<p>I am currently at a community college working on my general ed. I can't choose between Management Information Systems major or Computer Science major. I want to get a management position so i would probably need a MBA. Which BS major would suit for for an MBA?</p>
<p>Business is the obvious answer here. Actual leadership experience is helpful also.</p>
<p>if you want to lead in a particular industry then getting whatever credentials one needs to enter into those fields is also important - so petroleum engineer is a good degree if you want to manage in an oil company, although you could study finance and be a top manager in an oil company. It’s pretty wide open. Proven leadership will help the most.</p>
<p>Business majors are a dime a dozen.
<a href=“Wealth or Waste? Rethinking - WSJ”>http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304072004577323754019227394</a></p>
<p>No company is going to give u a management position straight out of school. And no company wants a mgr that doesn’t understand his/her subordinates work. Go get some expertise in some technical discipline. It’s not absolutely necessary to have an MBA to rise up the mgt ladder, but it helps.</p>
<p>In my experience, management positions usually come when you have a decent amount of experience in an industry. Your actual major doesn’t really matter that much; majoring in Management doesn’t mean that you will get hired as a Manager, any more than majoring in Athletics will get you drafted to the Chicago Bulls. Some fields/companies do require an MBA, but many if not most of those will send you back to get your MBA anyway on their own dime (my preferred method for everything).</p>
<p>But no technical disciplne will teach what today’s managers are focused on - things like supply chain management, return on investment, minimizing unit costs, return on equity, information technology management, distribution channel management, etc. decisions like these are becoming more technical and quantitative and harder to learn on the job. And these are just a few things a manager today really should know.</p>
<p>A business degree is a dime a dozen but a business education is not. If you are at a reputable school, a business degree, good grades and initiative when it comes to on campus recruiting and polish in your presentation are absolutely worth it.</p>
<p>The Elbow Grease major is the one that gets you to top management. Not offered at any college, but what you do once you get in the door. Understanding the basics of business (as @Madaboutx describes above) certainly gives you some of the tools you need to get there so you understand more quickly what is going on when you get into a business situation. But what you do when you get in the door is what will make or break your promotion opportunities.</p>
<p>Madaboutx, you just described industrial engineering. </p>
<p>The thing is management positions aren’t just handed to people. They often go to people who either have tons of experience or work up from within the company. </p>
<p>True but I also described Amazon, Barnes & Noble, many retail operations and even a high tech startup. They all have supply channels & inventories & labor costs. Service is much less tangible but that makes it even harder to manage.</p>
<p>I think many roads lead to success here. I just don’t think discounting the value of a business degree is smart. Real managers manage money, people and assets. It is a discipline that few people are truly good at although many people reach that level due to their technical competence.</p>
<p>There are many mangers that suck at managing.</p>
Management isn’t a function in itself, it is a role within a function, i.e. a manager of computer programmers, etc., so you need to work your way into management though the underlying function being managed. It is not until a manager reaches the higher levels of a company that it becomes a general management position. But either way, an MBA will not prepare you directly for a management role.
Whether you major in CS or MIS, or get an MBA, its all just to prepare you for your early functional role. Top school MBAs generally allow graduates to enter into Finance or Marketing roles in a company that does not hire undergrads for those roles, but you need some work experience before entering those programs. You can add an MBA after working a few years in CS or MIS if needed, but its certainly not a requirement for a management role. During your first few years working after undergrad, you can evaluate if you want to pursue one, and whether full or part time.
Those are all good majors. Whichever you pick, choose the one you are most passionate about and would likely lead to an initial job you would most like. Then, work hard to do a good job both in your work deliverables and so that you stand out as a leader. Those things will do the most to help in getting a management role.
Management is a role within a function and a function in itself.
People work in set functions for managers who worked their way up so most advice is geared toward doing the same. But an entrepreneur is someone who decides to be the CEO without working up and finds the role to be far more encompassing than just managing a function.
Most of us interface and base our conceptions of managers based on the very low level managers with which we interact and for whom we work. There are many, many layers of managers in big corporations who are in high level positions because they are skilled at managing people, money and assets and they may start out knowing very little about a specific functional area.
The answer really depends on how high up in management you want to rise. Do you want to lead a highly specific functional team of a few people or do you want to lead hundreds or thousands at a global corporation and be responsible for P&L, strategy, communications, legal, operations and supply chain matters. You won’t learn any of that in computer science, engineering or any other highly specific functional skills education program.
^ again, you just described industrial engineering
It could easily describe 3/4 of all the majors that are out there right now. Not just industrial engineering. Even friggin library science… or turf management 
I think the point is to be good at “something”… and when you are good at “something” you can manage other people good at that “something” if you have some business sense. Business Administration/Management doesn’t really make you good at “something” on it’s own. I think of it like a sidekick to another major. On it’s own not so much.
Imagine how a Management major would look applying for a management position in an engineering or IT, or healthcare setting.
“So do you have any knowledge or skills that can relate to the employees you would be responsible for”
“Umm k… no but I haz management dugree.”
It would be hard telling people who spent years specializing in a single field what to do if you can’t even explain what they are doing. Taking 2 or 3 of the most basic 101 classes of everything (accounting, econ, finance, ect) doesn’t specialize you in anything.
Out of your choices I’d say Computer Science BS and go for an MBA with an IT/Information Systems concentration.
I don’t why someone would think I’m talking specifically about industrial engineering.
It doesn’t matter if a company is brick and mortar or bits and clicks - P&L, strategy, etc all still matter and are vitally important. Asset management is still important as are legal and operations and supply chain management.
I don’t know of a single successful business that is significantly lacking in these areas.
In the mid 90s, people tried to get me to invest in penny stocks saying they only go up in price and to invest in tech because profit no longer matters, it was all about market capitalization. I didn’t do it because none of that made any sense, then it all collapsed in 1998.
The lesson: Beware of businesses that think they reinvented how business is done.
There can be new businesses, new products and new people but profits will always matter, strategy will always matter, etc.
A lime manager needs to be able to do what the employees they manage do. I don’t expect the HR manager or Finance manager or even the COO, CEO or President to be able to do what I do, yet they manage and make more than 10x what I make. Only a few of them worked up through the ranks, starting from the ground floor. They got educated and rose up in leaps and took a more jagged path than any other employees. Starting at a company then going back to school then going to a consultancy then brought on at the VP level then moving up from there, maybe getting more education along the way.
If you want to rise up to the lowest 1 or 2 rungs of management at a big company, I say study computer science, engineering or whatever and be a functional line manager. It may pay 6 figures and be extremely satisfying. If you follow that advice, that’s what you’ll get. Don’t ecpect to get to the executive level though without the skills I’ve been talking about.
Unless, you start your own business. Then you’ll be the CEO. Yayyyy!
so you don’t expect a “finance manager” to know what their financial employees do?
Wow.
So you expect the OP to become a COO/CEO/Top Manager with his associates degree? Have at it. Get your degree with zero experience or specializations and apply to a top management position.
You recommended to not specialize or give any “realistic” career path. Just… get your business degree and go into top management.
So many delusional posters here. You need skills to move up. Management is not a skill you learn in the classroom. Probably why none of the top universities in the USA even have business undergrad programs.
I don’t expect many to understand what I’m saying because the way of thinking is so cast in stone. The finance manager may know what his employees in the financial department do but that doesn’t explain why so many CFO’s become CEOs.
I’m not saying it isn’t helpful to know something about the industry from a credibility perspective in that industry. At the same time, moving up the ranks is more a function of leadership skills, management skills and political skills than technical skills.
Working too hard on your technical skills can actually limit your career which is counter-intuitive. Employers want more RNs so people get nursing degrees - than they spend 20 years wiping old people’s butts and some will become nurse managers and a few will get advanced degrees and move to higher levels of management but the MBA and administrator who’s never wiped anyone’s rear but his own is already in the upper echelon. How?
The same thing goes for engineering, computer science and everything else. If you work in a large corporation, just look 3-5 levels above you and see how many of them worked up from the bottom with technical degrees and how many just seem to appear, fresh faced, young and ready to go. How?
Seems like many are confusing management with senior executive roles. If you can’t make your way into a lower level management role, either working your way up from the bottom or lateraling in with a good MBA, you have no chance for senior roles.
Getting a degree of one sort of another isn’t going to get you either, but usually is one of the requirements. For senior executive roles, like CEO and CFO, political skills and a solid track record of management success are most critical, along with desired credentials, such as an MBA, CPA, etc.
For lower or mid level management roles, you need to have experience or familiarity with the functions you are managing. You don’t need to be a technical expert, in fact, that would probably limit your potential to move into management. But you need some road into the organization in order to get visibility, and the better the role the better the visibility. Someone with a CS degree at a software company would have better visibility and career options than say a history major who worked in the call center.
A management major, especially as an undergrad, is useless, unless you want to be working in retail or fast food. A solid major like engineering, computer science, finance, accounting, etc. make you much more likely to find a good starting job in a company you are targeting. Then, you can progress up from there, or go back for a good MBA and make the jump into a development program or consulting if you aspire to senior level roles.
Moral of the story is, you can’t be a manager unless you can get hired in the first place. College majors won’t do it themselves, but they are key credentials in starting a career.
Thanks for making this point @MBAisthekey - I thought my point was totally lost and you hit the nail on the head probably better than all my attempts at it.
The question is about getting into top management and most responses were how to start out at the bottom and work your way into lower and middle management at most.
I also feel like it’s insulting to assume a kid is at community college because he or she is less of a student or doesn’t have the brain capacity That kids who go straight to a 4 year college possess.
The answer is what it is. A business degree does open doors. It is also a dime a dozen. You have to excellent and prove yourself in internships and on the job. You’ll have to pay dues as a low level analyst or consultant, doing grunt work and learning at the same time. You’ll have to volunteer for projects until people are comfortable with you leading those projects. You’ll have to get an MBA at some point, hopefully your company will pay for it but you need to be willing to sacrifice for it too - take time off work, go to school full time, live on loans, etc.
Community college is not a mark against you unless you don’t make the grade and fail to keep moving forward.