June, 2005. It's not far away at all. When I got my acceptance letter into the MBA program at the University of Washington, Class of 2005, in spring of 2003, that graduation date seemed abstract and distant -- like the maturity date of savings bonds people gave me as a kid that came due a zillion years (okay, ten years) later.

June, 2005, was a date that seemed so distant it didn't matter what number it was. Just as I could not concretely plan what I'd do when I cashed in my bonds a decade after receiving them, I wasn't sure at the outset what another diploma would be good for. Now, I have only a few months until redemption.

THE "DARK SIDE." If this MBA experience has changed me, I think it's been for the better. It has taken me well over a year to feel the way I do, but I am no longer ashamed to be in business school. Now when people ask me what I am up to, I enthusiastically (perhaps not proudly yet, but at least without embarrassment) offer that I am enrolled in the UW Business School, and I graduate in June. Even (and I say this affectionately) the hippie/commie faction of my family has supported my transition to the "dark side."

Two years ago I wondered with whom I would be sharing the B-school experience. Would my classmates be evil? Turns out most aren't. The vast majority of UW MBAs are compassionate, ethical, thoughtful, and insightful people, the type of folks I hope will run companies around the world someday soon.

These are not the fluffed up, megalomaniacal, manipulative jerks I had previously associated with the MBA degree due to past experience. Not one of my classmates bears the sense of perverse entitlement I have sometimes seen from (prestigious school name goes here) MBAs. At the same time, though, I wonder if my classmates will make it to the top ranks of major corporations, not because they aren't bright or hard-working, but because they are perhaps too kind and collegial. Will they be eaten alive for their decency? I sincerely hope not.

WOWED BY ACCOUNTING.  Another thing I wondered about when I enrolled in the MBA program was if I'd find business classes boring. To my surprise, I find some aspects of business so compelling that on occasion I think about someday becoming a business professor. I don't have it in me to go for my PhD straight away (or maybe ever), but it's not beyond the realm of possibility. I love management and strategy classes, and I do well in them. Even classes in disciplines I am not as good at, such as finance or operations, captivate me because they offer a way of looking at problems I innately see very differently.

I'm not going to fib, some classes (usually individual sessions, not entire courses) are excruciatingly dry, but it's often not the subjects you'd think. For example, I have taken three accounting classes –- two in my core and one by my own choice this past quarter – and I find the field so fascinating I may take another accounting elective this spring.

Don't get the wrong idea. I solemnly swear I will never become an accountant. I am downright reckless with t-accounts, hopeless with finding plugs, and believe Robert Frost was describing me personally when he said, "Never ask of money spent/Where the spender thinks it went/Nobody was ever meant/To remember or invent/What he did with every cent." But bless the accountants who can keep tabs on money, and the auditors who piece together a company's real story. It is a special breed of people who can uncook books. Business school has instilled in me awe for talented number crunchers.

LEAST FAVORITE.  As I predicted might be the case, I enjoyed electives this quarter more than core courses last year. I took a great course in financial statement analysis with Shiva Rajgopal. He taught me a lot, but his exams were brutal. If taking Shiva's class was me eating my spinach (I do like spinach, by the way), then Terry Mitchell's management class was my ice cream. A 35-year-plus teaching veteran, Terry's onstage timing was dead-on, and he expertly punctuated classes with Dilbert cartoons and episodes of "I Love Lucy." You gotta love professors who show movies. Best of all, I learned a lot about how to motivate people, the point of the course.

Direct marketing with Elizabeth Stearns was intense (the whole course was packed into seven days preterm), but worth the sturm und drang. The material covered in such a concentrated time was remarkable, and now I think a lot more about the relationships between corporations and customers than I ever did before. Elizabeth emphasized that business is personal, and it always comes down to that in the end. I'll take that message with me. It seems simple, but is often forgotten these days.

The final class in my schedule last quarter was Ted Klastorin's course in project management, my least favorite over all, but still quite valuable. Next quarter I will be taking ethics, technology management, brand marketing, and a course in the UW library and information school on cognitive work analysis.

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