Getting ahead is an expensive and taxing process.

As a journalistic newbie, I am stumbling through the world of competitive news reporting.

My path so far has been marked by the occasional triumph and a fair share of incidents that have prompted one editor to note, "Your career is only slightly more alive than Vinny Testaverde's."

That observation aside, like any young professional, I want to put myself in a position to eventually rise through my company's ranks. In my personal life, I want to travel, own a second home and never tell my kids I can't afford to send them to private schools or college.

With this in mind, I have decided to try to get into business school.

At its core, journalism is a benevolent profession aimed at providing people with the necessary information to navigate through life. But we in the business are bound, like never before, to profit margins and expense reports.

All of these factors contributed to my scrapping plans (and about nine credits) to get an MA in history or political science in order to take yet another standardized test.

The Graduate Management Admission Test is a four-hour bear of a brain tease that analyzes one's ability to crunch numbers and comprehend reading. It is also chock full of math, and I hate math. I barely passed high school algebra, and the only math I did in college involved my checkbook. You need only ask my parents how successful I was at that.

And it is expensive. It will cost me $250 just to sit down on January 21 and give the GMAT a go. By contrast, the Graduate Records Exam cost me $115.

I bought a test prep book that comes with a CD-ROM filled with practice tests, and chapter after chapter about how to nail the GMAT. While studying for the test itself, I am also learning financial accounting and "basic business."

Hardly scintillating, far from sexy, but a necessary evil.

Without noticing it, I have found myself home more often than out partying, a subconscious recognition that I need to prepare for the future.

I am not alone. A friend from high school is taking the GMAT with me, and my cousin quit his job in Tokyo to go to business school at Vanderbilt. Another friend just took over a rival company's Africa bureau after earning his master's degree in public policy.

All of this effort is driven by a desire to succeed and a fear of the future. I know there are smarter, more talented people my age out there, and undergraduate degrees are like high school diplomas these days.

So best to get cracking while I can still swing eight-hour work days and four-hour study sessions without collapsing at my desk.

Reach Peter Boylan at pboylan@honoluluadvertiser.com.