Rotman To The Core: Why I Decided to Get My MBA (At Age 36 & In A Different Country)

“I want to get my MBA.”

My husband and I were having lunch at our dining table when I made that announcement in July 2022. The thought had been burning inside me for quite some time.

Chris raised his eyebrows. “You sure?”

“I’m sure,” I said.

I knew that I wasn’t going to be the typical MBA student. I was in my mid-thirties with over a decade of experience. We also had a two-year-old son, and I was pregnant with our second child.

“What about your job?” he asked.

It was a question I’d been asking myself because I knew that wanting to go back to school at this stage sounded crazy to anyone else.

“It would be… tough,” I admitted. “But this feels like something I have to do for my career. ”I started my career as an advertising copywriter in New Zealand for four years before moving to an agency in Birmingham, Alabama. I then went client-side when we moved to San Francisco. I was now a senior manager at a health insurance company, overseeing a team six writers and three digital media specialists.

However, I was worried that I’d be pigeonholed as a writer for my entire career. I was moving up the ladder, but the higher up I went, the more gaps I could feel in my business acumen and soft skills. And I knew that if I wanted to be in a position to make decisions that drove companies forward, I was going to have to change something.

Having just graduated with his Master of Fine Arts in Visual Development in May, Chris knew the value of a graduate degree.

I think that was why he said, “Okay. Where? And how?”

He probably already had a sense of where. Having lived in New Zealand, I loved being in a new environment and discovering myself in the process. To paraphrase Robert Frost, I was a road-less-traveled kind of person. I knew that if I ever went back to school, I would want to do it internationally. I had even done some research on locations and schools.

School, singular, rather.

“For where, I was thinking Canada,” I said. “Not too far from grandparents for the kids, but also something different for us. Like the University of Toronto.”

“Ah.” He sat back with a smirk. “I knew that was where you were going.”

We had actually been to the University of Toronto in 2017, when we visited the city for Chris’s job. I remember walking by the buildings and falling in love with the school. I later researched the university and found that it was one of the top universities in the world.

“Can you blame me?” I asked.

The Rotman School of Management, the university’s graduate business school, had great career outcomes, an extensive alumni network, and world-renowned faculty. Most important to me, the program had an emphasis in brand management, which was exactly where I wanted to be to progress in my marketing career.

“As for how,” I added. “I haven’t figured that out yet.”

I’d have to study for the GMAT soon to meet application deadlines, I remember thinking. We’d have to figure out tuition. We were going to have a newborn baby in a few months. We’d have to uproot not just our lives like we did in moving to New Zealand, but also our son’s life and start again in a different country.

It would be a lot of work and a leap of faith.

But what is life without a having a bit of faith in yourself?

Not only did I want to show my kids that it was never too late to invest in yourself, I wanted to do this for myself.

“Okay,” Chris said, taking my hand, being the most understanding and supportive husband in the history of the world. “Let’s go for it.”

***

To make a long story short, I’m writing this column from Family Student Housing at the University of Toronto, where my three-year-old son snoozes in his room, my eleven-month-old daughter is snoring in her crib, and Chris is sitting on the couch next to me as we watch Ice Road Rescue on Disney+.

A lot of that hard work is behind us now, and I’ve been at Rotman for two months now. I also know that so much hard work is ahead of us before I graduate in May 2025.

An MBA isn’t a sprint or marathon, but more like a journey of self-discovery and learning like I’ve never experienced before. So far, I’ve learned a lot of what to do and what not to do, and there’s so much more to learn.

The future has never been brighter.

Erin Gulyas has been fascinated with stories ever since her Barbie dated her Swamp Thing action figure when she was three years old. Since then, she has turned this passion into telling stories for brands and companies to better connect with consumers. She comes to the Rotman School of Management at The University of Toronto with 13 years of experience in advertising and marketing. After graduating with a Bachelor Degree of Science from the University of Texas at Austin in 2009, Erin completed a Graduate Diploma in Advertising Creativity from the Auckland University of Technology.

She has worked as a copywriter at lead advertising agencies and companies in both New Zealand and America. She last worked for Blue Shield of California as the Senior Manager of Content and Communications, where she oversaw six writers and three digital media specialists to create 4000+ member-facing communications per year. In her spare time (what little there is), she’s a New York Times bestselling author when she’s not wrangling her two young children.

You can find her on LinkedIn, and if you like Star Wars, we’re already best friends.