Education

Iowa State University

MBA, Technology & Innovation Management · 2010–2012 · Des Moines

Early on, the best case I could make for an MBA was that a master’s degree would help my career immensely. What nobody told me, and what I didn’t factor into my decision, was that after a business degree from a great school like Central College, most of the coursework would be a rehash of what I’d already learned.

What made the degree worth it were the soft-skill courses, like Organizational Behavior and Ethical Leadership and Governance, and technical courses like Human-Computer Interaction. Taking the soft-skill courses after five years on the job made them much more practical and contextual.

The HCI course was my first foray into the discipline I ended up digging into.

Why Iowa State? At the time, it was the only school with a part-time program in a dedicated space in downtown Des Moines. It also had the Technology and Innovation Management focus area, which appealed to me. And a work colleague started the ISU MBA program at the same time I did. I liked the idea of having a classmate to bounce ideas and work off of.