Sunday, April 20, 2008

It Is Finished... Post-WEMBA Thoughts

It is finished. WEMBA is over! We are free....the transformation is complete.

I'm feeling kinda strange today on the first day in The Chapter After Wharton; it's a combination of happy, sad, elated, disappointed, exhilarated, and exhausted all rolled into one. It was weird checking out of the Le Meridian yesterday and having the hotel employees all shake my hand and say congrats as I drove out of there. I mean, I'll be there again in three weeks for graduation but that's a bit different. We also got our Wharton caps and gowns, and I put mine along side my diploma frame when I got home. I also took a long look at the bookshelf in my office filled with all those MBA books and thought "was it really worth it?" I decided that I was too tired to give it serious thought so I'll get back to it later. I am pretty sure the answer is a resounding yes for me.

Some very out of the ordinary things I did today: slept in, read the Sunday newspaper, washed my car, went to the bank, took my daughter to lunch, surfed the web, went shopping with my daughter, and sent some personal email. I NEVER did all these things on a Sunday during the program so it's kinda strange starting to get life back again. Tonight we are heading out for a family dinner to boot.

A few classmates have asked if I'll keep blogging now that we are done. The short answer is YES! I'll keep blogging as I think this will be a good place to update each other on what's happening with after the program. I think of it as an electronic version of class updates in the back of the Wharton alumni magazine.

I'm looking forward to graduation and playing a little golf with some classmates over the next few weeks. We're gonna play some hooky for the GOLF 720 final.

I seriously think that I'll need to find a new hobby/addiction with the big void of WEMBA gone from my life. A bunch of friends that have traveled this road have said that after an exec MBA you need to train for a marathon, travel the world, and/or take up some new hobbies with all the free time. For now, my new hobbies are sleeping in and watching TV. That should work for the next few months at least.

-Chairman P

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I ran into a WEMBA student from Class 27, and he said looking back he would pay $300,000 for the program; that's how valuable it has been to him since he graduated 8 years ago.

I also had a Harvard grad tell me that they felt the Wharton degree was far superior to HBS. Just his 2 cents, but it was cool to hear.