This entry is a draft of a portion of a required essay for entrance into business graduate school. The topic is my reason for pursuing a business graduate degree. I’m posting this draft for critique, in the same way that you’d ask a classmate to proof read a paper. Thanks for any comments. Comments of the “this is awful” sort can be emailed directly to me. (t i n a – at – this domain)Wonderful praise should of course be posted here…

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To put it in the most blunt terms possible, a business graduate degree represents to me the required next step both personally and professionally. My undergraduate degree is a dual degree in computer science and economics. Computer science offered me a hands-on skill; economics showed me how to look at the business arena in which my technical skills are offered. Several years of work later in the software industry, I ve become more and more convinced that the value of my technical skills and abilities is tied to the way that they solve customers business needs. I want to understand those needs, be able to speak knowledgeably of the return on investment of my services, and be able to craft the solution that solves a business need, rather than merely a technical itch. My economics degree began to hint at the impacts of markets and trends on business needs, but took much more of a broad-brush approach than the in-depth detail I find myself lacking. I need to understand the financial models used by businesses, the case studies in marketing, management, and operations from companies who have done well and companies who have failed miserably, and the skills in strategy necessary to craft a company or project s direction. Personally, attaining these skills represents an accomplishment worth working for, a business itch scratched in the same way that mastering a technology scratches a technical itch. Professionally, the value of a geek understanding the problems or opportunities of a customer is immense, both within my current company and in the industry overall. This geek envisions proposing business solutions implemented via technical means, rather than the technical solution du jour shoehorned onto a business need that s only been loosely translated into the technical realm. A business graduate degree will earn me the knowledge and skills necessary to be the geek whose solutions add recognizable value to the customer.