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Is the Berkeley MBA a good fit for you? Ask yourself these four questions to find out

By Susan Petty

Your life is filled with choices. Some—soup or salad with my sandwich at lunch?—are routine. Others—would an MBA help me achieve my career goals?—will have a long-lasting, powerful impact on the course of your career.

Your answer to that second, career-altering question prompts still more questions, like which MBA program can best help you achieve your unique professional goals?


If you’d like to attend one of the best business schools, we can help you make a more informed decision by highlighting what the Berkeley Haas School of Business has to offer.

Your answers to the following four questions will give you a feel for whether the Berkeley MBA program is the right fit.

Question #1: Do you tend to create opportunities for yourself?

You may think of yourself as an intrapraneur, someone within a company who promotes innovative product development and marketing. Or you may consider yourself to be more of an entrepreneur: a person who organizes and operates a business or businesses, taking on financial risks to do that. Both types of professionals grab their professional lives by the horns. Becoming an intrapreneur can boost your career and help you solve business challenges within your organization. This makes you highly desirable and marketable. Becoming an entrepreneur empowers you to create, launch, and run what could be a profitable company.

The Berkeley Haas MBA program is designed to help both intrapreneurs and entrepreneurs become the best versions of their professional selves. We offer hands-on courses, specialized programs, 1:1 mentoring, and the resources to launch and lead. At Berkeley Haas, you’ll learn exactly how to pitch an idea that’s backed by research and gain the confidence to execute it. Immersing yourself in this dynamic learning environment will empower you to develop new connections and create new business opportunities.

Question # 2: Do you challenge conventional business models?

Are you eager to break the business-as-usual mold? Are you itching to challenge conventional wisdom? If your answer is yes, that’s another compelling reason why the Berkeley Haas School of Business may be the right fit for you.

When you enroll in our MBA programs, you’ll study design thinking, a product development model that relies on a post-structuralist humanistic framework for iterating better ideas into reality in stages. Intrapreneurs and entrepreneurs alike are attracted to areas like design thinking that challenge the status quo and make product development a user-informed energetic exchange, rather than a top-down, supply-demand ecosystem. As a Berkeley Haas MBA student, you’ll dig deep into this approach to product development, while developing the leadership skills needed to challenge conventional business models.

Question # 3: Do you value creative collaboration?

While you’re busy creating new business opportunities and challenging conventional business models in your day-to-day professional life, do you find yourself gravitating toward participating in creative collaboration with colleagues? If your answer to this question is yes, you’re perfectly aligned with the philosophy and approach of the Berkeley Haas MBA program.

One of the most salient benefits of enrolling in a full-time MBA program is the opportunity to collaborate with fellow forward-thinking individuals and leaders who each bring their own set of experiences and values to the table.

With 2,200+ undergraduate and graduate students studying to earn one of six types of business degrees, the Berkeley Haas student experience is a buzzing laboratory for creative business ideas. Each day provides opportunities to collaborate and be part of a community that brings out the best in each other. Join clubs and affinity groups, take trips, try new things, and have some fun while stretching your leadership skills and cementing lasting relationships.

Explore Berkeley student co-curricular activities.

Question # 4: Do you want to fast-track your career?

While innovation, collaboration, and inspiration form the foundation of what you’ll experience through Berkeley Haas MBA programs, individual career achievements (professional and financial) are important, too. If you want to fast-track your career, earning your MBA from one of the top business schools can be a very effective way to get there.

While you can certainly learn lessons, challenge yourself, and grow on the job within any organization, an immersive MBA experience will expedite your professional growth. Your goal may be to launch innovative products that change the world from within your company. Or perhaps you want to take on a leadership position and be promoted within your organization. Then again, you may want to start your own company and rise to the challenge of entrepreneurship.

To achieve your goals as quickly as possible, you need to build your business expertise and strategic skills. Choose from three program styles designed to fit your lifestyle, while challenging you and empowering you to dream even bigger.

Take the first step to expand your network and opportunities.

For people who naturally have an entrepreneurial mindset, our MBA programs are incredibly empowering and worthwhile. In fact, they’re designed just for leaders like you.

Learn a new way of thinking while positively impacting your career trajectory in the heart of Silicon Valley.

Explore the Berkeley Haas School of Business MBA programs.

Learn more about the Full-Time MBA program

Posted on August 6, 2019
Susan Petty
Susan is Director of Admissions for the Berkeley MBA for Executives Program. She has nearly twenty years of experience in marketing and advertising, having worked in several different industries including technology, travel, healthcare -- and many others from her media planning days at J. Walter Thompson where her clients included Chevron, Kaiser Permanente, Nestle, and Ford. She enjoys advising prospective students and guiding them through their personal MBA experience.