Choice You Can Make in Times of Recession

By Kwon Sang-soo

``A person with a Ph.D. in physics applied for the position of a street cleaner.'' This headline, published in a daily newspaper, clearly demonstrates how bad the economic and job market situations are today. As expected, not only global companies, but also local businesses have announced plans to reduce their workforce.

It appears businesses are set to go through painful restructuring for years to come. So how are you bracing yourself for the upcoming downturn? I would like to discuss a choice you can make in times of recession.

Let me get straight to my point: You should do something to prepare for the future no matter how hard things are. One of the best ways to raise your profile in a short time while retaining your job is to get an MBA. Indeed, it seems like today an MBA is no longer ``nice-to-have'' but a necessity.

``The deeper into the recession the economy falls, the more popular MBA programs become.'' According to the Graduate Management Admission Council, the number of business school applicants in 2008 soared 77 percent on the previous year when the economic crisis peaked, while the yearly increase rate in 2007 was 64 percent. The Economist also reported more students are applying for MBA programs when the economy is down.

So what can you learn from an MBA course? You would not learn general business administration theory from the program. Rather, it would help you gain an insight into the survival strategies that businesses can use in this professionalized and globalized business environment.

It is true, though, that along with the recent economic troubles, some problems with MBA programs have been widely reported. In Korean society, impulsive and provocative opinions of non-experts sometimes become more influential than rational, and systematic analyses of experts, as was shown in the recent scandal surrounding Minerva, an online commentator.

However, the Financial Times reported that MBA programs will remain necessary and effective in training future businesspeople, even though excessive confidence instilled in students by MBA programs was a major culprit behind the latest global financial turmoil. Today's MBA curricula may seem to be not working properly for now, but I believe business schools will continue to seek to upgrade their MBA programs and adjust to the changing business environment as they have always done in order to better reflect reality.

You may ask at this point, "How can I manage to pursue an MBA course when I have a full-time job?" Human resource team managers point out that it would be a risky decision to quit your job and enter a business school when the economy is in such a bad shape. Indeed, taking one or two years off and pursuing a full-time MBA course would not be an easy thing to do for those in the core workforce in this rapidly changing business environment.

For such people, I strongly suggest that an Executive MBA program at local business schools would be a good alternative. This weekend program enables you to obtain a degree at home from a prestigious school abroad. Generally, an Executive MBA Program has the same academic curriculum as a regular MBA program. But it has a small number of course units, a shorter education period and participants with more extensive management experience.

It was Korean people's zeal for education that drove the nation's rapid economic growth over the past four decades. I believe the current economic slump could turn into a new opportunity for growth when both businesses and individuals show more enthusiasm for education. The survival of the fittest, in which you can only survive by effectively adapting to the natural environment, is the hard truth that applies to the global business environment as well.

Kwon Sang-soo is an executive MBA director at Sungkyunkwan University SKK GSB. He can be reached at anima@skku.edu