The MBA and Life Checklist: Choosing your MBA Program (Part 5)

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Kellogg
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Kellogg Professors Derek Rucker and Tim Calkins speak to students about how to score ads during the 2014 Kellogg Super Bowl Ad Review.

This post is part five in a series. See part one, part two, part three, part four, part six.

As I was making my decision to attend Kellogg, I asked myself six questions to determine whether it was the right place for me. Here is the fifth:

Is the classroom both timely and timeless?

The educational arena has to provide a platform to understand the past, predict the future, and conceive of how they both relate to current events. For example, the wisdom of marketing guru Philip Kotler has to be combined with the impact of digital and social media for both to have meaning. For instance, our Black Management Association (BMA), with the help of corporate partnerships, developed programming to talk about the effects of multiculturalism and the Hip Hop Culture in marketing. Ignore Facebook’s acquisition of WhatsApp and you miss a real-time case about marketing and acquisition that’s happening right around you. Structure is necessary; however, I prefer flexible rigidity, for as Mark Twain wrote, “you can never let schooling interfere with education.”

Christopher Alexander introducing Steve Stoute (CEO & Founder of Translation, Author of Tanning of America, 2013 AdAge Executive of the Year) at the BMA Conference
Christopher Alexander introducing Steve Stoute, CEO & Founder of Translation, Author of Tanning of America and 2013 AdAge Executive of the Year, at the BMA Conference

Christopher Alexander ’14 is a 2008 graduate of Morehouse College and is in his second year of the 2Y MBA Program at Kellogg. His focus is on the Marketing and Management and Organizations curriculum. After graduation Chris will be heading back to Deloitte Consulting’s Strategy and Operations group. He will be based in Seattle, along with his fiancé and Kellogg classmate Jessica Lane ’14. Chris is very active on Kellogg’s campus, primarily as outgoing co-president of the Black Management Association, an admissions interviewer and a member of the class gift committee. Chris originally hails from Roxbury, NJ.