Shawn Holman March 28th, 2023 Admissions into the Professional MBA Program at UGA After graduating from the University of Georgia with a BS in Computer Science, I thought my journey of formal education was over. Although ambitious, driven, determined, and hard-working, I was not sure if pursuing continued education was the ideal path for me. As I began my career as a Software Engineer, I envisioned that for the rest of my life, I would just be writing code based on tasks given to me. More recently, I have been given opportunities within my organization to step up and lead larger sets of problems requiring me to build upon fundamental leadership skills. These opportunities have led to a promotion and have inspired me to shoot for larger objectives. I have always been told that I was a natural leader, but it has taken me a while to realize it, and now I want to keep pushing to realize all my short and long-term goals that are slowly shifting as doors open. I believe that the Professional MBA Program at UGA will give me all the tools necessary, and allow me to build a network that will ultimately accelerate and improve my life and career. The first thing that occurred to me after getting my promotion at Google was not “Now, I can stop. I can take time off.” On the contrary, my next thought was “Okay, but what’s next?” I have always been a person that loves to push himself, especially when the finish line keeps moving further away. As this happens, my goals and aspirations continue to skirt as the boundaries of my capabilities are stretched. I believe that the MBA Program will support my immediate and long-term professional objectives by continuing to be a driving force. Within my organization, this will mean in the short-term that I will gain a new sense of vision into my organization that will push beyond engineering. In the long-term, I would like to become an Engineering Manager at a top organization like Google that will allow me to push the direction of entire products. Ultimately, I want to build a small empire around my dreams and ambitions and solve important problems that will make the world a better place. I want to sustain myself within my own company and become independent, powerful, and limitless. An MBA will make me a more well-rounded leader in my field, and it will allow me to hone and improve a unique set of skills. Recently, I realized that my own inadequacies in leadership, entrepreneurship, and technical business skills were going to hold me back from achieving all of my goals. I made this realization after speaking to a potential business partner and being dumbfounded when the language he was using was not obvious to me. For this reason, I hope to learn the technical skills necessary to become knowledgeable in how to manage a business from the inside and out. Secondly, I hope to develop the skills to become an empowering communicator that can handle himself intelligently and with self-awareness. Lastly, I want to develop entrepreneurial skills that will enable me to identify real market opportunities and understand how to develop innovative ideas that sustain a business. These skills combined will make me a fierce leader and pioneer from within and outside my organization. At the end of the day, this pursuit to continue my education is proof to me that my ambition, drive, determination, and hard work are not over, and it will not be for a while. To sustain my tenacity means to keep moving the finish line further away. To keep moving the finish line means finding a new challenge to tackle. It would be an honor to join the Professional MBA program at UGA to be my next driving force. Two months ago, I was not thinking about applying, but I am convinced now that it’s going to be the best decision of my life. I believe this award-winning top-tier program is going to set the trajectory of my life on a new path, and I predict unexpected changes to come forth because of it.
