Studying for an undergraduate degree in philosophy isn't all that different from an MBA, says Carolyn Herzog: "Both require you to read a lot, to break down an argument or a proposal and then to rebuild it. What made so many of my Haas classes great was that they forced me to come up with my own ideas and my own solutions."

"For instance, the core class in Entrepreneurship was one of the best I took at Haas. Writing a business plan and having it torn apart by a real venture capitalist taught me how to look at business strategies from A to Z."

At Haas, Herzog says "students learn by doing, whether that means reviewing 100 business plans in the Venture Capital class or questioning Haas alumni about their approaches to financial modeling at workshops sponsored by the Finance Club." Her involvement with the Finance Club, including a year as its president, was "a super way to network and connect with practitioners in the real world."

A self-described "bond geek," Herzog is now a fixed income investment analyst at Capital Research, one of The Capital Group Companies. "I'll be analyzing companies based on pretty limited information, mostly what the company wants you to know. It's important not to rely solely on facts and theories, but to make use of everything that you have available. Haas gave me the tools to do that."