By Jennifer Merritt
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Ask any past graduate student that question and the answer will most likely be a resounding yes. But before you race to sign up for Globalization 101, you should know that "yes" isn't as simple as earning a piece of paper with the words, "This degree is conferred upon ."
Ticket to Success
Of course, there's always that exception to the rule. Ron Davenport knew early in his eight-year career with Nokia that earning an MBA would land him his current position as sourcing site manager at the cellular company's production creation center in Beijing. He credits his executive MBA from Texas Christian University with getting him where he is today.
"It was like a ticket that was needed to enter the position," Davenport says, noting that candidates with advanced degrees are typically selected for international assignments at Nokia. "Although I had strong experience and past performance, I needed a master's degree to even be considered. Additionally, the MBA gave me a much better perspective on the business cases my team now works with on a daily basis."
But the reason the Dallas-area native applied to TCU's executive MBA program is twofold. "I chose the executive degree to add legitimacy to my professional profile," he says. "Although I worked my whole career -- 15 years -- in technology companies, my undergraduate degree was liberal arts in political science. My work is the business side of technology, so the MBA seemed natural."
Six Degrees of Career Transitions
Likewise, for Rebecca "Kiki" Weingarten, continuing education is as much a natural progression as the passage of time. In addition to a dual bachelor's degree in psychology and education, Weingarten holds two master's degrees from Brooklyn College in counseling and writing, is a trained psychoanalyst and is currently working on her Ph.D. Weingarten says her education has helped her experience more professionally than she ever would have dreamed -- and her career path has taken a lot of turns.
Weingarten says she's "old enough" to have held six entirely different careers, including coordinating youth services as director of a New York program, teaching pre-kindergarten through graduate students, pioneering some of the first Web sites and working as a writer and playwright whose work has been produced off-Broadway.
"My training and education allow me to see things from different perspectives and help people attain their goals by thinking in new ways and approaching things from different angles," Weingarten says. Her experience helped her develop the TIER© system, which she uses in her current career as co-founder and career and education coach at New York-based Daily Life Consulting.
Weingarten firmly believes that each experience builds and prepares you for the next. "I do a lot of work with people who are in transition of careers," she says. "We focus on which skills and qualities can be taken from their old job and applied to your new work. That's what you've got to do . you can't just leave that all behind."
Education Application
Mike Salvador believes in the same theory of building blocks, saying the best path to the corner office is a well-thought out career plan. "There are certain necessary conditions for 'making the cut,' so to speak, such as a bachelor's degree, but the sufficient conditions for a successful career go way beyond the necessary conditions," Salvador says. "People who aspire to the corner office and carefully plan and evaluate the education component in their career plans will do better in terms of achieving their goals."
And Salvador should know. Throughout his career, he has had a bevy of vowels and consonants follow his name as COO and CEO of multiple companies. The former partner at Ernst & Young is now acting chair of the Department of Leadership and Professional Development at the Coles College of Business at Kennesaw State University in Kennesaw, Ga. He appears to be the poster child for career success through advanced degrees: He holds a B.S. in mathematics from Loyola University, an M.S. in management sciences from Case Western Reserve University as well as a Ph.D. in the same from the Case Institute of Technology.
Salvador's unique experience as a senior executive and educator has lead him to deduce that ultimately, the only way a degree can land you in the corner office is if you have the ambition and go-get-'em attitude to back it up.
"The simple fact of having a degree isn't a sure bet of getting up the ladder," he says. "What does it matter if you're an expert in accounting if you don't know how to manage people, or don't know what it means to lead?"
Having a personal plan is what can help you, he explains. "Be true to yourself about what is valuable, because what is valuable to you might not be valuable to someone else."
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