From History Major to Management Professor: Dr. Greg Laurence’s Grad School Journey

Are you contemplating graduate school or already embarking on the journey? The latest episode of "Victors in Grad School" provides a wealth of inspiration and practical wisdom for anyone at any stage of their graduate education. Hosted by Dr. Christopher Lewis, this insightful conversation with Dr. Greg Laurence, a seasoned professor of management at the University of Michigan-Flint, explores the twists and turns of building a career through graduate studies.

Dr. Greg Laurence offers a candid and relatable account of his own path—from earning a bachelor’s degree in history, to teaching English in Japan, and ultimately finding his way into a management MBA and an international relations master’s degree at Syracuse University. His story is marked by openness to change, reflection, and an emphasis on following your curiosity. He explains that the decision to pursue an MBA was driven by a desire to gain vocabulary and foundational knowledge in business, especially after experiencing the necessity for versatile skills while working abroad.

A key theme throughout the episode is the reality of transitions. Whether moving from undergraduate studies to the workforce, or shifting from professional roles back into academia, Dr. Greg Laurence discusses how these moments can feel daunting but are ultimately rewarding. From battling imposter syndrome to adjusting study habits that change with age, he insists that success is about finding your footing, developing effective routines, and embracing the challenges inherent in graduate programs.

The podcast doesn’t just recount personal experiences; it’s full of actionable advice for prospective and current students. Dr. Greg Laurence shares strategies for building self-belief (“You belong in this context”), leveraging diverse backgrounds for fresh perspectives, and not being afraid to voice ideas that may seem unconventional. Graduate school, he says, should challenge assumptions and push students to grapple with difficult questions in a supportive environment—without fear of costly mistakes.

"Victors in Grad School" is more than just a resource; it’s a community for those on the graduate education journey. If you’re on the fence about diving into grad school or looking for practical strategies to thrive, this episode is sure to resonate. Listen to hear not just the ‘how,’ but also the ‘why’ behind the transitions that shape successful careers—and discover the confidence to take the next step in your own academic journey.

 

TRANSCRIPT

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:01]:
Welcome to Victors in Grad School, where we have conversations with students, alumni, and experts about what it takes to find success in graduate school.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:11]:
Welcome back to Victors in Grad School. I'm your host, Dr. Christopher Lewis, Director of Graduate programs at the University of Michigan, Flint. Really excited to have you back again this week. And as always, every week, I love being on this journey with you, this journey that you're on, to be able to move toward graduate school. And you might be at the very beginning where you're just starting to think about, do I want to do this graduate degree? Or maybe you've applied, maybe you've been accepted, maybe you're getting ready to start, maybe you're in graduate school, doesn't matter. But you are on a journey, and this podcast is here to help, because every week, I love being able to help you, give you some tools for your toolbox to help you prepare to be successful in this journey that. That you're on.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:55]:
That's why every week I bring you different guests with different experiences that can give you some different opportunities to be able to learn and grow from their own experiences. Today we got another great guest. Dr. Greg Lawrence is with us today, and Dr. Lawrence is a professor of management at the University of Michigan, Flint, and he's been here for a little over 15 years, and he's had his own graduate school journey. He started in Ohio and went from there to Syracuse, and we'll talk about all of that. So I'm really excited to have him here today to talk. Talk about his own journey and to share that with you.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:01:30]:
Dr. Lawrence, thanks so much for being here.

Dr. Greg Laurence [00:01:31]:
Thanks for inviting me. It's a good opportunity to reach out to prospective and current students and give them a, maybe a different kind of a sense of who a professor is and how in the world some of us got into doing this.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:01:45]:
Well, I want to take you back in time because I know, as I mentioned, you did your undergraduate degree at Ohio University, and you did that in history. And not everybody would expect that a person that got a bachelor's degree in history would go on to be a professor.

Dr. Greg Laurence [00:02:00]:
Not. Not everyone, including me.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:02:03]:
So I guess I want to hear more of this story. So take me back to that point. So you did your undergraduate degree, like I said, at Ohio University, got that bachelor's degree in history, and then you had a little bit of a break where you had got some experience, did some different things, and at some point, you made a decision that you wanted to continue your education, and you chose to do an MBA So bring me back to that point. What was going through your head and what made you decide that that was the right time to make that switch and make that jump into graduating?

Dr. Greg Laurence [00:02:35]:
So it probably isn't the simplest answer. After undergrad, maybe, like a lot of people, I was a little bit lost about what I wanted to do. And I had gone into undergrad thinking for sure that I would go on to grad school in history. And I really got burned out as an undergrad and didn't feel like I was ready to do that at that point in life. And I had a job. I was working in a paint store, of all places. And that company, they actually approached me about joining their management training program. And going down that route is a fairly accelerated thing where you went through different rotations in different parts of the business.

Dr. Greg Laurence [00:03:13]:
And they were really sort of aiming for people who would end up as, like, district managers and continue on up the chain. And I knew pretty quickly that I was not all that interested in paint, and that that was not going to be a fit for me. And I remember I saw an ad in a. In a newspaper, said, do you want to work in Asia? Buy our book for 1995, and if you don't have a job within 90 days, we'll refund your money. And I thought, okay, well, try that. And that led to teaching English in Japan. I applied for a job within maybe two or three weeks of having that book, and within two months that I had a visa and was in Japan working. And I taught English there for six years.

Dr. Greg Laurence [00:03:54]:
I thought it would be one or two, and one or two became six. And really at the end of the fifth year is when I made this decision. So I was working at a high school, and I had this conversation with the principal about performance, as you do. You know, he was saying, oh, yeah, we're super excited. You're doing such a great job. We really love the work you're doing with the students. We want to keep you here, but we can't give you a raise. And there I was, frankly, I was at the end.

Dr. Greg Laurence [00:04:17]:
I had worked for a company teaching English for four years, and then I wanted to teach high school in junior high. So I left the company to go teach high school. When I did that, I took a pretty big pay cut, which was offset by free rent and some other things that the school had that ended up meaning I was making or what I had made when I left the company. But at that point, I was like, wait a minute. I don't think I can do this. As a long term career. And frankly I was not at all sure what I wanted to do. The goal was to be able to do anything in Japan that was not, not teaching English.

Dr. Greg Laurence [00:04:49]:
And as I thought about that, I thought working for the company where I had worked, we had been involved in the business. So we had monthly meetings about profit and loss at our branch school and how were we going to increase revenue, what were the different ways that we could increase revenue. And we had done some things but I had never really understood fundamentally what it was that made businesses tick. And it seemed to me as though if I was going to make this move from teaching into some non teaching field that having some training would be a good idea. And I mean, I think there are those who would say the heck with that, just find an entry level job, you can sell your transferable skills to somebody and you'd be able to find an entry level job. But I'm sort of more. I liked the idea of having some vocabulary and some sense of the way that people around me were going to be thinking. And that is really what led to the decision to get an mba.

Dr. Greg Laurence [00:05:42]:
And I was in Japan when I did all the applications. So I was geographically untethered from really I could have gone anywhere, anywhere in the US and ended up choosing Syracuse for a variety of reasons. One was the financial aid package, but another was the opportunity there to do a concurrent master's in international relations at the same time that I did the MBA and at the Maxwell School at Syracuse is a pretty well regarded school. So I was like, well that's a really cool combination that gives me the functional thinking around business, but then also satisfies some interests that I had connected back to history in an interest, interesting way. And it ended up turning out that that combination of things was really instrumental in terms of finding a job afterwards. Really fundamentally the reason the decision was based on. I was at a point in my life where I felt like I needed to make a left turn or right turn, whichever one you call it. But I wasn't going straight on from that point.

Dr. Greg Laurence [00:06:42]:
And that was the degree that I felt was going to open as many doors as possible and to make those ideas around. I don't know what industry I want to be in. I don't really know functional area of business I want to be in yet. But if I study them all, maybe that'll help me find a direction.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:06:59]:
Now you found your direction because you went in, you went through that master's degree and you ended up going from there and you ended up Deciding to continue your education into a PhD?

Dr. Greg Laurence [00:07:12]:
Yeah, but not right away. So I did. Yeah, I did. I finished my MBA in 2003. The last semester of my MA I did at Waseda University in Tokyo while I had an internship at afs. I don't know if you're familiar with them. American Field Service to do foreign exchange programs for high school students. And I had been an exchange student in one of their programs when I was in high school.

Dr. Greg Laurence [00:07:35]:
So when I arrived in Tokyo, I sent a letter to their Tokyo office and said, hey, here I am. I speak Japanese pretty well, can I come and work in the office? And they said, sure, we'll give you something to do. So so I did that and until I was done with degree and then found a job for a development consulting company in Tokyo that was doing World Bank, Asian Development bank, those kind of big international financial institution consulting projects all over the world, I suppose mostly in Southeast Asia, but really in, you know, the former Soviet bloc. Lots of interesting places. And I worked in business development for them for two years and then transitioned over to. Transitioned from them over to the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan where I was the membership manager. Now that was a cool job. Actually both of those jobs were pretty cool.

Dr. Greg Laurence [00:08:28]:
But one thing that I discovered about myself was that I get bored pretty easily. And six months into each of those jobs I was like, oh my gosh, give me something different to do and something more meaty to chew on. And those contexts didn't allow for that. And I had had three professors during the MBA program, I think independ, but who knows, maybe they were talking to each other. They had suggested while I was in the MBA program, hey, have you ever thought about getting a PhD in management? And of course my answer was no. Who has? Conceptually I understood that the professors had PhDs in something, but what it was I didn't know. And that sort of earbud, I guess you'd call it, came back to me as I was sitting at work fairly bored. And so I got back in touch with one of those professors and I said, hey, can you tell me more about this? And he sent me a stack of peer reviewed journal articles to read and you know, said, read these and if, if you're still interested you can get back to me.

Dr. Greg Laurence [00:09:30]:
It was that realization that.

Dr. Greg Laurence [00:09:34]:
The sort of the intellectual stimulation.

Dr. Greg Laurence [00:09:39]:
I just hadn't. Maybe I, you know, there are probably places to work where one would get it, but I hadn't found them. And that's what really led me back to.

Dr. Greg Laurence [00:09:48]:
Thinking that a PhD at more graduate school was the right direction.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:09:52]:
Now, with both the master's and the doctorate degrees, there are transitions, just like going from an undergraduate to a graduate degree. There's transitions in the way that you learn, the way that you're what you're expected to do, the all of those pieces. And you made transitions from your undergrad to work, from work, to school, from school, back to work, from work, back to school. You made a number of transitions in your journey. As you think about the transition transitions that you made in your master's, in your doctorate degree, and you think about what you had to do in those transitions, what did you have to do in those transitions, both at the front end when you were transitioning into graduate school to be able to find success, but what did you have to also do to maintain that success throughout the entire journey?

Dr. Greg Laurence [00:10:41]:
So I think for sure, for the first one into the MBA program, that that was challenging because I didn't have, or I didn't think I had the sort of stereotypical, prototypical business background. Being a history major and then having taught English for six years, certainly I was worried about whether I would fit with the classmates in my cohort and whatnot who were coming from what I would have considered to be more traditional business backgrounds. And so there was some length of time during which I had to, you know, it was about establishing to myself that I belonged in that context. And, you know, I studied my butt off, frankly, for the first eight weeks or so of the first semester. I mean, until that first midterm came around, and it was an accounting midterm. And I was like, I cannot afford for this to go badly, so I need to nail this thing. When the grade came back from that, I was like, oh, okay, well, this may not be. This may not be so bad.

Dr. Greg Laurence [00:11:43]:
And that gave me a lot of confidence to then transition into, I guess, at that point, like a role that I really fit naturally. Right. All of a sudden, I had classmates coming to me for help on accounting and finance and supply chain homework, which, if you would ask anyone I know prior to me starting my MBA program, like, do you think people will come to Greg with questions and for help on quantitative things? They would have been like, you're out of your mind. Of course not. But I just found that it was a much better fit for the way that I think than I thought it was going to be. And I transitioned into that really well. I found that my background, you know, ended up being really valued in the classroom by classmates and by faculty. And I tell this to students.

Dr. Greg Laurence [00:12:28]:
I just had a conversation the other day, in fact, with one of this, one of our students who's in the MBA program, who is an educator, and she was expressing some worry about fit and whether she was in the right place and what was she going to be able to do post. And I said, look, we think that those kinds of different experiences that people have are really valuable. And you're working in an organization, you're working with people, you have the same kinds of interpersonal conflicts that everybody else has. Don't let anyone tell you that working in a school is not working in the real world. It's very real. And that once you realize that, okay, somebody, person X who works for engineering firm or a person Y who works for an insurance firm, they don't necessarily have a leg up on you in your area if you're coming at it from a different angle, because that different angle is by itself of value. So I think that was the big transition from sort of that first work experience into the MBA program. The transition into the PhD program was probably more difficult.

Dr. Greg Laurence [00:13:32]:
First, I was what, seven years older and my brain was seven years less sponge, like it was more like pouring water onto a brick. And some of it seeps in, but not very much. Like that's how it kind of felt when I started. And the intentionality of having to study really truly full time, 55 hours a week to make a dent in my understanding of the field that I was in was a real challenge. The first semester of the PhD program was much, much rougher of a transition than had been the first semester of the mba. But I mean, I think like, just as with the mba, it was about finding footing and figuring out your routine and figuring what kinds of study approaches work for you, like your body, your brain, everything about you is different at 30 than it was at 20. And so the, the same rules no longer apply. And you have to feel, feel things out a little bit there at the beginning to sort of understand, do you need him? I see young people all the time seem to be totally fine with studying in a coffee shop and with that noise and whatnot.

Dr. Greg Laurence [00:14:37]:
Or I could not. There's no way I could do that when I was 35, and no way that I would have had to be. I found myself needing to be in with noise, noise canceling, headphones on and completely isolated from everything to be able to concentrate on reading or whatever I was doing. So I think it's about finding your routine and finding, finding, you know, what works for you and how to how to balance your work in your life. You can study 100 hours a week if you want to. You probably shouldn't, I think.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:15:07]:
Yep, definitely understand that. And there is that balance that you have to find for yourself. And it's the notion, always easy, I guess, as you think about your own graduate school experience and you think about the experiences that you've had working with graduate students. Now you mentioned talking to a graduate student just recently about that I'm going to say imposter syndrome of am I really good enough to be here? Am I smart enough? Am I, you know, all of those things, those am I questions that come up as you think about students that are thinking about graduate school today, whether it be an MBA or some other pieces. What are some tips that you might offer them as they are considering graduate school that would help them find success sooner?

Dr. Greg Laurence [00:15:56]:
I mean, it's easy to say, but like, don't worry about that stuff. I think relatively few people make a decision to go to graduate school lightly. I mean, I think relatively few people wake up one day and say, I think I'm going to devote the next three years of my life to going to grad school. I think most people have put some thought into it and most people have investigated the content of the degree that they want to pursue. What's the curriculum going to look like, what courses are being offered, this kind of thing. And something about that has attracted them and taken them to the point where they're being intentional about filling out an application to do it. And if that's the case, then I think I would balance that self belief. I have chosen to do this because it's the right thing for me at this time in my life.

Dr. Greg Laurence [00:16:45]:
And that's going to, I think, balance out those questions that you have. And you need to sort of, you may be in that first class and.

Dr. Greg Laurence [00:16:55]:
Maybe somebody says something that you're like, that's really profound, like, how did they think of that? And that may be intimidating, but I would think to yourself and you know, think like all think about the fact that that person may be two thirds of the way through their program and they've been exposed to a bunch of content that you have not yet. And so it's natural that they've got these different lenses to view things through and they may say something that you're like, that's really cool. How did they think of that? Well, they thought about it, about it because they've been exposed to all of these other things that you're going to be exposed to going forward. And so maybe that's just an indication of how you're going to be able to think about stuff six months or a year from now and your tool kit isn't as complete as theirs are. And that's totally fine. So that I think is the biggest thing to realize is that, okay, yes, there are these moments that are going to feel intimidating, but if you think about them for a minute or two, you'll realize that it's probably just that those folks have a, have built things up and they've cobbled together ideas that you are yet to be exposed to. So take that idea that they just said and stick it in your back pocket and think about it. When you get into a marketing class, that concept that they were talking about comes up and now you can make that connection back to that first moment and be like, aha, I see what was going on there.

Dr. Greg Laurence [00:18:13]:
So that I think to me is the biggest thing that it's like, I don't know, I guess I can really remember being a, being like a freshman or a sophomore in college and you get a syllabus for a class and it would be like you have to write a 25 page term paper on some aspect of Babylonian history or whatever and you're like, I don't know anything about this. How am I going to ever write a 25 page paper on it? Well, of course you don't know anything about it. It's day one of the class and you're not going to know enough to even define a topic until week five. So relax, don't freak out about that stuff. The class, I mean, have confidence in the faculty. I mean, that's one piece of advice that's, that's a good one. Right? Broadly, we have thought faculty fairly carefully about does this class need a prerequisite in order for you to be successful? If not, you'll be okay even if other people are in the class and they've already had a bunch of other courses. Like we're, we've designed the course so that you can be successful if you don't have a prerequisite.

Dr. Greg Laurence [00:19:11]:
Because if you couldn't, we would put a prerequisite on it. So I think that's, that's one piece of advice, right? Is like, sure, be nervous. Sometimes stress is good eustress, they call it in the business. But you know, also realize that these things are sort of designed so that you're not being set up for failure. And.

Dr. Greg Laurence [00:19:33]:
If you do what's on the page as far as the syllabus is concerned and you read what you're supposed to read and you know you'll be okay.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:19:39]:
Well, Greg, I just want to say thank you. Thank you for sharing your journey today, for sharing everything that you have learned thus far. And I'm sure you're still learning as you work with more students, as you're teaching more classes. But I truly appreciate your time today and for you sharing all of this with us, and I wish you all the best.

Dr. Greg Laurence [00:19:59]:
If I can give one more piece of advice to a student, it is to not be afraid to express thoughts and ideas that you have about class content that may feel like they're coming out of left field. I have designed my courses to be the courses themselves are out of left field for a lot of people. They come in and they look at my syllabi and they go, what is going on in terms of the structure of the course and how the grading systems are set up and things like that. But they're designed to free the students to think about problem from different angles. And you shouldn't be afraid to do that. Graduate school is about exposing yourself to different ways of thinking and to challenge your assumptions, and it shouldn't be. And this is, I'm stealing from Michael Wheeler, who's a Harvard faculty member who wrote a paper about this that I read once. It should not be painless.

Dr. Greg Laurence [00:20:50]:
You should have your assumptions challenged and you should struggle with things. And if you're not struggling with things, like you're not probably, I think you're probably not thinking about them hard enough. You're just sort of scratching the surface of the content that's in front of you. And I would encourage you to go deeper and to grapple with the tough questions because it's a place where you can do that without costing your company $5 million. For example, the decisions that you make about how to think about a problem in a business class, I mean, if it's not right, that's okay, right? Learn from that mistake. You didn't just press the wr. The wrong button on a keyboard and cost, you know, make a trade you weren't supposed to that lost your company 3 million bucks or whatever. So it's.

Dr. Greg Laurence [00:21:35]:
I, I find the whole. I really liked being in grabbing and I like being in graduate school enough that I did it twice and spent a long time, a long time there. So hopefully students will, will hear this. Prospective students may hear this, think, you know what? I'm going to give it a shot, and I think you'll come out of the other side of it. With a real sense of accomplishment.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:21:55]:
I love that. Thank you so much for sharing that today, for sharing your own perspectives, and I truly wish you all the best.

Dr. Greg Laurence [00:22:03]:
Thanks very much.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:22:04]:
The University of Michigan Flint has a full array of master's and doctorate programs if you are interested in continuing your education. Whether you're looking for in person or online learning options, the University of Michigan Flint has programs that will meet your needs. For more information on any of our graduate programs, visit UM Flint.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:22:25]:
To find out more. Thanks again for spending time with me as you prepare to be a victor in grad school. I look forward to speaking with you again soon as we embark together on your graduate school journey. If you have any questions or want to reach out, email me at [e-mail].