Some Jobs Do Have Perks

I always watch "Good Morning, America" while I'm getting ready for work in the mornings.  If I don't hit the snooze button on the alarm, I can catch Robin Roberts giving the headline news.  As you know, I like to be informed.  Yesterday morning, I hit the snooze button and by the time I turned the TV on, Robin Roberts had finished with the major news, but I did hear one interesting story.  It seems that President Bush's personal aide, Blake Gottesman, has resigned and is going to attend Harvard Business School to obtain his Master's Degree.  In and of itself, that's not real big news. Lots of twenty-somethings quit their jobs and go to graduate school. But there's a little more to this story.  Blake Gottesman does not have an undergraduate degree - no Bachelor's Degree, and not even an Associate's Degree. In fact, the guy dropped out of college after only one year.  Granted he quit college to take a job as the President's personal assistant, but he's still a college drop-out nonetheless. 

I did some research and found that the chances of someone getting into the graduate program at Harvard Business School without having an undergraduate degree is almost impossible.  But I guess when they saw that the President of the United States - who just happens to be a Harvard graduate - was his previous employer, I think they made an exception.

I checked with some of my Webster University alumni and found out that Webster will not admit anyone into their graduate program unless they have a Bachelor's Degree.  Maybe if I could have gotten a job carrying the President's briefcase or toting around his dog, I could have skipped those years of going to school at night and gotten into the Harvard Business School strictly on who I knew.  It sure would have saved me a lot of time, effort and money.  Heck - I might not have gotten the viral infection or pneumonia that I got from wearing myself to the ground.  I could have just skipped all of the research papers and statistic charts and supply and demand curves and headed straight to graduate school.   But Blake has learned one of the valuable lessons that they don't teach you in business school - it truly IS who you know.