Invest in yourself.

The decision to "go back to school" was a pretty easy one for me. I wanted the additional training and skills, and knew that my career ambitions depended upon further business knowledge. But deciding what program I wanted to study in wasn't so simple.

The debate over traditional grad school and professional part-time programs wasn't much of a debate at all: I wasn't willing to give up the paycheck and benefits for a backpack and a studio apartment.

I'd weighed out the pros and cons of a traditional MBA. Over the period of about a year I looked at a few different options from public and private universities here in my home state. A few friends had taken that leap and provided great perspective on the ups-and-downs of a formalized post-grad business school experience.

And then there were the programs like Kansas State's Master of AgriBusiness. I'd seen advertisements for Purdue's Agribusiness Management Program and the Colorado State program, too. I'd even looked into other graduate programs with an emphasis in agriculture sciences and business. But the MAB option just kept coming to the top of my pile.

My career and interests are well-seeded in the industry, and the idea of continuing my learning specialized in agriculture seemed very appealing. But there were numerous schools offering advanced agriculture degrees, and I wasn't quite sure which one would meet my needs and really benefit me in the long run.

It was a phone call from Lynnette Brummett, the K-State program's coordinator, that tipped the scale. I had filled out the online information request form, and she followed-up. We talked for a while about my background, interests and goals for a graduate degree. She took the time to find out what I wanted from a graduate experience and answered my specific questions about the courses and timeline for completing the degree.

After the conversation she identified some alumni with similar backgrounds as me and setup a phone call and some e-mails to have them provide a perspective of MAB. It was a very personal approach, and showed just how hard the K-State staff worked to make their (perspective) students feel like valued individuals.

I took that as a sign of good things to come, and sent a completed application back to campus to start the process. Now here I sit, working towards the MAB degree with hopes of finishing in May of 2010. And it's truly what I hoped it would be.

The work is challenging, but rewarding. There's little doubt that I'm learning something valuable in each course. I'm able to use the skills in my current job, and it's all shaping my future career plans, too.

My investment looks to be a good one. I'm seeing the returns already. It's two and a half years of nearly constant courses and learning, along with a tuition bill that would buy you a new American-made sedan without too many bells and whistles. But in the end I'll have the advanced degree and the knowledge. To me, it's been worth the time and effort so far, and I suspect it'll pay off pretty well to finish things out and take home the diploma.

I guess that's my point in today's post: make sure your investment is one that will pay off. If you're considering a program like this, choose based on what you need from the degree. Make sure what you want in the learning and where you'd like to be when you're done fit the enrollment you're considering.

The advanced degree and advancement.

It's not uncommon to hear of people seeking out higher learning, like the MAB program, as a means of career advancement or career change. Based on conversations I've had with my classmates, I'd say our group is a pretty good mix of both.

If you are considering the MAB program for either option, I've run across an article worth reading. This HR World piece lays out the case for and against a graduate degree. It highlights the employer's debate over higher learning and work experience.

Best of all, though, is the fact that MAB students work full-time while enrolled in the program. So you'll obtain higher learning while continuing to accumulate career experience!

Look a little deeper.

When I started the blog, my goal was to provide a little deeper look into what the student experience is like -- what kinds of things I was learning and how those things were changing my thinking or enhancing my knowledge of agribusiness.

So today I've got one for you. An interesting article and web item I ran across that's straight from the subject of our most recent MAB course.

The Class of 2010 just wrapped up Dr. Bergtold's Optimization course (Ag Ec 761). It was a fast-paced look at optimization models and how agribusinesses can utilize data to make better decisions. The course essentially taught me to take data and trends and turn them into functional, decision-making models in Microsoft Excel.

This was new territory. I didn't do this in my job prior to the class. And I never toyed with building models in Excel in order to streamline business decisions. But, as I learned from Dr. Bergtold, it's big business in a lot of big businesses.

And my recent find in BusinessWeek magazine has me wondering about the kinds of opportunities this work will present in the agriculture and food sector.

There's a neat article and accompanying video clip about Stephen Baker's new book, "The Numerati". He's a writer for the magazine who has taken a deep look into the business of optimization and operations research -- essentially, the practice of numerating business data in order to build models like the ones we studied in our MAB course.

I've not picked up the book yet, but hope to add it to my fall reading list. I'm not sure if this will end up being part of my MAB thesis yet, but I did find the whole practice pretty interesting. Over the two month period of Ag Ec 761 we learned a lot about decision variables and modeling data to determine optimal outcomes in business. And Dr. Bergtold assures me there's much, much more to discover about operations research for the student who is so inclined.

Give the subject a quick Google search and you'll see there is a lot out there. And it's just a part of the knowledge we're surfacing throughout our first year in K-State's MAB program.

Nearing a benchmark.

My MAB cohort just started our next class; it's the Risk Management course that will take us through the end of the 2008 school year.

As I thumbed through the program booklet last night, it dawned on me that we're nearing a bit of a benchmark for the MAB program. At the completion of this course, we'll have one full year of learning and 15 credit hours behind us! Some of my classmates will be even further along, having picked up a course or two ahead of the official start of our program in January.

We all must meet the 42 credit hour requirement in order to receive a degree. But if you knock out the three hours of capstone course, take away six hours granted in our thesis work, and three hours of elective we'll choose next year and you end up at 33. So we're almost halfway through the general coursework.

Whew. Time is flying right on by.