<p>One of the highest ppl in the Auburn's school of engineering told me that the best career path for engineering majors who just wanna make $$ is to graduate, start working, and then go back for your MBA so you can get a high level management job and from there you are set.
Any personal experience?</p>
<p>I know some people who have gone that route, and yes, many of them have attained higher rank and income than those who have stayed on the technical path. I think it is a bit simplistic, however - many of those in high-level management positions lack the MBA, and many with the MBA nevertheless struggle in mundane jobs no better than and often worse than technical professionals. I would lump this into the broad category of “things to consider a few years after graduation” and address it then. I would definitely NOT advise an immediate MBA without job experience, unless you are trying to jump entirely out of engineering and into the financial world.</p>
<p>You will hopefully fail out of engineering if that is your plan of action just to make “$$”.</p>
<p>Engineering is a pretty bad way to go if you want to just make money because the money just isn’t in the field the way you’d want it to be. The big money is usually in a pure finance career.</p>
<p>Unless the MBA will get a “Chief Something Officer” like CIO, CTO, CFO, etc, then doing an MBA will not get you further than a regular 'ole M.S./M.Eng degree. Also, like was stated earlier, you must have a good deal of experience to manage engineers.</p>
<p>Nowadays (of course I can only speak of software engineering), high and purely technical positions pay about the same as management that is lower than CIO’s, CFO’s, CTO’s etc.</p>
<p>i am not sure, depends on how the engineering degree is used. at the consulting firm (McKinsey) where my brother works, each employee is assigned to and become an expert of a specific field. those with an engineering background definitely have advantage over the others in their field. </p>
<p>another person that know of has a CS in undergrad and MBA from Northerwestern. However, he didn’t pursue a career change after MBA. He is now working as a director of marketing at a IT company making average salary. (ok, he is my tenant so i know how much he makes). I don’t think the loans that he acquired for the MBA from northwestern is a good investment. i don’t have an MBA but a master in CS. I make about the same as my tenant in the above example. My brother makes 5X more than i do (without the bonuses) . I will say this though, my brother’s job is very stressful. He is constantly flying all over. Only home on weekend. he told me a few months back that he will retire by the time he turns 50 and plan on teaching MBA courses at the university afterward.</p>
<p>I can tell you that almost all the manegment at GE and Whirlpool have engineering degrees and MBA’s. They are also people persons who know their technical. You don’t get into either company’s techincal positions without an engineering degree and you don’t get promoted over engineers without an MBA unless maybe you have a PhD and even then if you want to go to the second level of management you better have something proving you have the management skills. Of course the consumer products industry is all about cost reduction, and there are very few companies in that industry worth working for in the first place.<br>
Back to your orginal question - never assume you are set. Not until you are about 5 years from retirement or have enough money in the bank to retire early if things suddenly go very badly. I would say it is a good path for people how have natural ability to manage. If it would be a struggle for your personality - as it would for mine - then there is no point. Go with what you are good at and keep the stress levels in check.</p>
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I would note that only about half of the upper management at my company seem to have MBA’s, mostly those in more financial roles and including the incoming president but not the outgoing president. If you do NOT have an MBA by the time you reach a certain level, they send you to some shorter-length executive training programs to teach you the essentials, but that is about it.</p>