Better Than An MBA

This month’s Portfolio, the sexy (wo)man’s business magazine, has an article on the Brancenter at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia. It covers all the basics:

- the building designed by Clive Wilkinson—the architect behind Google’s “Googleplex” headquarters and Chiat/Day’s office outside of Los Angeles

- the school’s ranking by Creativity magazine as the country’s best ad school

- the shifting focus of curriculum to include brand management and next year, creative technology

- Michael Roth, C.E.O. of the Interpublic Group, plede of $1 million to establish “a pipeline of talented people in our industry.”

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Rewind. Did you know that? We didn’t it, as it happened before our time in June 2007. To pay for that fancy new home, the school had a $1oM drive for the funds. Interpublic saw a good thing and become the lead donor of the cause, right behind Yahoo. Does this mean that ad focused Yahoo and Roth get first dibs on the graduates?

The school offers environments much like the real such as teams of planners, producer and creatives working together; projects where elements of the campaign are out of the student’s control (welcome to life with a client), all nighters and teachers like Mark Fenske dolling out criticism harsher than anything Simon Cowell or alternatively, Rich Silverstein could ever dream of.

If you pry Roth’s hands off some of these kids and can battle ax your way through the 125 recruiters who show up every year, we highly suggest picking one up.