You are an engineer, what do you need an MBA for?*
A couple of years back in Cape Town, I had a conversation with a friend telling her about my plan to pursue an MSc in Civil Engineer, she seemed not too impressed and asked me why I didn’t go for an MBA instead? At that point, I did not know much about the MBA besides the meaning of the acronym, “Master of Business Administration”. It is only a few years later when I joined an international merchant company working in Sales Engineering, Strategy, and Marketing that I started researching seriously about the MBA program. Today, almost a year after starting my MBA, I realized that I could not have chosen a better path than this. An MBA, why? I must admit that this wasn’t the path I dreamed of as a kid. Growing up in Mbuji-Mayi, a “poor” small town but extremely rich in natural resources in the middle of Congo, I did not even know that an MBA degree existed. Therefore, the initial plan was quite straightforward; “become an engineer like my parents and settle”. But the world is a changing...