BiMBA Promotes Your Happiness- The MBA Happiness Index 2013

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May 22-2013

From Forbes

(MBA50.com) You might typically expect people investing up to two years of their time and money to gain an MBA to have a mix of optimism, ambition, and determination. But until now, no one has thought to ask the same group whether pursuing an MBA actually makes them happy.

Media rankings tend to focus on the impact of an MBA on salary, return on investment, career progression, and that catch-all term, ‘satisfaction’. But are we missing something? After all, you are more likely to calculate the benefits of a two-week vacation on the basis of how it made you feel and the pleasure it brought you, rather than its ROI or impact on your career. So why overlook these aspects when assessing the benefits of an MBA?

With this question in mind, MBA50.com asked current students from business schools in 11 countries around the world:

- How happy were you 12 months before your MBA?
- How happy are you now, during your MBA?
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- How happy do you expect to be post-MBA?

Respondents are all currently full-time, part-time, executive MBA or distance MBA students from:

EMLyon (France)
ESMT (Germany)
FGV-EAESP (Brazil)
HEC Paris (France)
IE Business School (Spain)
Indian School of Business (India)
Nyenrode Universiteit (Netherlands)
Oxford University – Sa?d Business School (UK)
Peking University BiMBA (China)
St. Gallen (Switzerland)
UBC Sauder (Canada)
University of Virginia – Darden (USA)

Though far from scientific, the survey relays on the idea that happiness is a relative term which means different things to different people. As Stephan Chambers, MBA Program Director at Oxford University’s Sa?d Business School reflects, ‘There is now a significant body of research into what makes us happy. And one of the things about which there’s a broad consensus is that ‘meaning’ (or values, or community, or empathy, or engagement with the public good) correlates strongly with peoples’ reported happiness.’ It doesn’t surprise Chambers, therefore, that an MBA premised on the idea that business should address meaning as well as money, system-level problems as well as local opportunities, personal values as well as organisational structures, should make students happy.

And happy they are. The results from the 1,108 participants in the chart below delivers an overwhelming message that the MBA itself is a considerable source of happiness.

To find out which students are the happiest in the world click here.

Not only did the level of happiness jump significantly once students had embarked on a program, but they also expected that it would carry on rising once they graduated and entered the ‘real’ world once again.

But what exactly is it that is putting a smile on the faces of business school students? After all isn’t an MBA, in whatever form you choose to pursue it, supposed to be a decidedly serious project, with relentless pressure, massive workloads and long, long hours?

“For years before the invention of the MBA, people have found happiness in hard work and achievement,” explains Prof. Simon Evenett, Academic Director of the St.Gallen MBA in Switzerland. “Why should we be surprised that there is an element both of satisfaction and of happiness for MBA students, not just in the successful achievement of their goals, but also in the process of achieving these aims?”

The survey also asked students which aspect of the MBA program made the happiest .

The MBA Happiness Index 2013 (cont’d)

Perhaps not surprisingly the top reason for happiness, cited by 42% of respondents was the pleasure that came from individual self development. “Nothing makes MBA students happier than the tangible and enduring evidence of personal growth,” says Peter Rodriguez, a senior associate dean at Darden. “It’s a bit like getting into shape and feeling that burst of confidence from knowing and showing that you’re stronger, faster and fitter than before.”

While Philippe Oster, the MBA Development Director at HEC Paris largely agrees with Rodriguez, he also points out how significant the ‘other people’ aspect of the experience seems to be. “Meeting and interacting with such a wide range of people from fellow students to faculty to corporate partners – people you simply wouldn’t meet otherwise – plays a significant part,” he says. “And so does the individual assuming a new role and new identity in a network that will last a lifetime.”

And let’s also not forget that the business of getting on in the world, despite its fall from fashion since the economic meltdown of 2008, can still play a part in lifting the mood of the brightest and best. “An MBA that provides personal growth, a caring network and, of course, more and better career opportunities will make its students happy,” says Daisy Wang, the assistant dean at the Peking University BiMBA. Which is perhaps why career progression was the second most important reason for happiness recorded in the poll.

Simon Tan, an MBA student at the IE Business School, he claims to have experienced all the happiness listed on the survey. “At the beginning I was proud to undertake this adventure (self-development) in a new culture, during the program I was really excited to learn, share and agree to disagree with my fellow classmates, and after the MBA it is always nice to get promoted.”

And for those MBA students concerned that the happiness will dry up when they reach the end of their studies, just remember the words of Dr Seuss: “Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.”

BiMBA Promotes Your Happiness- The MBA Happiness Index 2013

May 22-2013