University of California, Davis: Christopher Welsh

Chris graduated in 1996 from Carleton College in Minnesota, where he double-majored in English and political economy. He then served overseas in Korea, Japan, and the Philippines as an infantry officer in the Marines. In that capacity, he led a 40-man rifle platoon and a 50-man weapons platoon before completing his tour of active duty as a rifle company executive officer—which is roughly analogous to being a director of operations in the private sector.

After earning his MBA in 2005 from UC-Davis, Chris is now a software account manager for IBM. He says his military background really helped him handle the rigors of graduate business school and predicts it will do the same for others: “Both military training and the way many military service people are wired with respect to discipline means that veterans ought to adapt well.”

Because the MBA is such a good fit with military experience that you’d almost think it was specifically designed as a tool to help military leaders make the transition to civilian employment or entrepreneurship. In the military, I set the vision and led a team of 50 marines and sailors. With the addition of knowledge in finance and other functional subject areas taught in b-school, I can now lead teams in finding and solving client business problems.

And aside from the academics, b-school offers a great opportunity to make terrific friends and explore specific professional fields where you can leverage military leadership experience.

Be mindful of the school culture that’s right for you. For instance, I chose my school for its interactive learning environment and its emphasis on teamwork and collaboration. But also, if you are seeking a career in a specific industry, it behooves you to ensure the MBA program has research and teaching strengths, as well as placement relationships in that field.

The GMAT has verbal, quantitative, and essay sections and is significantly more difficult than most material encountered in a basic officer course. So it made sense to prepare for the test by building up academic fitness in the same way you'd build strength and stamina to pass a physical fitness test—with consistent, disciplined training over time.

My advice to others: Take multiple practice tests. Determine your weaknesses. Then train to remediate them.

It helped me understand the skills that I brought to the table and the capabilities that I wanted to develop and employ going forward. And then it helped me seek out the roles—and an organization—where I could put my skills and capabilities to good use.

Capture your experience in a handful of good stories that illustrate the universal things most employers and entrepreneurs are looking for in an employee: Did you lead many people? Under stress? In an ambiguous situation? On complex initiatives? Describe an action you took and the result that you delivered by taking that action. Skip the .acronyms and jargon, of course. Just focus on your fundamental capabilities and explain how each relates to the particular job you’re applying for.

Of course, military experience develops your comfort in analyzing a given situation so that you can make a decision and then provide both strategic and tactical direction to others. Business school takes these fundamental leadership talents and reinforces them with important knowledge of finance, accounting, operations, organizational behavior, innovation, marketing campaign management, and other topics. So the theoretical foundation that you get from coursework provides a bridge for making military leadership experience relevant to more advanced work in and out of uniform.