The average debt load for graduates of the top business schools has now exceeded $100,000. For most young professionals, this means spending the first half of their career in the red and feeling pressure to take the first position offered to them so that they can start paying off their debt. However, it doesn’t have to be that way.
Author and businesswoman Laurie Pickard discovered a way to get the business education she needed to land her dream job while avoiding the massive school loans that plague so many. In Don’t Pay for Your MBA, she shares all that she learned so that others can benefit as well. Pickard discovered that the same prestigious business schools that offer the MBAs so many covet also offer MOOCs (massive online open courses) for low or even no cost.
Within these pages, you will learn how to:
Define your goals and tailor a curriculum that is geared toward your dream job
Master the language of business
Build a strong network
Choose a concentration and deepen your expertise
Showcase your nontraditional education in a way that attracts companies
Don’t fall for the lies that pressure countless graduates every year into MBA programs and insurmountable debt. Self-directed online learning can fill gaps in your training, position you for promotions, and open new opportunities--at a fraction of the cost!
When some of the most prestigious business schools in the world began providing free versions of their courses online, Laurie Pickard saw an opportunity to get the business education she had long desired, at a fraction of the typical MBA price tag. The blog site she launched to document her journey, NoPayMBA.com, quickly became an international phenomenon, hosting visitors from nearly every country in the world. News about the “No-Pay MBA” has appeared in Poets & Quants, Fortune, Bloomberg Business, Entrepreneur, and CNN/Money. From these beginnings, Laurie has grown into the role of MBA adviser to independent students from around the globe. She has written articles for the Financial Times and BizEd, the magazine of the business school accreditation organization AACSB, and was invited to produce a course for The Economist Group’s online learning platform, Learning.ly. Her career advice has appeared in The Daily Muse. Don’t Pay For Your MBA is her first book.