<p>Northeastern University, like many schools, has a BS MBA program that allows students to get a BS in 5 years, and an MBA in 6. However, the program is only open to incoming honors freshman, and the top 20% of third year students. I'm really interested in the program, and want to get some reassurance that I'm qualified.</p>
<p>I'm currently a sophomore mechanical engineer with a GPA of 3.765. With this GPA, I'm fairly certain that I'm in the top 20%, but I'm struggling to keep my A's this semester. If I manage to keep a 3.5 by my third year, do you think I will still be in the top 20%?</p>
<p>I could always go talk to my adviser, but figured I would try this first.</p>
<p>IMO
Here’s what we told DS:
"…do well in your first major (mech eng) and get as many opportunities that you can that relate to that major and where you will enjoy that activity. Partake in outside activities that will make your college experience meaningful and fun. If you want to take a second major, examine how it will relate to what you really want to do. Will the second major add to your college experience or will it be something just to add to the resume? Can the second major be fairly easy to obtain after graduation. What are the costs in time and money? "</p>
<p>As for a business degree:
The basics, can be had at a Community College. Higher level classes can be had a nearby public college or private college. A masters Business degree would be more meaningful after a few years in the workforce and you can target classes towards a specific goal. Can you hire the expertise and you concentrate on your core expertise?</p>
<p>DS has taken community college level art and welding classes after his academic graduation. Cheaper and probably better instructors than at a 4 yr university.</p>
<p>You will likely be qualified. Also, guaranteed MBA seems kind of overrated. There is already an oversupply of MBA’s in the market and having an MBA won’t necessarily make you more qualifed than a BE (certainly won’t lead you to start in a engineering management job). Basically, an MBA can serve two main purposes. Either to move into top-level management, consulting or finance (in this case, you would want to go to Wharton, Harvard, Sloan, Kellogg, Stanford GSB for MBA) or to advance your existing engineering management career (do a part-time company-sponsored MBA at your local universitiy). </p>
<p>In either case, having prior work experience is key. Doing an MBA right out of school will mean you have less exposure to the work world and practical management scenarios. </p>
<p>Also, there are other options in engineering (practicing as an Engineer, going into finance/consulting straight out of UG, graduate school/research) which are worth considering and may even be better than getting an MBA.</p>
<p>You guys bring up some good points; many of which I have considered however.</p>
<p>From a financial standpoint, being accepted into into the program will guarantee me some financial support while pursuing my BS, and then will subsequently cover HALF the cost of the business courses. The scholarships and grants that I currently have should cover the rest of the cost.</p>
<p>From a business standpoint, I feel that having an MBA will vault me past an entry level position. Also, because of Northeastern’s Co-op program, I will have enough related work experience to understand what I want to get out of the MBA courses.</p>
<p>If you were a engineering/manufacturing/government, and you were looking for an engineer, who would you hire? An engineer with high gpa vs low gpa?
An engineer with MBA (chose your gpa choices)?
A business major with MBA and high gpa?</p>
<p>You cost analysis uses the cost of NEU. Is business accounting 101 worth NEU credit cost vs the same course taken parttime at local CC or state college? If doubling up on the course work damages your GPA, is additional business course work really worth the effort? </p>
<p>again I don’t really know. and prob no really good answer.</p>
<p>As a professor of several former top MBA programs in the country, I feel quite strongly that this supposedly MBA straight out of undergrad BS doesn’t make a lot of sense. There is not an oversupply of MBAs at all, and there are benefits to having the credentials, but it’s rather pointless without multiple years of work experience (not a coop). </p>
<p>You would be far far better off to do a more normal route: get an eng degree, work, then go back and get a well regarded MBA (about 1/3 of good mba programs have former engineers in the class). Then you will get a quality education, and all the benefits that come with such a program, such as the higher level of the case based discussions, design based integrative curriculum classes, the networking opportunities, the recruitment process. </p>
<p>Few professors of business even respect the point of undergrad degrees in business. Sure it makes $$ for the business school, but pedagogically it makes little sense without significant work experience (except say if you want to be an accountant or a few other specific technical areas). But learning ‘management’ as an undergrad (or straight out undergrad) doesn’t make a lot of sense.</p>