<p>Hello everyone. After getting my bachelors degree, I can pursue an MBA degree for free if I would like. This is because my father is a professor at an institution that offers the degree. This program only requires a few accounting and math classes prior to matriculation, therefore my computer science bachelors degree will suffice as the prerequisite. Is an MBA something that will go well with my computer science degree, or would pursuit of this degree be a waste of two years' income?</p>
<p>Please offer your opinions. Thanks in advance!</p>
<p>It all depends your goal. If you want be technical most of your life, a cs degree is fine. An MBA will open your horizon and look at the “business” in a broader sense and perhaps give you more people skills. </p>
<p>Two years is a short period of your life and life is all about learning. If the degree is free, I’d go for it.</p>
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<li>Do you have any previous full time work experience?</li>
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<p>If the answer is no,you almost certainly should not pursue an MBA.</p>
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<li>What school are you considering getting your MBA from?</li>
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<p>If it is not one of the Top 20 or so schools you should realize that, in terms of job placement and access to elite recruiters, an MBA is almost entirely useless.</p>
<p>Before embarking on an MBA, you should first realize what the degree is for. An MBA is NOT an academic degree. What an MBA is, is a very expensive and inefficient sorting mechanism to match top business talent with top employers in the client services industries of investment banking, management consulting, and private equity. If you don’t have at least a couple of years of experience, and if you cannot gain admission to one of the top few program, then these top employers will not even consider your resume.</p>
<p>You may say, “I’m not really interested in investment banking or management consulting.” That’s all well and good, but if that is the case then you should not get an MBA. You don’t need an MBA, and they are very expensive (even free ones have a big opportunity cost). These two industries provide 95% of the post-MBA positions where salaries actually justify the cost of the degree.</p>
<p>I forgot to mention: my major is in computer science. I have heard that computer science and business administration degrees compliment each other well. Does the fact that my undergrad major is computer science change anything or is an MBA still fairly worthless?</p>
<p>If you have no previous full time job experience it doesn’t matter what your undergraduate degree is. What type of position are you imagining you will be able to fill with your combination CS degree/MBA and no experience? You aren’t going to be a manager with no experience. If you end up in a technical role you’ve just wasted 2 years (and $100K or more in foregone salary if you CS degree is any good) on you MBA. Don’t think that just throwing the letters MBA on your resume will magically make you more appealing to employers. If anything, having a no-name MBA on your CV this early in your career will be a major red flag.</p>
<p>Do yourself a favor and get a job. If you still want an MBA 3-4 years down the road to transition into a management role, at least you’ll have a shot at getting into a good one. Then you can leverage that MBA into a couple years at McKinsey, pay off your loans, and lateral into a director level position in the industry of your choice. It’s a well worn path if what your looking for long-term is a general management role with P&L responsibility.</p>
<p>Here’s the problem: this opportunity for an MBA is only available to me free at Pfeiffer University until I’m 25 or 26 (whenever I become independent). So I probably would not be interested in getting it later on down the road. My plan was to get my MBA after undergrad school, then go straight through to my masters and doctorate in computer science thereafter. Then start my career. Unwise? Should I take this route, forget the MBA and go straight through to my doctorate (or just masters), or just get a job after undergrad/masters and pursue grad school later?</p>
<p>If your plan is to get a doctorate in computer science there is absolutely no reason, and I mean 0/nada/zilch, to get an MBA. An MBA will be useless for someone whose end goal is to be a professor or researcher. An MBA is useful for two things:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Changing careers from pretty much anything into investment banking or management consulting. This is done after 3-5 years of full time work experience at the age of 24-27. This is also only really doable from the following schools: Harvard, Stanford, Penn, MIT, Northwestern, UChicago, Columbia, and Dartmouth (somewhat possible, but to a significantly lesser extent from the next 10 or so ranked schools).</p></li>
<li><p>Being promoted within the same company, IF you are guaranteed the promotion, and IF they will pay for it.</p></li>
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<p>There are exceedingly few other scenarios where even a free MBA (especially from a no name school) make any kind of economic sense.</p>
<p>What about leadership roles in software engineering companies? In game development studios? Everything technology has a business component; I would think there are plenty of companies out there that would want management/administrative ability who can also speak the language of its employees…or do I have the wrong idea about what an MBA is?</p>
<p>“b-schooler” is being a bit harsh. there are certainly good opportunities that exist outside of ibanking or consulting, and your life will not go down the toilet if you graduate from the #35 ranked bschool. </p>
<p>however, in your case i would not go to pfeiffer university. i’ve never heard of it and you’d do much better if you went to a reputable program and got an ms. an mba is pretty useless in your field. double useless from a no name school.</p>
<p>you also don’t learn management/administrative ability from a degree. you learn it from doing it - at a job.</p>
<p>I think the MBA could be useful; it might help if you have entrepreneurial aspirations sometime down the road. Many startups fail because the techie founders don’t have an appreciation for the business and market realities. It’s good to have some of that sense.</p>
<p>I think MisterK is on the right track. Not everyone wants to go into investment banking or management consulting. Some people (especially those with technical degrees) go to business school to learn more about what goes on in the other side of the house. A software engineer at a tech company looking to go into product management could definitely do that job better if he/she had a formal understanding of subjects like consumer behavior, marketing research, managerial accounting and business strategy. Of course there’s still the cost/benefit to be considered and with many b-schools easily running $50k+/year out of pocket, you’d really have to think about whether or not it’s worth the sticker price.</p>
<p>You have the opportunity to go for free, but there are additional factors you might want to consider. The reason business schools want their admits to have experience is because much of business is “real life”. The experiences that students bring into the classroom give context to the discussions and projects that they participate in. Students can reflect on their own experiences and how things worked at the companies they previously worked at. I don’t think you would be able to contribute as much or learn as much from business school if you were to matriculate directly from undergrad.</p>
<p>If its ranked by US News in the top 30 or so, then yes, get the degree. Otherwise, forget it. An MBA is worthless if it is from a school ranked below around 30.</p>
<p>I think you are getting ahead of yourself and yes, I think you don’t understand an MBA or what a doctorate entails. Go to college for 2 years before you start making postgrad plans. You will be exposed to your department, and what opportunities the Seniors are seeing, and you can minor in business if it interests you. You might just want to do macro and micro econ and a stats course.</p>
<p>You will have profs to discuss plans with. You will see how well or not you are doing and if your interests have altered. You will also see how some of these plans do not make any sense, as mentioned above by bschooler.</p>
<p>You simply don’t get an MBA without a specific reason that aligns with your career and work experience and you don’t go for a doctorate unless there is a burning need to investigate a very specific area you are interested in and you are very good at research. Finding out these things takes some maturity and some college education. You will decide in your junior year, usually, if you are going to take a masters in CS.</p>
<p>For those that claim that non-top MBA programs are worthless:</p>
<p>How is it worthless if they’re still learning things that they didn’t know before? Are BBA’s worthless as well? If you’re an engineer looking to move up to a management position, don’t you think you’re going to have a better shot at getting those types of positions with “engineering experience + any MBA” rather than “engineering experience with no understanding of cost accounting, revenue recognition, organizational behavior, etc.” The difference between the top programs and everyone else is the network, the recruiting and other opportunities. The academics, for the most part, are pretty much the same.</p>
<p>I have a friend who has an EE undergrad degree (top 5 undergrad school) who went to work on the business/marketing side of a tech company and did quite well. After 5 years (a VERY short time), he was able to go to MBA school on the company dime (top 5 B school) and was one of the youngest to ever do so. This is a smart move and smart situation for someone who knew just what they wanted to do (run divisions, be the boss and not the engineer.)</p>
<p>However, most reputable b schools will not take someone right out of undergrad. If they do, it is just a money maker for them and it is not doing enough for your investment of time, not to mention money is always involved even if it is opportunity cost. I don’t think you only have to go to tippy top, many regionals are good if you are working in that area.</p>
<p>CS should be able to get good job right from undergrad, especially if you are coming from a reasonably strong program. Master’s may start you at a higher salary or not, but also might bump you up to a grad from a better school if you get in.</p>
<p>I think you falsely assume people learn something is business school. I learned absolutely nothing except how to network, which is infinitely easier from a top program.</p>