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Andrew Davidson has been in the retail industry with Home Hardware Stores Ltd. for 10-plus years in business development, operations and performance consulting, and change management. He is also an executive MBA student at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management and an academic representative for his EMBA cohort. This is his first blog for EMBA Diary.
There is a certain swell of pride that accompanies an acceptance to Rotman, no matter what your age may be. At 33, I was certainly no exception, but hot on the heels of my initial elation were the first pangs of self-doubt. It's the same sensation that you may have felt the last time you got asked to take on that big project at work or after that last promotion. It's human nature to be briefly stopped in your tracks upon the realization that you've reached a particular goal.
For me, it was at this moment that all the statistics I had breezed over during my EMBA research phase began to sink in a little bit more. Average age 39, average of 15 years work experience, and eight years of management experience. "You'll be in a room with C-suite individuals, senior executives, and entrepreneurs," I read, and all I could think then was how I hoped to contribute to such an elite group. After all, I found myself on the low side of each of these averages and had limited experience in some of the more technical subjects such as finance, accounting and statistics.
Generally the people who seek an MBA are the type who want to contribute in any setting, but they are also smart enough to know that contributions must be meaningful to be productive. At their home offices they have their fingers on the pulse of what is happening around them, and with that comfort level they have shed any doubt concerning what they bring to the table. That familiarity is lost with an acceptance to an EMBA program, though, because we know that the program will be different than what we do day to day.
All the considerations that made up my decision to apply were now in play. I asked myself various questions. You're going to be a student again, do you know how to be? Are you really prepared for the workload that is coming your way? Or better still, does everyone in your life understand the commitment you're making? These are the questions that drive the uncertainty that comes with an acceptance, and when you're unsure of the answers, the question of whether you're even qualified is exacerbated.
Well, I can't answer all those questions for you, but what I can say is that acceptance is not sent on a mere whim. The admissions team at the school put a great deal of thought into the makeup of any given class. It didn't become apparent to me until near the halfway point in the program that I was the only student with a background heavy in retail. What was clear from the outset was that I wasn't the only one new to finance. So in retrospect, the very things that I viewed as weaknesses were shared in the room, and my strengths remained as such. No doubt this was by design of the admissions team.
I would also later discover through conversations with my classmates that everyone felt the same as I did in varying degrees of intensity. Some of the senior members said they worried that they might not have the right answers that others may expect them to, or that the return to being a student would be very difficult. Others feared that they would be lost in the sheer scale of information that would soon be upon them. Some were haunted by poor outings in certain subjects during their undergraduate degree. International or out-of-province students wondered about culture clash.
Everyone comes in to the program with a degree of self-doubt. The EMBA program at Rotman is as intensive as it is prestigious, and it would be foolhardy to not take measure of what lies ahead. But do so knowing that many feel the same way, and remember this simple truth: If the school has accepted you, then you belong in the room.