Wharton Graduation

I am a bit late posting about my graduation day from Wharton a couple of weeks ago. But it is worth the post-mortem. After two years of baby, work and school, graduating from Wharton was a big relief and, I am told so, an event to feel good about. I already feel sad that I won't be seeing an awesome group of people every other week, sharing both long, 12-hour days of back-to-back lectures and too many drinks at the Old Ship (if you have not heard of this establishement, you have not missed much, but it sure has great service and cheap alcohol).

The fact that we are done hasn't yet fully sunk in. But I am certainly finding a lot more free time in my day. I also fear losing the efficiency inevitably gained from managing career, family and school all at once. Wharton Extreme, as the dean of the Wharton School called it, (the full Wharton MBA program offered without breaks and an alternate weekends over two years) was a memorable experience, which I saw as a way to test my ability to be effective at having a family and continuing to be successful professionally.

At the end of two long years, I am glad I went to business school this late in my career. The pre-requisite for Wharton is a minimum of 10 years of work experience, of which I had more at the time I started. In every class lecture there were problems I had encountered personally in my professional experience. This helped me appreciate more fully the value of both the theory and the real-world cases we studied. In a way, the program was like an extreme training camp: prior experience at our favorite sport was a must, but we all got a lot better at what we knew how to do well anyway.

In addition, one of the most valualbe benefits of the program was the quality of conversations with my classmates. I learned as much from them as I did from the lectures and professors. Pretty much everyone in our group was in middle and upper management executive positions, ranging from manager to director to CEO or CFO. Many people had major professional and financial successes behind them (of the kind often refered to as "retirement" events) as well as more than one failures. While we were in the program for the top Wharton faculty, top school brand name, and the desire to learn, I believe many of us were at Wharton this late in our careers also for an additional reason. People had been around the block enough times to appreciate that save for rare examples like Steve Jobs or Andy Grove (who came to speak to our class) being exceptional in business requires not only talent and good luck but also top training and stamina. Wharton West was outstaning in teaching the latter two.

Last but not least, the quality of teaching and the focus on analysis, quantitative reasoning and a "no bullshit" approach to solving business problems were among the most valuable aspects of the program. The Wharton faculty is outstanding.

Our graduation was at a classic venue (Herbst Theatre), followed by a classy reception (at City Hall) and a thoughtful speaker (Dave Pottruck, ex-CEO of Charles Schwab). Some of us also joined our colleagues at the full time program for the graduation ceremony in Philadelphia. Pictures coming soon...