<p>I recently finished my BSBA and I was thinking about pursuing an MS in Operations Research. If anyone here is familiar with OR, I would appreciate your feed back.</p>
<p>It seems that many of my peers, who have been unable to find a job, are gravitating towards MBA programs, MAcc programs, and JD's. I believe that pursuing something off the beaten path for a typical business major could give me a slight edge. Plus, I've always been interested in finding new ways of improving organizational efficiency, but I still have some concerns in regards to OR as a career choice.</p>
<p>It looks like OR is a more popular grad degree for engineering undergrads. Since I don't have an engineering degree, would I be at a disadvantage when it comes time to find a job? According to the BLS, there were only 58000 operations research analysts working in the US in 2006. Projected growth to 2016 is 11% to 65000. That's roughly 700 new jobs per year. Not very many. Also, it seems that only very large companies or the government employ OR's. I've never had much interest in working for a large company. The competition isn't really for me. I'd much prefer a small/medium size company, but I'm not sure if these companies employ OR's or quants. I also have little interest in pursuing a doctorate.</p>
<p>Anyway, I was going to enroll at a community college in order to take the advanced math courses and some programming courses that weren't part of my undergrad. They're pre-reqs needed to be eligible for admission to the MSOR program.</p>
<p>What are your thoughts on this? Should I pursue this further or are the opportunities limited in this field of study?</p>