RETAILOBSERVER.COM NOVEMBER 2017
14
G
iven that the average total cost of a traditional two-year MBA
program now tops $150,000 and that graduates have no
guarantee of improved job prospects and earning potential,
is this non-essential credential really worth the investment?
In DON'T PAY FOR YOUR MBA: The Faster, Cheaper, Better Way
to Get the Business Education You Need, Laurie Pickard shows how
to take advantage of massive open online courses, called MOOCs,
offered by elite business schools plus training seminars and talks, and
create a customized curriculum, earning the equivalent of an Ivy
League MBA for the price of an Internet connection. Since the first
MOOC started at Stanford in 2011, 58 million students have enrolled
in nearly 7,000 courses from 700+ universities.
"We are poised on the brink of an Education Revolution that will
transform the world and work opportunities every bit as much as the
Industrial and Information Revolutions did," Pickard contends. Distilling
everything she's learned through rebundling her business education,
and building on the advice she's shared in her popular No-Pay MBA
blog, Pickard presents a comprehensive, concrete, and personal
guide to designing a top-notch, self-directed business education, and
packaging it to impress a prospective employer or investor. The book
is also for budding entrepreneurs looking for skills to start and run their
own businesses. In DON'T PAY FOR YOUR MBA, Pickard reveals
how to:
• Prep for success, starting by administering their own admissions
process and getting clear about their educational goals.
• Get a handle on the learning technology that will make their self-
directed MBA possible and choose their coursework from the
ever-expanding MOOC catalog.
• Tailor their education towards a specialty that suits their strengths
and deepens their expertise.
B O O K R E V I E W
DON'T PAY FOR YOUR MBA:
The Faster, Cheaper, Better Way to Get the Business Education You Need
Author: Laurie Pickard has written about the subject of self-directed business education for the
Financial Times, been quoted in the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg Business, and received
write-ups in both Fortune and Entrepreneur. She leveraged her self-made MBA into a position as a
private-sector development adviser for the U.S. Agency for International Development in Rwanda,
launching her career as business and entrepreneurship development consultant.
Publisher: AMACOM
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