What Impact Will You Make in 80,000 Hours?

Does the concept of 80,000 hours mean anything to you?

Think about it: If you work 40 hours per week for 50 weeks a year for 40 years, well, you’re going to spend 80,000 hours working. For MBA students, it’s an important concept worth considering because those 80,000 hours represent a heckuva lot of time on the job.

Gary Fraser, UCLA Anderson’s associate dean of the full-time MBA program, recently told a conference hall packed with students and alumni, “When you get into an MBA program, you’re thinking about your return — what is my end outcome? Sometimes it gets to be very transactional, as in, ‘What job will I get because I have this degree?’

“But the reality of it is,” Fraser said, “no matter what stage you’re in, no matter what program you’re in, you’re always in a pivotal career decision making mode. So, it’s important to take a step back and ask, ‘What is the long-term horizon, what is the long-term idea?’”

The goal for the day was not simply to learn from the conference speakers, but to reflect on each person’s career journey.

“The idea behind 80,000 hours is that an average career might consist of 40 years. Assuming 2,000 hours of work per year, that would be 80,000 hours of work,” says Marcus Castain (’98), an associate director in Anderson’s John E. Parker Career Management Center. “Most of the current student generation — and this is very much reflected by our current Anderson students — want to make an impact. So we wanted to emphasize the point of using your time to make an impact and we subtitled the event What Impact Will You Make with the Time in Your Career? The number 80,000 reflects that it is both a significant and a finite time with which to make your impact.”

According to Castain, who spearheaded the event, the primary goal was to bring together students from all Anderson’s academic programs to consider the impact their work will have and to instill the importance of leading a purposeful career. This goal was inspired by Anderson’s transformative leadership model in which “driven and purposeful” is one of the key components.

The event also intended to educate students to focus on the changing market, and to inspire their working on big problems, to grow their interest in purpose, social impact and sustainability. Responding to questions after the event, Castain felt those goals were achieved.

“Students have to be so tactical these days with recruiting starting so soon after they arrive on-campus,” Castain says. “I think it’s useful to create opportunities to reflect on the bigger questions affecting society, such as income inequality, climate change and advances in technology, that will have a huge impact on their lives and careers. I was pleasantly surprised to hear from our alumni facilitator for our climate change breakout session, Alex Wolfson (’23), that most of the participants in his session were new to the topic of climate change and were very curious.

“The speakers brought positive energy and gave inspiring talks about the journeys they are on in their respective careers,” says Castain. “The breakout groups were a highlight that allowed students to participate in discussions on topics they are passionate about, including artificial intelligence, social equity and many more topics. Overall, we had a successful event with a wonderful reception to close the day.”

Two of the day’s speakers were accomplished alumnae. Nurit Katz (MBA/MPP ’08) is UCLA’s chief sustainability officer, while Kimberly Freeman (’02) serves as assistant dean of diversity, equity and inclusionat Kaiser Permanente’s Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine. Both are passionate about doing purposeful work that serves the greater good.

“I decided at a young age that I wanted to make a difference. I was passionate about issues of environment and sustainability, even in grade school,” Katz says. “Early in my career I was engaged more in K-12 environmental education. It was later, during my time at Anderson, that I learned about sustainability management as a career. Graduate school is a wonderful time to explore career options and opportunities. Impact careers are rapidly evolving, so I definitely recommend students attend events and meet people in the field and reach out to learn more.

“Doing purposeful work makes me feel fulfilled and alive. The work is challenging, but I try to focus on what we can impact. I also find working with our students to be inspiring and keep me hopeful. They are so dedicated and passionate.”

Freeman also credited her MBA experience with informing her career path.

“I first was exposed to DEI as a profession when I took two DEI classes at Anderson,” Freeman says. “I knew that this work was important from my studies and because I was working during that time for a large public utility whose customer base was changing demographically. Learning the language of DEI was helpful to me in investing my time and energy into cultivating meaningful relationships and building bridges across communities. I loved working with people from many different backgrounds with varying points of view.”

Castain says that the themes discussed at the 80,000 Hours conference are consistent with those in his Parker Career Series, taken by all first-year MBA students as part of the core curriculum.

“We focus first on ‘the market’ in order to think about big problems because market offers exciting leadership and professional development opportunities,” Castain says. “We encourage our students to think of themselves as a product and to develop and market themselves to fit into a market. We apply the entrepreneurial concept of product-market fit to career development.”

Castain believes that energy and cleantech stand as the clear winners for market growth potential going forward. He says that moving to “net zero” will require a complete rebuilding of the economy and is still in the early part of its growth curve. Health care continues to grow, particularly as populations in the U.S. and other countries age, though Castain does expect some massive disruptions to occur.

On the downside, there are concerns regarding regions at highest risk of being unable to adapt to climate change and whose local economies might melt down as real estate markets collapse and people move away. “Businesses can move but cities cannot,” Castain says. “With global issues that require innovative solutions, the industries slowest to keep up with the change will suffer the most losses, while those quickest to innovate will grow the most.”