4 ms·

What’s the point of an MBA? Asking anyone this question who pursues the degree or has pursued the degree or insists on its value, often gives a non-answer. Lik

What’s the point of an MBA? Asking anyone this question who pursues the degree or has pursued the degree or insists on its value, often gives a non-answer. Like the following: * it helps with networking. * it helps with promotion. * it helps with advancement in career. * it helps with your resume. Boiling it down, “I can show off better and tout an imaginary quality”. If I was a person who was self employed or running my own company, how will an mba HELP ME SPECIFICALLY? No one can give me an answer. I concluded to that it can’t help. It is like a dark personality trait. One that helps you relative to the people around you but doesn’t help the company, in the long run. As an engineer, I think we need something else. Masters in engineering administration. Teaching engineers how to deal with bs that takes 5 years of career to figure out.

bluedevil2k 6y ago
"I've come to the conclusion that a degree I don't have and have never taken any classes in cannot help anyone and is a big negative for a person". Seems a very broad generalization, doesn't it?
- scsilver 6y ago
  I think they teach you this in engineering school.
- yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
  You can observe how a group behaves and fail to find anyone who can argue their case without joining the group.
- nashashmi 6y ago
  So ... what’s the other way? Getting the degree and then realizing the same thing? Observation doesn’t speak loads?
mdorazio 6y ago
Not sure who you're talking to, but the answers to this are pretty straightforward. If you're only ever planning to work at or run small companies, an MBA is not for you. That's not what it was originally designed for, nor what it's meant for today regardless of what the program marketing says. If that's you, then instead you should take some community college or online classes in basic finance, accounting, statistics, and microeconomics, then spend some hands-on time learning how small business marketing and sales actually work in the real world. Where an MBA will help you is if you do not have a business background, but want to either run a company that will one day be medium-large or work directly at a medium-large company. If that's you, a decent MBA program will teach you how large businesses actually operate - how they're structured, how they measure performance, how they interact with shareholders, how they make financial decisions, how they choose which market strategies to pursue, etc. - and how you can talk with and interact with other executives without being a naïve "engineering is the only thing that matters" idiot. Additionally, if a large company career path is for you, the network and credentials that come with a high-tier MBA tend to pay for themselves because outside of tech, hiring and job hopping don't depend on github profiles and whiteboard coding to get $250K+/year jobs.
- nashashmi 6y ago
  Thank you. This is the best answer I have received. Maybe even the only real answer. I say education is an answer to a question. Figure out the question and the knowledge becomes easy to acquire. Your answer lets me realize I may already know at least 60% of what is taught. The other 40% will be explored on a daily basis.
conductr 6y ago
> As an engineer, I think we need something else. Masters in engineering administration. Teaching engineers how to deal with bs that takes 5 years of career to figure out The "Executive MBA" is trying to fill this void, I believe. I'm a mid-career corp finance exec that has painstakingly resisted the inertial forces that want me to obtain an MBA. I do not see the value from an investment or knowledge perspective (I went to bschool for undergrad). At this point, my experience and existing network far outweighs what a MBA on my resume would provide however I am intrigued by the EMBA. My hesitation is pulling focus away from what's working for me.
- jbn 6y ago
  There are some engineering management (quite the oxymoron...) degrees, see https://www.mempc.org/engineering-management-programs/ https://www.mempc.org/engineering-management-programs/ (full disclosure, I attended one such program also I did not slip onto the dark side!). It's quite funny (or sad, depending on your point of view) that at the same time large companies are desperate to find technical leaders, yet the middle-management layer is filled with MBAs that prevent engineering managers from even existing. There's definitely a glass ceiling there. Some companies have come up with a partial solution to this antagonistic need, they invented the "Product Manager" position (or "PM"), which is a kind of not-so-technical engineering position (who does not and cannot really "manage" anything)... and then filled those positions with technically inept MBAs. Unfortunately, an MBA is a degree in nothing of substance (See Mintzberg), so technical acumen cannot come from the MBA per se.

bluedevil2k 6y ago

"I've come to the conclusion that a degree I don't have and have never taken any classes in cannot help anyone and is a big negative for a person". Seems a very broad generalization, doesn't it?

scsilver 6y ago
I think they teach you this in engineering school.
yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
You can observe how a group behaves and fail to find anyone who can argue their case without joining the group.
nashashmi 6y ago
So ... what’s the other way? Getting the degree and then realizing the same thing? Observation doesn’t speak loads?

mdorazio 6y ago

Not sure who you're talking to, but the answers to this are pretty straightforward. If you're only ever planning to work at or run small companies, an MBA is not for you. That's not what it was originally designed for, nor what it's meant for today regardless of what the program marketing says. If that's you, then instead you should take some community college or online classes in basic finance, accounting, statistics, and microeconomics, then spend some hands-on time learning how small business marketing and sales actually work in the real world. Where an MBA will help you is if you do not have a business background, but want to either run a company that will one day be medium-large or work directly at a medium-large company. If that's you, a decent MBA program will teach you how large businesses actually operate - how they're structured, how they measure performance, how they interact with shareholders, how they make financial decisions, how they choose which market strategies to pursue, etc. - and how you can talk with and interact with other executives without being a naïve "engineering is the only thing that matters" idiot. Additionally, if a large company career path is for you, the network and credentials that come with a high-tier MBA tend to pay for themselves because outside of tech, hiring and job hopping don't depend on github profiles and whiteboard coding to get $250K+/year jobs.

nashashmi 6y ago
Thank you. This is the best answer I have received. Maybe even the only real answer. I say education is an answer to a question. Figure out the question and the knowledge becomes easy to acquire. Your answer lets me realize I may already know at least 60% of what is taught. The other 40% will be explored on a daily basis.

conductr 6y ago

> As an engineer, I think we need something else. Masters in engineering administration. Teaching engineers how to deal with bs that takes 5 years of career to figure out The "Executive MBA" is trying to fill this void, I believe. I'm a mid-career corp finance exec that has painstakingly resisted the inertial forces that want me to obtain an MBA. I do not see the value from an investment or knowledge perspective (I went to bschool for undergrad). At this point, my experience and existing network far outweighs what a MBA on my resume would provide however I am intrigued by the EMBA. My hesitation is pulling focus away from what's working for me.

jbn 6y ago
There are some engineering management (quite the oxymoron...) degrees, see https://www.mempc.org/engineering-management-programs/ https://www.mempc.org/engineering-management-programs/ (full disclosure, I attended one such program also I did not slip onto the dark side!). It's quite funny (or sad, depending on your point of view) that at the same time large companies are desperate to find technical leaders, yet the middle-management layer is filled with MBAs that prevent engineering managers from even existing. There's definitely a glass ceiling there. Some companies have come up with a partial solution to this antagonistic need, they invented the "Product Manager" position (or "PM"), which is a kind of not-so-technical engineering position (who does not and cannot really "manage" anything)... and then filled those positions with technically inept MBAs. Unfortunately, an MBA is a degree in nothing of substance (See Mintzberg), so technical acumen cannot come from the MBA per se.