought I’d written a blog entry about this before, but I got tired scrolling through my archives trying to find it so I’ll try to give you some quickshot responses to your questions:

Question #1: Do you ever think that you spent too much time/energy/money on school?
–> This is a great question. Surprisingly, I’ve never thought that I spent too much time/energy/money on school because I believe that one can never overinvest in his/her education. Knowledge is one asset that shouldn’t lose value over time (barring some kind of catastrophic event) and it never hurts to have additional credentials, right? OK, back to your question…at the time, it made perfect sense to get all of those degrees because they all address different interests/needs of mine. The M.S. in Management of IT fit with my interest in Technology and my desire to move up from being a Software Engineer toward managing projects. The MBA was absolutely necessary for me to reach my long-term career goals because I had no previous knowledge of business and had pretty much pigeonholed myself as a techie. I just happened to fall into the M.A. in Education once I arrived at the GSB and realized that I could complete it along with the MBA in two years at no extra cost. Specifically, the M.A.Ed was a great fit for my strong interest in education and longer-term education-focused non-profit aspirations. Don’t get me wrong…it cost a grip to pay for those degrees (my student loan payments are a monthly reminder of that), but, as I mentioned earlier, education is one thing that I don’t mind overinvesting in. Get this…one of my uncles has been trying to convince me to apply to law school ever since I got accepted into business school. Now, even I know that caving in on that one would make absolutely no sense at all…

Question(s) #2: Has it ever been an issue? In terms of recruiting/student debt/managing your life plan/finding space on your resume…?
–> As far as I know, having those degrees hasn’t really been a major issue. In terms of recruiting during and since business school, the three grad degrees have prompted questions, but they’ve never cause any problems. I am usually asked something like “uhhhh, why do you have so many degrees?” and I give the same response that I gave you above. Then, the interviewer thinks about it, shrugs, and keeps the interview moving. Student debt…ahhhhh…student debt, the necessary evil for most of us when pursuing higher education. As you can imagine, student debt is a HUGE issue, but I knew that it would be the only way that I could fund my educational pursuits. So, I just accepted it going in and make it all work now that I’m finished with school. If you plan everything out right, the student debt doesn’t HAVE to be as much of a killer as one might expect. Managing my life plan hasn’t really been affected by the pitstops in grad school because my plan has involved a lot of “winging it” over the years. Often, I’ll learn about an opportunity, find it to be cool, and then go after it, which is basically what happened with each of my grad programs…and it’s turned out pretty well for me so far. Your last point of finding space on my resume was surprisingly easy to deal with during the MBA recruiting cycle because my pre-MBA experience as a Software Engineer wasn’t relevant for the type of positions I wanted. As I gain more work experiences, it’ll be a little harder, but that would have been the case whether I had one degree or four degrees. But, for what it’s worth, the “Education” section of my resume sure does sparkle The only times an issue arises is when I meet someone and my educational background eventually comes up in conversation. In those instances, either the person simply doesn’t believe me (which is fine) or is totally shocked that I’m so ridiculously normal and cool overall…but neither of those is a problem though.

Take care and good luck on getting that third degree. You didn’t say what that third degree would be in, but I’m still going to have my fingers crossed for you on it. Before you know it, you might be working on degree #4 yourself and then you’ll have to be ready to answer the questions you posed to me in your email

Marquis