i shouldn't have gone to business school...

but I did. an extremely honest reflection on my time at Wharton.

I shouldn’t have gone to business school.

I’m an influencer and founder of a wellness company. Before that, I worked at Google and YouTube on marketing and creator strategy. Before that, I went to a top-10 undergraduate program. I had a company that was doing well on its own, a thriving corporate career in a coveted industry, and a strong network. So, why even pursue an MBA when I already most things that people go to business school to get?

“Was it worth it?” an old friend and coworker asked me at a catch-up at Bagel World in Fort Greene last weekend. Curious eyes, framed by a cocked head, stared at me, begging to affirm their judgments of what the hell I’ve been up to the last two years. It mostly looked like taking shots of tequila on boats in various international locations, and it mostly felt like a never-ending to-do list. My recency bias wanted me to say “yes, of course!" but on the heels of a difficult semester, I paused. Did I really get anything out of this $250,000 degree?

Luckily for you, I’m an extremely self-reflective person (literally wrote a book on it), so I went back to my old journals to see what my intentions were for business school. After graduating last week, I’m excited to tell you the reality of what I got out of it (so far). I’m not holding back in this report, so release the over-sharing judgment now. I’m an external processor, OK?

Peace out, Quakers.

It isn’t easy to describe the mental load that comes with getting an MBA, particularly as an entrepreneur. When my “sponsored” friends (as in their firm pays for school so long as they return to work for the following two years, meaning they don’t have to recruit for any jobs) complained about being busy, I not-so-subtly rolled my eyes.

I was actually busy: if you’re unfamiliar, I was running my company Too Collective and influencing, completing 30+ brand deals and posting organic content for three out of four semesters at school. But I wasn’t recruiting for a full-time job. I had a unique experience, so don’t compare yourself to me, OK?

However, I think my POV helps reveal a lot about the higher-education–financial-services–industrial complex, so I’ve no doubt you’ll gain some insights from it. These are divided into sections based on the most popular questions I got from you all on Instagram, so be sure to check out my AMA highlights for more. Time to spill!

Why’d you get an MBA?

I know that recent Economist article about Harvard MBAs struggling to find jobs validated a lot of people who believe that staying in the game and grinding it out is smarter than “copping out” by going back to school. It’s easy to look at an MBA program and say, Damn, losers—why not just learn on the job? But as a Black woman, I knew better.

I was first exposed to the world of elite MBA programs as a sophomore at Northwestern in a program called Management Leadership for Tomorrow. They helped expose diverse undergraduate students to Fortune 500 companies and they were key in helping me land an internship at Google. But before they started their undergraduate program, they were known for helping diverse young professionals get into top-20 MBA programs to further their careers.

At their advice, I did a weeklong program at Harvard Business School during the summer of my junior year, where we were exposed to the MBA lifestyle, taking case method classes (not my favorite tbh) from renowned professor Anita Elberse. As I had just abandoned my dreams of being a lawyer, my newfound interest in business confirmed that this type of education would be the right step for me long-term.

Back at my Google internship that summer, everyone said, “You won’t need an MBA, you’re already at Google!” But I had a hunch: I looked up every director of marketing on LinkedIn, and all of them had MBAs (except for a few of the straight white men, of course.) Never take advice from people whose lives you don’t want, team. Not to mention, the layoffs….

A Black proverb.

Despite that, I knew at the ripe age of 20 that I did not even want to be a director of marketing at Google. But as a Black woman, you can never be too educated. Even with an MBA, I knew I was sure to be slighted in the business world, and flashing your credentials gets you an extra opportunity to sit at the table.

What made me committed to the rigirous application process was the optionality that would come with this degree: by applying into the Moelis program (where I was accepted as a college senior and matriculated to Wharton three years later), I was able to take risks in my early career, like ditching Google’s prestigious APMM program early to join YouTube Shorts’ strategy team, investing in my content creation career, and starting my own business—all before my first day of school. Plus, I’d heard of a few founders using their business school time to work on their startups, and then if it failed at the end, they at least had a degree to show for it and a career center to help them, rather than nowhere to go.

I also wanted the network. I grew up in a home full of love but lacking in finances, only learning what McKinsey was during my sophomore year at Northwestern. Even with my Google network, I started to feel trapped in the NYC tech and influencer worlds, where I just wasn’t finding ***my*** people. I didn’t know who I’d meet in b-school, but I knew it would be more than middle managers at a tech company and the same West Village clique I’d mingle with at brand events.

So, in August of 2023, I packed up my life in NYC and took the Amtrak to my new apartment in Rittenhouse Square, where my entire life did a 180. Here’s the full debrief on social life, dating, academics, and more.