A B.S/MBA in 5 years? Get out

Graduate School Business School - MBA
1

<p>My friend got a full ride to drexel and is intrested in doing the 5 year B.S/MBA program and was telling me quite a bit about it.</p>

<p>to be quite frank it sounds almost to good to be true... getting an mba in 5 years, tons of tuition money, gaining work experience while still in undergrad, and finishing it all off by landing a great job (usually as a result of the co-op). According to him many of the kids from the co-op wind up very successful and are offered full time positions at the firms they intern for during the year. </p>

<p>I find this all very hard to take in, I honestly hadn't even heard of this school before he mentioned it to me. Is this type of accelerated business degree program looked upon favorably by employerd? I am really curious about this program and any information would be greatly appreciated</p>

2

<p>I personally dont think that Drexel is that excellent in business. </p>

<p>I never knew Drexel had a business program either.</p>

3

<p>You're better of getting a engineering major and master's in accounting. That would make you very appealing to a fortune 500 company. Accounting is the hottest field right now and demand is extremely high; pair it up with an engineering degree and you are set.</p>

4

<p>Generally, the combination of BS/MBA at a young age is considered a liability by employers, not a positive.</p>

<p>This usually will be looked at differently once this person has about 5 years experience under his belt--then the fact that he has an MBA and other's don't will help him stand out from the crowd.</p>

<p>Obviously, employers prefer the student who got the BS, then did the 5 years on the job, then went back for the MBA. Employers know that the MBA experience then meant more--because the person could relate the previous job experience to the classroom and vice versa. </p>

<p>So, I say--if you think you will be willing to go back and can get the grades to do so--get the MBA later. But if you can't get the grades, or don't want to walk away from two years of earnings to get an MBA, then go get it right away, like your friend at Drexel.</p>

<p>P.S. I agree with the last poster--a combination of an Engineering degree, followed by an MBA degree (doesn't have to be in Accounting, but that's a good choice) is extremely attractive to employers--especially employers that are in the high-tech manufacturing or design areas.</p>

5

<p>I find it very very hard to believe than a BS/MBA is going to be a liability. Especially the MBA part. While I agree that the benefit of an MBA is attenuated if you have no experience, it is hard to see how it could actually HURT you. I find it hard to believe that an employer will say "I see that you are a great job candidate who really fits in well, and you had a great interview, but because you have an MBA, we're not going to hire you". </p>

<p>Even if employers do that, I would say that the simple response is to simply omit your MBA from your resume. It is obviously unethical to claim to have degrees that you don't have. But you are perfectly free to not declare certain degrees that you do have. </p>

<p>The bottom line is that I can't envision a scenario where having a BS/MBA would make you worse off over having just a BS.</p>

6

<p>sakky, let me clarify my remarks.</p>

<p>When I say many employees consider it a liability, what I mean is this:</p>

<p>Quite often people go get MBAs the minute they finish their BS programs. Then they expect to be paid the going rate for MBA graduates. The view of these students is--well, i have an MBA--so I'm better than the person with the BS--so you should pay me more. The employer, on the other hand, looks at the resume and says "Well, here's someone who expects to be a manager in 3 months, expects more pay, thinks they are god's gift to this company--yet this person has never worked a day in their life." The employer thinks--why didn't this person at least go get some experience before they went into their MBA program, so they would learn from it--and learn what business is really like at the corporate level before expecting to run this company.</p>

<p>Obviously, not all MBA graduates who go through school in 5 years take this attitude--but you'd be amazed at the number of students who go through school with these 5 year programs that do take this approach--both in the interview and in their salary negotiations. Employers look for this--and weed these people out VERY quickly. We'd rather see the person who is willing to learn a bit about the company's business before expecting to run it.</p>

<p>Also, naturally this attitude will change quickly once the graduate gets out of school for awhile--this is why I say the MBA becomes less a liability and much more of a benefit the longer one is out of school. Now the employer knows the student has been able to relate their MBA experience to experience in the workplace. And to be blunt, over time the original attitude of most graduates has changed dramatically;--they are more realistic about their place in a company--and have a better view on how to actually get to the top.</p>

7

<p>the whole experience might be more meaningful if you worked for a few years first.</p>

8

<p>Calcruzer, now I agree with what you said, but I would point out that this is a far more general issue than just the MBA. I have found that a general feature of all education is that while it increases your skills and credentials (and therefore eligibility to work), it also decreases people's willingless to do certain kinds of work, and in particular, that people who are highly educated consider a wider range of work to now be 'beneath' them. In other words, while education increases the range of work that people can do, it also tends to reduce the range of work that you people want to do. But it's not really the education that is the issue, it's really the personal attitude that accompanies the education. </p>

<p>For example, I've known guys who have worked at low-end odd jobs to pay for college, including delivering pizza, working at fast food, working as general laborers, and so forth. But as soon as they got their college degree, they no longer want to do that kind of work, because they figure that as a college grad, that work is now beneath them. The problem is that they can't find a good job with their degree either. So now they basically have no job at all. So one could say that the degree has actually made them worse off. Of course, it is not the degrees that are is fault, it's really the personal attitudes that are at fault. They can still obviously continue to work as general laborers. That's what they've been doing all these years so they could easily go back. But they don't want to. In short, these people may have been better off if they had never graduated from college at all.</p>

<p>In fact, Thomas Sowell has written extensively about this issue, and points out that some of the deepest economic and political problems in foreign countries in Asia and Africa stem from the educated unemployed. People in those countries who obtain diplomas demonstrate a strong aversion to taking regular labor jobs, and often times would rather be unemployed. </p>

<p>To quote Sowell, Conquests and Cultures, p. 340</p>

<p>"In some countries, such negative human capital is increased by education, so that those who have been to schools or universities now regard a wider range of occupations as being beneath them. Whether the positive human capital they receive in educational institutions is sufficient to offset this growth in negative human capital is ultimately an empirical question and depends in part on whether their education has been in fields with practical applications or in easier and more speculative subjects. The educated unemployed are a major social, economic, and political problem in many Third World nations..."</p>

9

<p>Good point, sakky. </p>

<p>I would add that, strangely enough, once you show the willingness to do this less "glamorous" work, generally the sooner you will be moved to positions of higher responsibility--where you will be managing the people doing the less glamorous jobs.</p>

<p>At my company, I remember a conversation with the Finance VP (a job that probably pays something like $300K a year--not counting options). I had helped prepare a presentation she was giving to the CEO, and I knew she was very busy getting ready to fly to New Zealand right afterwards for a company team-building seminar. I commented that if she wanted changes, she could send me the marked up presentation. Her comment to me was--"Just send me the Powerpoint slides. I know how to make these changes myself--and I wouldn't expect you or anyone else to do this for me."</p>