MBA in Project Management or Finance

Graduate School Business School - MBA
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Hello all,

New to the group. I spent a lot of time looking for jobs tonight as well as forums for some feedback, and now that I finally found a forum to post in I am pretty well out of time tonight. So I apologize if something like this has been asked already, but I don’t have much time to search.

Long story short I am nearly six years removed from graduating with my BBA in General Management. After I finished my Bachelor’s my wife went back for her MBA in Project Management (she was two years ahead of me in college so we staggered our degrees a bit for income reasons). Now that she finished and has a great job, it’s time for me to look into going back for mine as that has always been the plan.

Recently I have been trying to just obtain a great job with upwards mobility that would not require a graduate degree and just keep going forward. Unfortunately I am not where I want to be and school is looking like more of an option. I called my Alma Mater and talked to a Dean there for about an hour regarding degree options, and he steered me towards an MBA in Finance. That does seem like a good building block off my BBA General Management base. However, I am also considering Project Management with the success I’ve seen my wife obtain.

At this point in my career I have kind of had my fill of working F2F with consumers. All of my jobs (sales, Sales Manager, Finance Manager, Mortgage Banker, Realtor) have been customer facing and in truth it has worn me down a bit. I’ve been working since I was 14, and in customer F2F jobs since 15, so I’ve been at this half my life. Dealing with consumers day in, day out has a way of dragging you down if you’re not totally in love with customer service or not a big people person. Currently I’m in banking and I think I could see a future in that, even with some customer contact, but I am not opposed at all to switching to a whole new field. I know a better fit for me is being behind the scenes where I have minimal customer contact.

I like the idea of project management as I am a super organized person, great with managing budgets and I am just a perfectionist when it comes to having things done right and on time. On top of that my wife has a healthy six figure salary with her degree.

On the other hand, the Dean talked to me about an MBA in Finance and how that opens up Finance Manger, CFO, CEO and other high positions. From my understanding a lot of those really need a strong accounting background though which I did not do the best in (I had an issue with the university I was in - their business school was terrible - I left there with a 2.53 GPA and graduated at a better university with a 3.45).

Does anyone have feedback, job experiences with roles in which require these degrees, or anything to advise me on? My employer is currently going through a little downsizing (which I am not affected by) but I’ve also lost my direct manager, his boss and her boss in the last few months. There is a large turnover and with all levels of management above me jumping ship I really just want to find a new job and factor in a degree at the same time.

Thanks all!

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If you’ve been doing project management, you can get PMP certified and quickly improve your value in the job market. I haven’t seen many corporate america jobs that are calling for an Masters in PM though. That’s why I’d favor the finance degree. It really opens up a broad array of career options.

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I am a PM. Not sure if the current requirements (they do change them), but you need some PM work experience to get the PMP certification. And the test sucks – it has little to do with what you actually do as a PM. But once you are certified you don’t have to test again, just keep your continuing education hours up.

I don’t have a degree in PM (they didn’t exist back then). I have an undergrad business degree with a marketing concentration and an MBA with an info systems concentration (but probably could be in the same spot if I had never gotten the MBA).

I kind of agree that you don’t need a masters to do this. I bet if I talked to to 20 PMs in my area right now, hardly any have a degree in PM, and probably few even have a masters. Can you get any PM experience (or project experience, like being a business SME) with your current company to get started?

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Some food for thought…What you do depends on where you want to be. If you did get your Masters in Project management or your PMP (I agree that the PMP is more useful for getting a job as a project manager) what sector would you work in? What type of projects would you manage? Project management is a skill more than a job. You need to already be established in a sector to apply your project management skills. Also, going into project management won’t get you a way from the face to face interactions. Even though your customers won’t be the same consumers you normally deal with you will still have customers and they can be just as difficult to deal with. Not to mention managing all of the egos on your team. Finance is definitely out if you don’t have or atleast want to learn the accounting skills. This article might help you make up your mind about Project Management and to transition http://wp.me/p7KhyH-1C.

Joe Earl, www.the-undergrad.com.

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i like to suggest you all to get trained in Project Mangemetnt which having huge oppurnities check out pmp training in hyderabad at http://proventuresindia.com/pmp-certification-training-hyderabad-india