Greg Jordan (Class of ’07)
Manager of Web Development at
Methodist LeBonheur Healthcare

Dear MBA Students:

I hope you are enjoying your time in the MBA program and making the most of it. Believe it or not, it will actually come to an end sooner than you think, and I wish you luck in finding a career for which you have passion.  To that point, I offer a few insights and practices I discovered during my MBA studies and beyond.

Make Research a Routine
Having carried the same course load you are now carrying, I know first hand how much reading, analyzing, and writing you have to do and the short time-frame in which you have to do it.  If you haven’t guessed by now, the cycle does not end when you receive your MBA.  It is part and parcel – for most of you – of what lies ahead in your career.  In many fields, the learning never ends.

So, if you have not started it already, make research a priority and a routine.  Set aside – at minimum – one hour each day to examine trends and research shaping the business world at large or your desired field.  As part of that routine, you should learn and use technologies that can help you collect, organize and synthesize all of it.

Find a Mentor
Find a mentor who will be unbiased and fair as well as someone you can trust.  It does not have to be someone at your current organization, but I would recommend he or she be working in your desired field.  Probably goes without saying, but it should not be a relative or your spouse.  Even if they understand your field, they will struggle with being objective.

Having a mentor can give you an outlet for your ideas and concerns as well as offer the wisdom and insight gained from past successes and failures.

Get Involved
If you are exhausted and just don’t want to go to that seminar/meeting/social function, suck it up and go anyway.  Just think of the opportunities you’ll miss by passing on it!

If you do summon the strength to go, practice your small talk. If you consider yourself shy, work to get past it.  If you don’t know someone, introduce yourself and be ready with questions to start the conversation.  At these events, remember someone’s name when they tell it to you.  On the off chance you see them again, say on an interview, they’ll be impressed you remembered.

Also, get involved with groups and organizations that will help you hone your leadership skills.  For example, the Leadership Academy – a great organization right here in Memphis – offers a competitive fellows program that provides opportunities to improve your interpersonal skills while giving back to the community.

Give Back
If you are already involved with community projects, helping the university or working to help a charitable cause, then good for you and keep it up.  If not, then find time to give back in some way, start today and make it a habit.

Giving back is not only helpful for those who directly benefit from your contribution, but helps provide perspective on what is truly important and helps you stay connected with the community.  You can start by making a small contribution to the CBU scholarship fund.  (You’re welcome, Dr. Ryan!)

Encourage Others
Finally, my favorite piece advice is something that was given to me by a mentor, which is: encourage others when they’re down.

You’re likely to experience at least one minor setback in your career – if you’re lucky.  When it happens to someone you know, be genuine and offer any help you can – even if they don’t ask.  In the long term, it will pay dividends, especially when you need it.

Greg Jordan
Manager of Web Development at Methodist LeBonheur Healthcare
Earning Ph.D. in Professional Writing
Focus in Web Usabilty
jordangr@methodisthealth.org
Class of 2007

Daniel Messinger
Therapist and Administrator at the Logan Center
Licensed Master of Social Work
Master of Science in Social Work
dmessing@bellsouth.net
Class of 2003

Dear MBA students:

It has been a long time since I sat in the very chairs you are now sitting.  Well, not really that long ago, only 6 or 7 years ago.  However, much has changed in delivery of the MBA  program, content, and style of program.  All changes for the best, I might add, as I helped make many of the changes  during my tenure as Director of Graduate Programs at CBU.  Alas, that is for another letter!  My purpose now is to attempt to offer some words of encouragement and enlightenment for your journey through the program.  I hope I am able to help several of you.

The first and most significant piece of advice I can give you is that your teachers expect you to already know the material they are covering.  Yes, you heard me right.  Then why do you need to take the class you ask?  Well, it is simple. Despite the teacher’s expectations that you know the material, you will look at it from totally different perspectives.  A prime example from my courses was the Economics class.  We were already expected to know the material as we had completed it as undergrads in Micro-Econ, Macro-Econ, and Managerial Econ.  But this time, the course was taught as if we were the CEOs of a company and left to make the management decisions ourselves.  This was totally different than the “hold your hand” approach I was used too from undergrad.  I learned fast that I was expected to offer explanations for my decisions and “just because” was not an acceptable answer.  From Day One, I was expected to offer reasons for my answers, which I have found in the real world to be the exact case.  People out here expect you to know what you are doing and they expect a good reason why you chose to act in a  certain way.

The second piece of significance I took from the CBU MBA was a new appreciation of the written word.  I must have written thousands of pages of documents and notes.  I knew how to write and I had been told rather frequently I had a knack for writing.  In the MBA program, my writing quickly became a    foundation to my program as I was writing major assignments weekly.  I was always kind of crazy because I love to write anyway.  Again, back to the real world where I have found writing to be paramount to whatever you do.  If you cannot write, you cannot communicate.  What you learn in the MBA program is how to decide what is of importance to decision makers.  They don’t care about the “who’s” and the “what’s”.  All they care about is what is going on right now that needs a decision.  Trust me, write a long drawn out summary of a problem to your boss and see what happens.  I bet you won’t get asked again for your input and you are quickly labeled as “long winded”, which is not a term of endearment!

All in all, these two things I mentioned above are the most significant things I took away from my MBA program.  You would expect it, but no, the class material was not something I took away.  Let me ask you this, if you learn a foreign language and do not speak it, what happens to it?  That’s right, you lose it.  Of course I don’t remember everything from my classes, I   didn’t really use all of it all the time.  I did learn how to look for the information I need and where to find it.  For example, I now know that when faced with financial problems, I go straight for the Finance books and, get this, I actually know where in the books to look!

Study and do well.  Work hard and it will pay off.  Remember, education is something they can never take from you.

Dan