Is an MBA worth it?

My co-worker sent me a very interesting article where the author talks about an MBA being a waste of money.  In the article, he states that the most valuable things you get from an MBA can be obtained without paying the $100 K + price tag. Networking can be done through sites like MeetUp and LinkedIn and the classroom material can be learned from books.

I can agree with him to a degree, but I'd have to disagree as well. In regards to networking, I don't feel like it's entirely the same outside of this environment.  B-school gives people a common ground to connect on. Particularly with alumni, it helps to make a warm connection vs. a cold call with no common meeting ground. To give one example, after a week as an official student at Anderson, the network was already starting to pay off. I recently connected with a fellow classmate that worked at EA Sports just to chat about her experience at EA, her experience with school and any tips in general for what skill set I should work on developing to improve my chances of breaking into marketing/brand management. By the end of the conversation, she was happy to refer me for an open job position I was asking her questions about and I was called in for an interview within the week. After five tough interview rounds and making it to the final two candidates, I didn't get the position, but I impressed my interviewers and turned several cold connections into warm ones. They told me the open position wasn't the best fit for me, but they felt I was a strong candidate and they wanted to bring on in another capacity. So unfortunately, not a win in the employment category, but you can check that off as a win in the networking category.  I'm not sure if I would have made it as far as I did without there being that common ground we could initially connect on.  Also, several of my classmates know that I'm looking to move into a more marketing-centric position and have been keeping their eyes and ears open for me. Whenever positions open up, they email me to see if I'm interested and tell me they are happy to refer me in. So prior to this, I was one person looking for a job, but now I have a ton of classmates trying to help me out as well.

In regards to learning from books, I think its a great way to learn. As I've been trying to break into marketing, I've read TONS of non-fiction that have helped my mind get acclimated to the world of marketing. For example, I've read books like "Onward" and "Primal Branding" to learn more about general management and marketing, but where can I apply and test what I learn?  Nowhere really.  However, b-school creates a low-risk environment for you to apply and test book/classroom theory.  In school, you can take that theory, enter a case competition and then get your strategy assessed by some of the best people in the game. It gives you the opportunity to evolve your strategic thinking further and lets you make stupid mistakes now when they don't matter. When you make a mistake in the real world, you can potentially be canned for it.  Make a mistake on a class project or a case competition, there are no big consequences.

So in the end, I can agree that you don't really need an MBA and the degree doesn't necessarily announce to the public that you are well versed in any certain skill set, but it is one path out of the hundred different paths up the mountain.  For me and many others, this just happens to be the best path for us to take. I can network without b-school, but I feel like the bonds created in b-school are a lot tighter then the ones made with people outside of this environment.  I can learn tons from books, but b-school puts me in a low-risk learning environment to test what I've learned and refine my thought process.

So next time someone tries to talk you out of an MBA:

When someone tells you an MBA is worthless and your wasting your money.

Okay, on a serious note, take what they say with a grain of salt.  I believe with all my heart that Anderson was the missing link to get me to where I wanted to be professionally.  For others, this might be a waste of time and money, but for me its not. 

PS...to my friends and others I've talked to and asked if you think you really needed an MBA, I'm giving you a hard time because until I really understood WHY I needed an MBA, I couldn't write an effective essay. Just trying to help!