Pursuit of the Master of Business Administration

True that I have three college degrees already and do not need a fourth. I am contented and even joyous as a musician and find great satisfaction in the arts, always have and probably always will. Most of my closest acquaintances are in the arts and I have participated in many upper level conversations about music. In addition, I have experienced musical performance in its entirety including rock, jazz, blues, classical, liturgical, contemporary, choral, instrumental, large, small, old, new, solos, ensembles, and everything between all the ones named! I have been a servant performer, a leader performer, a poor performer, a good performer, and a composer. I have spoken about music, read about composers, am knowledgeable in music theory, music history, current trends, past disasters, great successes, analytical techniques, and philosophy of sound. I love it all and plan to remain a musician until the end!

But life is short, less than 100 years for most of us, and I wish to learn something new. I do not desire to subjugate my musical knowledge for something else and I have no desire to discard my years of musical training and artistic sensibilities; yet I feel a burning desire to add to my education, to my experiences, and to give something new a whirl. I could be a dismal failure or a golden success, but how else am I to know than to try?

Learning about the economy, about accounting, about marketing, leadership, and management is a great opportunity not just to improve myself, but to improve all those areas that touch my life. Mostly it is vastly rewarding to be with business-minded people, those interested in the marriage of business and Christianity, people who analyze politics, who understand amortization, depreciation, assets, investing, price to earnings ratios, short selling, puts, calls, T accounts, budgeting, and finance. The conversations around the table (figurative water cooler), range from politics to insurance to entrepreneurship ideas to current events to how to improve ourselves. All exciting stuff.

But lest you start thinking that it sounds dry and inhuman, much of our discussion actually revolves around people and how to give them value. We discuss the co-creation of value through servant leadership, marketing, consumer trends, and excellent management abilities. Of course there is the inevitable sports talk about great players, coaches, teams, and workout techniques--good information but not high in my interest bank. And occasionally we argue about movies (a topic I know very little about) or video games (a topic I know nothing about) or social circles in a younger age bracket (I am the oldest student). Sometimes I feel guarded in offering my leadership experiences and other times I feel overly vulnerable in revealing my ignorance on accounting principles or finance.

In the end, however, I am having a blast in my studies and I am looking forward to reaching a level heretofore never achieved by me. Plus it will be downright cool to have a fourth degree to hang on my wall. Of course all the degrees in the world do not, and should not, change a person, and I will remain the same eclectic, curious, and perplexing personality as usual. But maybe, just maybe, I will gain an understanding of the mysterious and wonderful world of business management.