<p>I am a 23 year old currently working for a lower tier private Christian institution in Texas. Taking advantage of their free staff tuition program, I have begun an MBA in Finance. If I continue taking 12 hours a semester, I can finish by May 2010. I have long desired to get a degree from Texas A&M, who recently accepted me into their MBA program starting in Aug 2010. While it would take me about 2 years longer to receive this degree, it would put a big name on my resume, include me in the Aggie network (which is huge in Texas, and my fiance and I would like to settle down in that area), and grant me a larger starting salary. I have no work experience other than serving at this university as an assistant to the president, but I am nearing completion of officer candidate school with the national guard. I would like to pursue law school in the future as well.</p>
<p>Do you think I should press on the with the lower tier MBA here or move on to the prestigeous A&M MBA?</p>
<p>I would like to have a good enough job with my MBA that I could be a good provider and that law school is something I would do at SMU part-time in the evenings down the road. If I should get deployed, when I return, the government would pay for my law degree.</p>
<p>I graduated from this school, Dallas Baptist University, with an undergrad in history in Dec 2008. I immediately began taking prereqs for the MBA. I finished those by this summer. I took 3 hours of the mba this summer and am currently taking 12 right now this fall. I can take 9 in the winter, 12 in the spring, and be done with the 36 hr mba in May 2010. Or should I hold off and get the mba at a much better school with one of the best networks out there at A&M? I have been accepted and can start in Aug 2010. It is a 16 month program, which includes a summer internship. I would likely get a job offer with whoever I interned with, seeing as how the program has a 98-100% placement record.</p>
<p>I’d go with A&M. I am not one to rush things, I think when you do that there can be mistakes and regrets. You don’t sound like you’ll regret waiting a year and going to A&M, but you probably will regret it if you don’t and life doesn’t work out as planned.</p>
<p>I would do it in a heartbeat, but I have been dating this woman for two years, and we have always talked about getting married sometime in the next year. She’s got a good job up here in Dallas, and although she got her undergrad at A&M and we both want to settle down in that area, she doesn’t want to leave Dallas quite yet. I want to go to law school, and am looking at SMU (in Dallas) or UT in Austin after the mba. I would love to get married in 2010, but with the economy the way it is right now, and with no other work experience other than being in national guard OCS and being assistant to the president of a university with no career services whatsoever, I would really love to go to A&M. I want to be a part of that school and have a quality mba so that I could have a decent job while stepping into the provider role in a family and going to law school. SMU offers a part-time evening program; UT is strictly a full-time day program. I don’t know what to do. I really don’t want to put off the wedding, but I don’t want to have a worthless mba that is only going to get me an entry level job. I don’t want to be looking up to my wife forever finanically, and we’d both like her to be a stay at home mom in a couple years. What advice would you give me?</p>
<p>If your girlfriend wants you to be the primary source of income down the road, she should give up Dallas and move to a place where you could enhance your career. If she doesn’t agree , then perhaps you would be better off finding another person who is not so self centered.</p>
<p>Have you talked to your gf about this? Perhaps she’d be willing to go back in a heart beat and all this fretting is for naught?</p>
<p>These are decisions that need to be made between you and the ones you care about. Still, I agree with cbreeze, if she can’t see that the decision you are making is to not only to better yourself by the future of the two of you and you potential family then she is being very narrow-minded and self-focused. </p>
<p>I don’t know, I would ask her and see what she says.</p>
<p>I have talked with her about it, and while she was complaining about not fitting in in Dallas and wanting to get out of the city several months ago, she has since felt that she does not want to leave the city for several years. But she still wants to relocate to the A&M area in 5 years or so. She is also working toward her mba at my school as well, and doesn’t want to leave until its finished. But DBU offers all of its classes online as well as in the classroom, so we could move and she could still finish it. It would require us to take on some student loans, because her company is currently paying for her education. She still has another 1.5-2 years though.</p>
<p>Thing is, with the A&M mba, during the summer, I would have an internship that would probably bring me back to Dallas, and then I would look to come back to Dallas and work for several years at that company and pursue evening law school part time at SMU. So we could get married and then she would still have the joy of getting out of the city for a while to her favorite place in the world, but also know that she’ll be able to come back to the city for 3-5 years while I’m working/going to law school. Then, Lord willing, we would start a family and move back down to A&M area for good.</p>
<p>As part of your information set while you are making the decision to go/not go to Texas A&M for your MBA, be sure to “network” and get “real world” feedback by talking to prospective employers who hire Texas A&M MBA’s in the Dallas area. This will be useful for corroborating - or not - your impressions about a “decent salary from A&M”, etc. Get some of these potential employer contacts from the A&M career services office. Also, unless you are just dying to get a law degree. You also have marvelous potential business contacts from your work for the Dallas Baptist U president. Tap them for informational interviews and as a sounding board about what to do re an MBA from A&M.</p>
<p>Also, unless you are just in love with law as a career, there is absolutely no need to get a law degree in addition to a quality MBA like one from A&M (assuming you get an interesting and satisfying job). You will just be overcredentialed. Also, if you are married and have started a family after a few years, law school at night will be a huge personal time commitment that will take away from your family.</p>
<p>Just my opinion. I have several decades work experience (including lots of years in the Dallas area); a couple kids; MBA from Chicago with a CPA; and have had musings about going to law school being a liberal arts junkie but never did it (and have not regretted it).</p>
<p>You seem to have too be extremely confused. Law school and Business School are two different worlds. What is your ultimate goal, what others think, money? I am not sure you have determined that or at least it doesn’t reflect in your post responses. Final question, DBU is a “lower tier” Christian University? If you dont mind, please provide some background on this comment.</p>
<p>I’m kind of confused. Do you want to go to business school or law school? Those two degrees offer almost completely different opportunities. Also, why do you want to do an MBA and then JD? There is MBA/JD joint degree, which takes less time and money.</p>
<p>Both SMU and UT-Austin offer MBA/JD joint degree. If you can get in Texas Law and McCombs, I’d recommend going that route, as those two degrees are nationally recognized, whereas Mays MBA, Dedman JD, and Cox MBA are very much regional.</p>