Meet Mitchell Blutt, M.D.
| Occupation: | Executive Partner, J.P. Morgan Partners |
| Graduation Date: | 1978 |
| Major: | Biological basis of behavior |
| Favorite Class: | Elijah Anderson's deviant behavior class |
| Student Activities: | Sphinx Society, University Council, Undergraduate Assembly vice chairman, senior class president, leader of sit-ins in College Hall |
| Current Activities: | Being involved with Penn, long-distance running, composing hip-hop music, sitting on the board of the Michael J. Fox Foundation |
Is an education in the liberal arts and sciences truly a practical preparation for your future? Yes! You're likely to change career paths six times during your life. That means not only a change from one employer to another, but also a shift from one industry to another and from one skill set to another. A broad foundation in the arts and sciences is your best preparation for these wide-ranging opportunities. A narrowly focused education, no matter how good, is no longer adequate in today's ever-changing job market.
"Where you are at mile 3 may be very different from where you find yourself at mile 8 and so forth, all the way to 26.2."
According to Mitchell, one's career is like a marathon without a predetermined course. Mitchell's own winding course began with what he calls "a rudimentary interest in psychiatry" and eventually led to the medical profession and then the venture-capital industry. He is now executive partner at J.P. Morgan P artners, the investment arm of one of the world's largest private-equity firms. How did he get there from Locust Walk?
While a student in the College, Mitchell created his own course of study, which was the precursor to today's biological basis of behavior major. He studied what he considered "an incredibly rewarding mix of disciplines, from anthropology and sociology to philosophy and statistics." Once he got to medical school, he became more interested in internal medicine than psychiatry. During his residency, he discovered that his arts and sciences courses had made him particularly well balanced in his interactions with patients.
As he finished his residency, he became drawn to the financial side of health care and went to the Wharton School to obtain an MBA as part of the Robert Wood Johnson foundation Fellowship. He says that his liberal arts background gave him unique experiences that were not available to his Wall Street colleagues who had pursued a core business-school education. He has often applied the scientific method to challenges in business and feels that the ability to think broadly creates an incredible advantage in the business world.
"My advice is not to be too rigid about a plan for a career endpoint early in one's educational experience," Mitchell suggests. "There's plenty of time for the gaps to be filled in later. There may not be another good opportunity to study Greek literature or philosophy."
