A Tale of Two Liberal Arts MBAs

Elsie Jamin-Maguire is a manager of new business models for chemical company, BASF’s digital transformation project, BASF 4.0, and another liberal arts graduate who worked in the arts prior to her MBA. Before getting an MBA from Ohio State University’s Fisher College of Business, Jamin-Maguire majored in arts administration and French at Sarah Lawrence College. An early management experience at that time came with via Downstage, a drama course which required students to run a small theater for a year. 

After observing how a theater was managed, Jamin-Maguire decided she wanted to switch over to the business side of theater and took an internship with a major Broadway producer. After the internship, Jamin-Maguire stayed on at the company, initially to help with the end of the tax year, but then for another three years, during which time she handled everything from regular payroll to taking investments for new shows and handling royalty payments. “For three years I basically got a hands-on grassroots approach to how these offices and shows run for years and years.”

Jamin-Maguire took this knowledge into her second job on Broadway where she worked as a director of finance. It was during this time that she began thinking about getting an MBA. By the time Jamin-Maguire was 26, she was already working in a major leadership role even though her peers were often in their 40s.

Despite the fact that Jamin-Maguire was interviewing at all of NYC’s major arts organizations in order to find her next role, they were all telling her the same thing; that she had to wait five years. “I got the same response from everyone which was, ‘you’re totally qualified, but you’re too young. Call us in five years.’” Jamin-Maguire did not want to wait, so she decided to go back to school.

She vacillated between getting an MBA and an MFA, but chose the former since she felt it would open more doors. “An MFA was still only in the arts industry. It wouldn’t have given me as much exposure. I thought an MBA would give me an opportunity to use my skills in different areas and give me a broader set of skills.” In addition, Jamin-Maguire noticed that a lot of the nonprofit leaders she knew either had an MBA or were in the process of getting one.

Jamin-Maguire chose to get her MBA from Fisher because of the fact that it was a relatively small program within a large university. Fisher’s location in Columbus, Ohio, also meant that she would have access to the arts. However, simple economics also played a factor here, since she says she would have found it difficult to afford an MBA while also paying NYC rent prices.

During her first weeks at Fisher, Jamin-Maguire began meeting students from different backgrounds. While she had worked in theater since she was 16 and had started her MBA program with a singular mindset, her outlook began to change once she was presented with a lot of opportunities she hadn’t previously considered, including working in business development for BASF. Fisher is one of three to five core schools from which BASF recruits. She decided to work there in order to have a broader range of work experience as well as a better understanding of how corporations work.

Jamin-Maguire also opted to pursue a role in business development as opposed to continuing in finance, a discipline that she felt was, “too narrow,” to hold her interest every day. In addition, the Fisher MBA alumna was keen to progress into a general management role, something that is emphasized in BASF’s two-year MBA rotational program. Jamin-Maguire’s role has given her experience in new areas, such as innovation and digital technology as well as opportunities to travel and work with global teams.

“I think everything is different about attending a small liberal arts college versus a large MBA program,” states Lindland.

At Vassar, Lindland had classes with as few as four people, whereas Columbia’s MBA classes have no fewer than 66 students (the size of her cluster). While large class size can be daunting, Lindland says, “you can still learn in important and meaningful ways in a more rigid, lecture-style classroom setting.” So as not to be overwhelmed by differences as pronounced as this, Lindland advises liberal arts undergraduate students to focus on what it is they want to get out of their MBA experience.

The biggest difference, in Jamin-Maguire’s opinion, is that a liberal arts degree provides graduates with a broader perspective, in terms of ways of thinking and approaches to the world as a whole. Indeed, she notes that there is huge variety in the way in which liberal arts students plan to use their degree after graduation. By contrast, Jamin-Maguire believes MBA programs are more targeted in their teaching, saying, “it’s giving you specific skills to survive in the corporate world.” In addition, students come out with at least an overview (depending on the elective courses they select) of specific disciplines, such as economics, accounting and marketing.

Another major difference between an MBA and a liberal arts program is the MBA’s emphasis on quantitative skills. Lindland, who had not taken math since high school, says that she had a, “larger learning delta,” than those in her cohort who had, for example, studied statistics at undergraduate level. At the same time, however, she says there were a lot of opportunities to improve her quantitative skills and, since she had more to learn, she ended up getting more for her money. Supplemental tutoring, on-campus and virtual classes, forming a study group with other students in her cohort as well as preparing for the GMAT, are all things Lindland identifies as helping develop her quantitative skills.

A, “huge wakeup call,” is how Jamin-Maguire describes her first semester, as she transitioned from discussion-based learning to test-based learning. While most of her classes at Sarah Lawrence had not required exams, exam results counted for a large part of her overall grade as an MBA student at Fisher. Faced with what she calls a, “fire hose of information,” Jamin-Maguire felt that she had to go back to the mindset she’d had during her high school days when she was studying for her advanced placement exams. She also found help through a study group which she formed with like-minded students in her cohort.

While at Columbia, Lindland was able to take advantage of the program’s MBA networking opportunities to open up job opportunities. “The network is terrific and very, very helpful,” she says, adding that fellow members of a cohort are keen on, “helping each other rise together.”

Jamin-Maguire was also able to use her MBA to expand her network. “My Sarah Lawrence friends are near and dear to my heart, but they are all in the arts. They’re all in film and television, which is great, but it’s a very narrow field if you decide you want to go in a different direction.” Getting an MBA gave Jamin-Maguire the opportunity to meet people from all over the world and who hold experience in a far wider variety of industries. She says that her MBA network is a, “genuine network,” since she feels she can call these people and ask about their families as well as to ask them for career advice. “It’s a really nice blend of both worlds, I would say.”

An MBA can also teach liberal arts alumni how to find business resources from within their liberal arts network. During Lindland’s time at Columbia, she was heavily involved in starting a group called Columbia Ventures Community which seeks to bring together stakeholders from across the university in order to support people in technology. Lindland then took that model to Vassar where she discovered dozens of accomplished graduates who were focused on careers in tech and who were also clearly interested in connecting with likeminded peers. “Taking that MBA networking mindset and applying it to my liberal arts cohort was a win-win,” Lindland states.