<p>Hey guys,</p>
<p>I was wondering if any of you had any experience with attending a fully-employed MBA program (nights and weekends) while finishing your PhD. I'm currently a second-year Neuroscience PhD student at UCLA and I know that my school (Anderson) has a 3-year fully-employed MBA program (FEMBA) which is known to be quite good. I'm thinking of applying for next year, so that I would graduate in 2012 with both a PhD and an MBA. I think an MBA would be a valuable asset for my career, because I'm considering going into the pharmaceutical industry.</p>
<p>I have heard of people who did a FEMBA while finishing their PhD so I'd like to know if any of you did it or know someone who did. In particular, I'm interested in the following questions:</p>
<p>-Are you happy that you did it? Was it worth the time, the effort, the investment ($90K over 3 years in my case)?
-Did you tell your PI? Why or why not?
-Are PhD students considered "desirable" candidates by MBA programs? Does working in a lab as a PhD student count as "full-time employment"? If we have little real-life work experience, can we use professors/people we TA'd for/people whose lab we worked in instead of employers as recommenders?
-How is the GMAT different from/similar to the GRE?
-If any of you attended FEMBA at UCLA, how time-consuming is the coursework (in terms of homework, reading, etc.)?
-Is it "good" or "bad" in terms of admission chances to come from the same school as your MBA program? In other words, I was a UCLA undergrad, I'm a UCLA grad student, and I want to attend UCLA Anderson school of management... I know for PhD admissions it doesn't look good (although it worked out for me :P) to come from the same institution, but I have no idea if it's even a factor for business school admissions.</p>
<p>Thanks in advance for any help, and sorry for the naivety of my questions. I'm an MBA noob, obviously.</p>