Thinking about the Chicago MBA years while cleaning out my old desk

Sorting through the archives of my desk drawers

I spent the better part of this past Saturday afternoon cleaning out the study. It’s one of those tasks I’ve been putting off for about three years. Beneath a stack of outdated tax returns and some manuals for appliances I no longer own, I found a heavy, dark blue folder. It was full of brochures and a few printed-out course lists from my time looking into business schools. It brought back a very specific, slightly hollow feeling—that strange period when I was weighing whether or not to pull the trigger on an MBA.

At the time, everyone around me seemed to be either heading to Korea University or debating the merits of the EMBA programs at Yonsei or Sungkyunkwan. There was this constant background noise about which degree would actually translate into a career jump versus which one was just a fancy way to buy time. I remember sitting in a coffee shop in Gangnam, staring at a printout of the Booth School of Business curriculum, trying to rationalize the cost, which felt astronomical then and frankly, still feels steep now when you convert it back to won.

The reality of the application process

I think I spent about six months just obsessing over the GMAT and the essays. It’s funny looking back at those drafts now. I was so convinced that I needed to sound like a visionary leader who had everything figured out by thirty. I wrote about the shift in global finance, citing names I barely understood at the time, trying to match the energy of the people I saw in the industry news. Some of them went on to work at places like Samsung Life Insurance or asset management firms, moving into roles involving structured financial products that I still can’t explain to my own family members today.

There was a moment when I almost pivoted toward a local program. A consultant I spoke to once—I don’t even remember his name, just that he had a very sharp suit—told me that if I wanted a network that actually worked in the local market, I should stay put. He made it sound so simple, like a choice between two different types of life insurance. It didn’t feel that simple when I was losing sleep over the tuition fees and the loss of two years of steady salary. I was so worried about the ‘opportunity cost’ that I think I missed the point of actually learning anything while I was there.

Why I still feel conflicted about the outcome

Looking at these papers now, I feel a weird sense of detachment. I ended up following the path I chose, but the connections I thought would be life-changing turned out to be just… people. Some became contacts, some became friends, and others I haven’t heard from in a decade. There’s a lingering doubt about whether the prestige actually opened the doors I wanted or if I would have just eventually pushed them open myself with enough persistence.

I remember one night in Chicago, staring at the lake, just wanting to be back home because the winter was so brutal. I had paid thousands of dollars to be in a classroom discussing cases that, in hindsight, were much more theoretical than I expected. I kept waiting for that ‘aha’ moment where it all clicked into place—a moment of professional enlightenment that the brochures promised. It never really came in one big burst. It just kind of… happened, slowly, over time, until I was back here at my desk, staring at a mountain of old paperwork.

Moving forward with the leftover clutter

I haven’t thrown the folder away yet. I think I’ll keep it for a few more days, maybe just to prove to myself that it wasn’t a fever dream. It’s not that I regret the choice, exactly. It’s just that the weight I assigned to that degree feels so different now that I’m actually working. It was a massive investment of time and money, and while I have the diploma framed in the hallway, the real learning seems to have come from the random jobs I took afterward, not the degree itself. I’m not sure if I would do it the same way if I were twenty-five again, and maybe that’s the most honest thing I can say about it.