Penpisut Chaovanayan is one of a fresh cohort of MBA students who decided that the economic crisis was the time to pause their career and upgrade their credentials. In a strong economy, prospective students tend to keep working and chase promotion. In a recession, the opportunity cost of not working shrinks.
This January, Chaovanayan enrolled at Rotterdam School of Management in the Netherlands after leaving her consultant role at Deloitte in Thailand. “It is a great time to study because the consulting industry has been hit hard by coronavirus and promotions have been frozen,” she says.
The 27-year-old thinks an MBA will give her the technical and leadership skills to climb the ladder at Deloitte as the economy improves. “I plan to go back to the firm in 2022 as a much stronger candidate for promotion,” she says.