My title got you didn’t it? You’re reading this blog post thinking “can I really get my MBA quick and easy?” Sure you can. It wasn’t too many weeks ago I interviewed a guy who had a degree from a wholly unaccredited and un-wonderful university (which shall go unnamed) and he told me how quick and easy it was to get his degree after he discovered through “casual conversation” as I escorted him out that I was a student. First a note to those of you who are interviewing or will be in the future, the interview isn’t over when they say it is, it’s over when you shut your mouth and leave, but that’s another post for another day.

In this case I didn’t recognize the name of the school listed on the resume. So of course I immediately asked questions all of which he answered with nothing raising a red flag during the official interview. I always check schools out after an interview if I do not recognize them through a handy little search engine provided by the U.S. Dept. of Education but in this case I almost didn’t even need to. Why? Because the interviewee in question openly and boastfully told me about how he didn’t even need to do coursework. No, instead he simply filled out an application, sent in a resume, did a brief phone interview and before you know it, he was a bona-fide graduate. The school itself may have been legal, after all they did ask him to write a paper or two and his degree probably made his mother proud, he was the first college graduate in his family. The problem is that the degree was worth less than the paper it was written on in the professional world (or should be) and he will willingly tell you it was “easy”. He wasn’t challenged into learning new things, he wasn’t tested on his applied knowledge, he pretty much left the same way he went in and that is a sad testament to the quality of this school.

Fact #1: There is no quick and easy degree that is worth its salt. There are quick degrees to be sure, such as a 10 month MBA program, but they are FAMOUSLY grueling.

Fact #2: A real college with real teachers and real coursework will change you. There’s no getting around it. Being forced to learn new concepts, new ways of thinking, new knowledge and then be tested and held to a diverse set of expectations by (at times) seemingly masochistic professors who thrive on your agony…will change you. You will become something other than what you were when you went in if nothing other than slightly fatter and balder from stress. Testing situations cause people to learn things about themselves…

Fact #3: Colleges and Universities are easy, easy, easy to check out. Hiding behind obscurity will not work if anyone in hiring cares to take more than 2 minutes looking into a school. Don’t take shortcuts. You may get the job only later to lose it in a sea of disgrace…but most of all, you’ll know you took those shortcuts even if everyone else doesn’t. Maybe that doesn’t bother you, but don’t let someone who spent 7 years getting to the Masters alum level find out you did it in 9 months. It won’t win friends and they will not be impressed.