Molly Fortunoff ⋅ New York, NY American Corporate Partners (ACP) ⋅ 5 years experience

Hi Joe,

First off, thank you for your service and congratulations on your acceptance to the Whitman School of Management at Syracuse University – that’s a fantastic accomplishment!

With regard to specialization I suggest you check out the following websites that discuss MBA specializations in more detail:

https://www.princetonreview.com/business-school-advice/popular-mba-specializations

https://www.usnews.com/education/best-graduate-schools/top-business-schools/articles/2012/01/31/5-tips-for-choosing-an-mba-concentration

Also, I would suggest you reach out to Whitman alumni currently employed in consulting and discuss with them the most valuable specialization for their career. Another option is to talk with your professors about the best option to choose based on their experience.

I hope this helps and please feel free to reach out if you have any additional questions, I’d be happy to speak with you.

Best,
Molly

Joe Pierce ⋅ Jonesboro, AR Husqvarna Outdoor Products ⋅ 30 years experience

Thanks for your service Joe

I like supply chain management and business analysis. I am not a marketing guy.

Study and practice presentations thoroughly You will create a lot of Power Point presentations in consulting

Blake Santos ⋅ Arlington, VA Deloitte ⋅ 5 years experience

Congratulations on your acceptance to Whitman! Syracuse is a great university, and they have a vast alumni base in just about every city in which consulting has a major presence.

In my opinion, Business and/or Data Analytics would be readily adaptable and translate very easily to consulting and, based on your profile, the functional skills introduced in such a program would compliment and enhance your current skill set well (which would already very attractive for just about every consulting firm). This would be my recommendation. That said, Supply Chain Management is an undeniably popular and emerging field at present - not only for many professional services firms, but across just about every industry.

It appears to me that you have a great problem on your hands,! Best of luck to you at Whitman, and in whichever program you choose!

Raymond Von Dissen ⋅ Austin, TX U.S. Marine Corps, Corporal ⋅ 4 years served

Hey Joe,

I just finished my MBA at Whitman in December. I did supply and logistics while in the Marines and enjoyed it. With that, I went with the Supply Chain Management focus. I can't speak as to whether or not it is the BEST route for consulting, but I can say it was very informative and valuable. I think if you go the data analytics route, you'll be bogged down with something you don't enjoy. With SCM as your focus you'll have a fair amount of data analysis to work on with your projects as well as the other core components of the program. This limits your exposure to something you're not passionate about, but gives you enough training and experience to be able to speak intelligently in those capacities.

Whatever you choose, it will be a good decision. Syracuse is a great school with a very large alum network. If you have any questions specifically for me, feel free to find me on LinkedIn or shoot me an email - Raymond.VonDissen@gmail.com.

Good luck!

Molly Fortunoff ⋅ New York, NY American Corporate Partners (ACP) ⋅ 5 years experience

Hi Joe,

It is clear to see that your skill set from your over 20 years of service will be extremely valuable in the consulting field.

I think I can help answer your follow up question by referencing the vast network you can tap into on our Community tab so you can learn from others which MBA concentration to move into. This feature is meant for expanding your network and connecting with advisors in your targeted industry. If you go to the 'Community' section, you can then filter Advisors by industry, years of experience and location. If you filter for Consulting, you'll see all of our Advisors in this field across the country.

I hope this helps!

Best,
Molly

Frank Rizzo ⋅ Staten Island, NY Jerky boys demolitions ⋅ 78 years experience

Thanks Molly! I'll look at those links in detail. Here is the crux of a dilemma I'm having...over the years as a military officer, I have developed strong decision making skills and a good nose for discerning which data points are useful, that lead to good decisions, and which ones are pedantic. However, its been 20 years since I've done significant math work. The quantitative focus of initial business classes makes It seems like I'm starting all over again just to get to where I'm already at. My strength is the qualitative. For example, when at grad School at the University of Washington, (I was just there, but left to take the overseas consulting job I'm at now) I struggled with the financial modeling classes- still made Bs, however computing Net Present Values, IRRs, NOIs, etc... I found tedious and troublesome. Yet, when I took the supposed difficult Finance and investment class, the one my adviser and School director thought was going to be tough for me, I made an A and thoroughly enjoyed the class. Conceptually, I love finance. Crunching minute numbers, I don't love. I suspect my ability to exercise strong qualitative skill is going to be stifled by "Step 1....calculate on excel" quantitative phase. Not that I don't think its important, but I'm trying to avoid missing out on my highest and best use all for the sake of this initial hurdle. Thoughts?

Frank Rizzo ⋅ Staten Island, NY Jerky boys demolitions ⋅ 78 years experience

Blake,

Thanks for that!!!! The more I hear about Supply Chain the more I think it will be a good fit.

Frank Rizzo ⋅ Staten Island, NY Jerky boys demolitions ⋅ 78 years experience

Raymond,

Thanks for that. I think you got me perfectly and I agree, I don't see myself as a data miner either. Thank for your email too. Semper FI by the way! I'm an alumni of 2/10 and 2/8 at Lejeune.