Southern Methodist University: Charles Leary
Charles was awarded an ROTC scholarship before graduating from high school and completed his ROTC training at Purdue University while earning his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering. Upon graduation in 2004, he was commissioned as an officer in the Navy and spent the next two-and-a-half years in Japan as a machinery division officer aboard the USS Tortuga.
After training with the Marine Corps in Virginia and North Carolina, in April 2008 Charles was deployed to Iraq, where he was assistant officer-in-charge of Riverine Squadron Three. He served as a member of the admiral’s staff, home-ported in Bahrain from January 2009 to May 2010, before entering the MBA program at Southern Methodist University’s Cox School of Business in August 2010.
Charles decided to supplement his engineering degree with an MBA in hopes that the graduate degree would give him the broad business sense he needs to advance beyond the career plateaus engineers sometimes encounter. Nevertheless, he says, “What I like most about the MBA is that it doesn't limit you. If you're interested in the arts, then you can be a museum administrator with an MBA. If you're interested in manufacturing, you can go work in a manufacturing plant. A business degree can be applied in all facets of professional life, whether you're working for a for-profit company or nonprofit organization.”
Based on your experience, what advice do you have about researching graduate business schools?
Often programs have hidden gems that you should try hard to find out about. I say that because when you’re thinking about certain business schools, you may read general descriptions and about the rankings and employment track records, but you may not learn a lot about the details that could help you as an individual. For example, it turns out that my school has a very strong finance curriculum as well as an institute that focuses on energy. So I’m now thinking about getting into energy and finance even though when I was applying to schools, I didn't know enough to consider either program.
Also, extracurricular activities should be part of how you figure out your potential fit with a school. They’re part of the education package. Academics are important, but if you're not interacting with students or professors outside the classroom, then your learning will be very limited.
What do you think is the best way to prepare for the GMAT?
I recommend doing what I did—just use the prep books to work through practice examples and periodically take the official practice tests to get used to how the test works. In fact, if you're even remotely thinking about taking the GMAT, I recommend taking a practice test cold turkey to see how you do and gauge how much you need to prepare.
Would you say that military personnel who go into an MBA program have a kind of edge?
Sure. Military folks have experience with being over-tasked and under-manned. That helps you determine what you should do now and what you can do later. The extracurricular activities I mentioned earlier are virtuous in that they make you well balanced, but they're a vice in that they take away from your studies. So, you just have to find a balance.
Also, because military folks have a lot of experience in being told to do something at the last minute, they’re good at estimating how long something will actually take. And that helps with the fine art of time management, too.
What’s an example from your experience of how the maturity gained from being in the military makes a difference when you go back to school?
During our first round of exams, a lot of people were stressing out about wanting to do the best they could and the consequences of doing poorly. But it seemed to me that a lot of my military peers took a different approach. That was because—well, you know, nothing was on fire. No one was getting shot at. So it wasn’t something to get too overwhelmed by. That maturity comes from having life experiences that are very intense and bestow a lot of responsibility on you. Exams just don’t seem as stressful as some situations we've been in before.
What would you say if someone asked you, Why should I bother with graduate business school instead of just moving straight from the military into a corporate job?
Going from the military directly to the business world can be very difficult. First, you don't understand the fundamentals of business and the language of business. The military, of course, has a very different vernacular, so it would be hard to relate to your employees, your peers, and the people you're trying to sell your product to.
Second, the structure of the military is different. As a military officer, you were used to barking orders to someone who's subordinate to you and has to do what you say. When you’re in charge of a group in business school, you find out that you can't talk to the people in your group the same way.
You have to learn how to use your experience in leadership in the military and translate it to the civilian world. I think business school provides a good way to learn to make this transition.
What about individuals who intend to stay in the military? How do you think the MBA helps them advance?
Realistically speaking, all organizations revolve to some extent around money. In a company, you're trying to make money. In the military, you're given a budget and have to accomplish your mission within that budget. The MBA provides high-level knowledge of how money works and how everything is affected by spending and budgeting. It can be very valuable for career military folks because it gives you the practical tools you need to allocate money and run the organization, whether it’s a small command or thousands of people. It helps you manage that aspect of their leadership better.
Was there anything special that helped you make the shift from the military to business school?
After being accepted in early March 2010, I came home for a couple weeks and was actually able to meet up with some people who were first years in my program and could give me advice before school even started. It gave me a leg up on the transition because they had been through the same experience I had of separating from the military and starting business school. And since then, those people and I have all been really good friends.
