<p>Because that's what I'd like to do...</p>
<p>Would it be too hard? Take too long (I don't want to spend more than 8 years in college)?</p>
<p>Are there many people who do engineering + business? Would this be worth it?</p>
<p>You'd be better off just doing an MS + MBA or MEng + MBA if you are looking to go into the business side of engineering. A PhD is intended for people who want to work in either corporate R&D departments or research labs and universities. The PhD would take what, 4-6 years, the MBA 2, then 3-4 for your undergrad degree...you'd be looking at probably 10 years of school if you wanted a PhD and an MBA.</p>
<p>Is it possible? Sure. In fact, I know a number of people who have done just that. I know a girl who has a PhD in EE from Stanford and is now getting her MBA from MIT Sloan. I know another guy who has a PhD in ME, also from Stanford, and just got his MBA, also from Sloan. </p>
<p>The MIT Chemical Engineering department even runs a special program that in which you can effectively combine both a PhD in ChemE and an MBA from the Sloan School. </p>
<p><a href="http://web.mit.edu/phdcep/index.shtml%5B/url%5D">http://web.mit.edu/phdcep/index.shtml</a></p>
<p>However, personally, I don't know if it's really worth it. The truth is, if you're going for the MBA, then you're clearly going into management (or perhaps to consulting or banking) and if that's what you want, then the PhD loses value. It doesn't become completely useless, but it does become relatively unimportant, because once you're a manager, few people will care about your PhD. The only time when it becomes useful is if you end up managing other PhD's (as people with PhD's often times resent being managed by people who don't), but that's pretty rare. So I would say that if you just want an MBA and become a manager, you should just do that straight away.</p>
<p>
[quote]
You'd be better off just doing an MS + MBA or MEng + MBA if you are looking to go into the business side of engineering
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</p>
<p>I'm not even sure that a MS or MEng is all that valuable. Like I said, once you have an MBA, you've signalled to the market that you want to be a manager, and thus all other degrees basically fade away in importance.</p>
<p>Hmm..</p>
<p>I think I'll just stick with getting a Ph. D. in engineering and forgetting about MBA's.</p>
<p>I want to do research, but I imagined that one day I would go into management.</p>
<p>Flippy- what kind of engineering are you going into? In structures, at least, MBAs are nearly completely secondary to MS or MEng degrees...</p>
<p>Hmmm...</p>
<p>If I were to throw an area out there (and this is coming from looking at curriculums while I was looking for a grad school), I would say something like operations research.</p>
<p>I say that because many times courses like Information Systems have their own set for the MS and another set (of 4 or 5) for the concentration of the MBA....and they are 2 different sets of courses.</p>
<p>Operations research seems to have the same courses that are used for the MS degree can also be used as a concentration for the MBA, so I am guessing that they can be double-counted.</p>
<p>There are people out there who get a PhD in engineering and then later get an MBA or even a law degree. It's not common, but not unknown, either. I took a class from someone with both PhD and MBA and he ended up using both working as a manager at JPL.</p>
<p>Now there's a big difference between doing such a thing and <em>planning</em> to do such a thing.</p>
<p>If you're <em>planning</em> to get both a PhD and MBA, you need to re-evaluate your goals and desires because the two are often seperate - you're really unlikely to find yourself in a position where you use both. Probably, you'll end up using one and the other degree will be irrelevant.</p>
<p>If you commit to one, then decide later in life you changed your mind, then that's different.</p>
<p>If you do want to do both, then a master's degree in engineering plus an MBA is a very coveted degree pair and much more worth your time than striving for PhD/MBA</p>
<p>I'm going to go into computer engineering.</p>
<p>Okay, thanks guys.</p>
<p>I think I'll strive for the Ph. D. because I think research is what I should be doing.</p>
<p>I think its not only possible but desirable if you want to become a director of national research labs, like NIH, NASA, JPL, ARO( Army Research Office), NRL (Naval Research Lab) or AFRL (Air Force ).</p>
<p>First you work your butt off and get a Ph.D. Next, you can look for an academic professor career or research lab. If youre happened to land a job in a research lab, and do well and move up the ladder to positions like branch chief or division chief supervising Ph.Ds while doing your own research or coordinating. Next, if you want to become a director of your lab, it behooves you take some year off and accept an offer to study at MIT Sloan/HBS to get a MBA (Of course the bill will be picked up by your lab). When time comes for competing for the director position, your PhD and MBA degrees coupled with your work experience would put you the top of the files!!!</p>