<p>Is this reasonable and doable? Or just waste of time?</p>
<p>My vote goes to waste of time. If you can't get where you are trying to go with just one of them, I doubt having both of them will make much difference.</p>
<p>If my career goal is industry management. Though phd is an advantage in many engineering industries, can I participate in the technology development or important decisions if I don't own a degree in management?</p>
<p>Only in rare cases is this useful (i.e. you own the research company).</p>
<p>I heard some universities start to provide PhD/MBA dual degrees, especially in bio or chem fields. PhD+MBA really scares me.</p>
<p>I think the only people you are likely to find with this combination of degrees would be: </p>
<p>a) People who, after earning their Ph.D, started their career in research but after many years found that their career was heading down a management track and an MBA would be necessary to advance up the ladder; </p>
<p>or</p>
<p>b) People who had years of management experience after their MBA, and then decided that they wanted to change to a career in research.</p>
<p>Getting both at the same time carries prohibitively high opportunity costs.</p>
<p>I think it'd be more worth your while to get a few years of industrial experience (on the engineering side of things) and then get an MBA. A PhD (read: THEORY AND RESEARCH) won't teach you anything that read experience in the industry can't.</p>
<p>Totaly true what l3monkid said. Planning to do that too. After PhD and God willing I will enter pharmadustries and I will be getting and MBA or MSc in regulatory affairs for better opportunities.</p>
<p>As a Phd and MBA holder, I can echo the above advice. </p>
<p>Focus on one or the other initially. And if you do the MBA, you will likely never go back and do a science PhD.</p>
<p>Finishing a science PhD is tough enough without being distracted by MBA courses. And the cost of a decent MBA program can be a killer too.</p>
<p>IMHO, you are much better off finishing a PhD and then seeing what the landscape is like. Maybe an employer will be willing to pay for an MBA. Or maybe it won't look that attractive. And if you decide not to finish a PhD, you could then get an MBA and offer strong science skills to an employer.</p>
<p>One bit of advice: recognize that MBA programs come in three flavors:
- national programs (the top ten on someone's list?), where you are being credentialed and will have a big advantage applying for jobs nationally (at least at first). This would be a door opening degree.
- top regional programs, which open doors on a more local level
- all others, which open no doors, but give you a set of skills that may give you an advantage on the job. In other words, putting MBA on your business card, especially when it is from a directional university ("SW Indiana State") is considered pretentious. :)</p>