I graduated! As of the 21st of April, 2026, I possess a master’s degree in business administration, from Western Governors University.
I found the process quite entertaining. Topics like finance, accounting, business ethics, and global economics, which I studied during this degree, are things I highly enjoy reading about anyway. Most of my information up to this point has been second-hand, either via Googling, observing my accountant relatives, or reading outfits like Foreign Affairs, Financial Times, and more. It was nice to be able to concretize my ad-hoc knowledge about such topics and has left me with a solid foundation to both practice my knowledge and to go out and learn more in the world.
Other topics I encountered during my studies, like operations planning, human resources management, and marketing, are things I had very little experience or knowledge in before starting this degree, and found them to be quite engaging and interesting in ways I did not necessarily anticipate.
The Capstone project for this master’s degree was a blast. It was essentially a detailed business simulation, almost like a video game, of founding and running a high-tech startup manufacturing and selling a physical product. You had to run strategies and input decisions for R&D, HR, Marketing (including product design as well as advertisements), Sales Channels, and more at the beginning of each quarter, and would see your decisions reflected by the results of each quarter, plus curveballs thrown along the way. It was fun getting to put all of my studies together into one significant effort and be able to show results for those studies, simulated results as they may be. I earned various ‘achievements’ recognizing exceptional business performance during the simulation.
I also was able to put many things I had studied into practice in real life. At my brother’s invitation, I assisted him “pro-bono” in his one-person accounting business for a few hours a week fairly consistently throughout my studies. He named me the Chief Operating Officer, and I contributed to operations workflows, technology, pricing strategies, and marketing decisions. I also engaged our first bookkeeping contract hires to help us out as demand ramped up. I made no contribution on the actual accounting deliverables “product” side, but rather the ancillary supporting actions common to any business. It was quite entertaining, and created a positive feedback loop between my work and study.
Tangentially, graduating with this degree is a bit of a full circle moment for me; I previously attempted to complete a Master’s degree, back when I was 18, shortly after I completed my bachelor’s. It was not in Business Administration, but rather continuing my programming studies; I completed a full semester at the University of Central Florida’s Florida Interactive Academy of Entertainment, a wonderful graduate school focused on creating video game developers. I ended up dropping out during Christmas break for various reasons, in particular my need of financial stability. The FIEA courseload intentionally is very demanding, and working a second job is highly discouraged by faculty for good reason. Thus, shortly after dropping out from FIEA, I landed my first job as an associate software engineer and hadn’t much looked back since. That all was nearly ten years ago now; insert cliché here!
I’m glad to have been able to return to my formal studies after a lengthy absence. I thank my family first and foremost for their enduring love and support, as well as my friends, my instructors, and my formal and informal mentors over the years and during this degree. Last but not least, I would like to thank the authors of each wonderful textbook I was exposed to during my studies. Thank you all!
Alex