<p>Polo;</p>
<p>What in the world are you talking about? Please go post on a pharma forum. You and all the other med school rejects can look forward to your glory days at cvs together. Nearly everything you have said here is totally absurd…</p>
<p>This is an interesting thread, but can we please stay on topic and not turn this into a “pharmacy vs investment banking” debate, as opposed to “is this or that kind of MBA worth it?” debate?</p>
<p>I am curious as to whether an MBA will “pay off” immediately or if you need to consider the value in the long run.</p>
<p>the payback period for an MBA is short but not instantaneous, and of course will vary by the career path you pick.</p>
<p>For most people it is necessary to consider the long run. Some people in my class were engineers making $110k+, but they wanted to grow personally and professionally - can you really put a price on that?
You need to think about why you want money anyways. Some people are content with slaving away to afford their lifestyle, or doing the same to retire early. Other people want to have an exciting life, and their work is a part of that life.
For my specific situation, I calculated a break-even of five years with a 7% discount rate. Another thing to consider is that the biggest component is often your foregone salary, not the tuition.
I find it hard to justify a lower tier MBA since there is a lower likelihood of getting a job you are excited about.</p>
<p>Edit: I should mention that I am not interested in traditional financial services (IB, IM) - that could change the numbers dramatically</p>
<p>nopenot- I would love to see the proof you have of students attending lower tiered schools and not ending up with careers they are excited about. That is simply not true, and most of the people in my cohort are going to stay in their current careers, some with the same company, and are looking to move up and provide a better life for themselves and their families.
As for the rest of you, I believe we were talking about the cost to benefit ration of a MBA program, and what the most a MBA degree is worth.</p>
<p>I don’t have any proof. You can’t measure anything like that, except by doing some lame surveymonkeys that people will lie on.
That said, let’s look at your post:
- stay in their current careers
- move up
- provide a better life for their families
Everyone looks at this differently. I wanted a dramatic change.
Not to stay in my career, simply move up, or provide a “better life.” That’s how the value proposition was structured for me. Everyone’s different.
I provided my ROI and it’s different for everyone - starting salary, exiting salary, heck, even discount rate. That’s why I went for qualitative factors.</p>
<p>I understand that their is a large amount of younger students that are going into their MBA program with dreams of being a millionaire, and in that case forking out 40k a year does not seem that bad. I would argue that their are many of them that fall short and regret their huge ammount of debt, and then there are many of them who do become very wealthy.
But for every one of those students, their is 2 people that are slightly older, say 35+, and simply attempting to better themselves for the sake of having a better life. In this case, keeping debt low is a major factor.
The 25k they spend on the entire MBA program at their state university which gets them a promotion and raises their salary 20k+ a year is a very good ROI. This is something that is very exciting to someone who has a family, mortgage and saving for their kids education.</p>
<p>You are definitely right - but keep in mind lost wages (if it is a full time program). As an engineer I was making around 70k - 2 years off and that’s 140k lost wages, not including bonus, etc… All I’m trying to say is that the debt is not the whole picture.</p>
<p>nopenotthatone, how are things turning out for you? Are you still in school? If you don’t mind sharing, what area are you working in (or planning to work in)?</p>
<p>Graduating this year, will be working for a venture-backed cleantech startup. It was an extremely difficult year for recruiting but I had some other offers. Decided to go for the startup because my risk profile changed in the course of those two years. After some soul searching I realized that, for now, I’m not as interested in climbing the corporate ladder as much as I am interested in working with the commercialization of new technology. Another element of my decision-making process was timing - I thought the window for entering this specific part of cleantech would be rather short. In this climate it was a risky choice, and most of my friends chose more conservative routes.
As I said before, everyone looks at the MBA in a different way - I was looking to explore new options, increase my skill-set and knowledge base, and exit with a job that I would be more passionate about. The first two did happen and the third one… well… I’ll let you know a year from now :). I’m excited about the role and the future of the company.
I should also mention that there were plenty of students in my class that had a different perspective - many who were intent on joining management consulting, investment banking, investment management, etc. They usually wanted these jobs for the exit opportunities, career development, or the money (or a combination). They probably came to business school with a very different idea of the value of an MBA.</p>
<p>
This is an MBA - “Master of Business Administration”. Last I heard, MBA students come from many different backgrounds, including pharmacy. Even in a retail pharmacy there’s definitely an emphasis on “business administration” once you start moving up the ladder from a staff pharmacist as well.
Has it ever occurred to you that some people don’t want to do clinical work forever because as an MD, that’s probably what you will do for quite a while.
A PharmD is one of the fastest ways that will guarantee you the following:
-100+k/year for 30 hours/week + benefits + $2-20k sign on at age 24 in any economy in any region of the US
-flexibility in scheduling so that you can pursue something else that you’re passionate about (MS ChemE, part-time JD program, or anything else)
-guaranteed accelerated promotion relative to peers in the Army Reserve/NG component at making O-5 (Lt. Colonel) or higher in a short amount of time especially if you come from a traditional branch as well
-pay nothing for a Doctorate degree
This much is FACT. It does not require “luck” as it would in other fields and is 100% within your control (not someone else’s).
I agree with you. Many try, few succeed. One needs to stand out from the crowd. There are going to be too many people graduating from the same MBA class with nearly the same background. If one can’t differentiate himself from the crowd, then he’s not offering any more value to the employer than the next guy in line.
That’s definitely one of the things that came to mind. I knew that if I wanted to pursue other goals after I graduated, I wanted to be in a field that would allow me to do that freely. Lost wages aren’t that much of a concern for me because they’re not that significant.</p>
<p>Polo;
Clearly you are an early 20s know-nothing who enjoys boasting about what a great opportunity pharmacy work and the National Guard are. I have nothing against either of these things per se - I suppose I think pharmacy work is kind of a joke, but respect people in the military - but I can speak for most people here when I say, WHO HERE CARES ABOUT PHARMACY WORK? AND YET YOU BRING IT UP IN EVERY POST. Maybe someone on a pill pusher forum would, but this is a business school forum, and people here want to discuss business schools. You present yourself as some sort of expert and yet you know nothing about business school, or seemingly much else for that matter. Getting mediocre grades at Rutgers qualifies you for NOTHING. You are not qualified to advise anyone here on anything, and yet you continue to post nonsense as if you are some sort of authority. Do you really feel so strong a need to make yourself seem more important than you are?</p>
<p>Also, you speak as if you know something about medicine, but how does being average at a below average school qualify you to discuss what doctors do? You couldnt ever get into a half decent med school and yet you talk like its something you considered but brushed off because you were too good for it. Coincidentally, my father is the head doctor of one of the finest hospitals in the world, and he happens to think people like you are a joke, at best.</p>
<p>You are not in business school, and - from someone who is currently at a top 5 school - you seem to know very little about it. Most of your posts are adolescent, and on top of that, you insist on badmouthing hmom, someone who does know what they are talking about and does seem to have quite a bit to contribute. You do so for no good reason other than that she has clearly called you out for what you are: a nobody pretending to be a somebody. So, I say to you again, please direct your immature and poorly reasoned posts elsewhere, perhaps a World of Warcraft forum, youd fit in well there.</p>
<p>
This is an MBA forum. MBA applicants come from many different backgrounds and believe it or not pharmacy may be one of them. One of the most common questions around here is about work experience and therefore that pertains to those activities that you partake in before B-School so I ask again how is that irrelevant to this forum?
Did you know that nearly 10% of the GDP is spent on healthcare and it’s one of the fastest growing expenditures? There’s a lot of “business” to be done in that field and the opportunities are expanding with little regard to state of the economy. People will pay a premium to live. Period.
I didn’t know that earning >3.0 in a Doctoral program qualified as “mediocre” but if you say so…
Average entry stats in my year for the Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy are SAT: 1400/1600 or 2100/2400 and at least top 15% of your HS graduating class. I didn’t know that those stats would qualify as “average” or “below average” since by definition “average” in this case means “median” which is middle of the pack. I don’t believe that a school with entry stats like that is “average” or “below average” compared to all the undergraduate schools that are accredited in the US…
Oh, this says it all…
“MY FATHER…”
…bought me a BMW…
…told me so…
…donated large sums of money so that I could get into college…
…paid for my school…</p>
<p>…we get it. You’re dependent on your father…</p>
<p>Yes, my father did pay for my schooling, the same as I will for my kids; I see nothing wrong with this. I will not apologize for the fact that my family is hard working and successful, that is hardly a character flaw. Nobody ever got me into any school or got me a job; I did it on my own. And I may drive a BMW, but I paid for it myself… You know nothing about me, so don’t pretend like you do. </p>
<p>You said: “One of the most common questions around here is about work experience and therefore that pertains to those activities that you partake in before B-School so I ask again how is that irrelevant to this forum?” (Um riiight okay so it’s applicable to the .001% of b-school students that will come from CVS/Walgreens, you really got me there! </p>
<p>You have no work experience and havent applied to or been to b-school so you really can’t contribute anything. Bragging about what you will make bottling pills [which becomes higher with every post btw] is transparent and helps no1). Also, I had a friend in HS whose mom was the pharmacist at the local Brooks - had been for 20+ yrs - and she pulled in nothing close to 200k. Actually the family seemed relatively poor. A quick google search tells us the average pay in the profession to which you aspire is 100k, so stop inflating the #s. </p>
<p>If those Rutgers stats are real - and thats doubtful given your past of lying about pharmacist pay- I’ll revise my previous statement to say: you are mediocre at a slightly above average school. But I mean seriously, Rutgers? The Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy, is that a joke?? That sounds a bit like the Blaine School of Beauty. </p>
<p>Bottom line, you have done nothing that would qualify you to give advice about business school. It is unlikely that you will even ever be able to go to a half decent one. So please, for everyones sake, STOP IT WITH THE RIDICULOUS JUVENILE POSTS. Having gone back and read some of your old posts, I would say you’re generally a cancer on this forum. Let the people who know what they’re taking about do the talking.</p>
<p>
You aren’t under the assumption that all PharmDs work for a retail pharmacy are you? You must not be an informed individual.
Did she choose to work 30-36 hours a week for that 100k or did she take on about 60-72 hours a week? If you’re practicing, there is an extremely high correlation between hours worked and income.
We hear this all the time. How old are you? It’s always the “young’ns” that say something to this effect.
I suppose my 2+ years in the service does not count as “work experience”…
Again, is GPA > 3.0 in a graduate/doctoral program “mediocre”? That’s quite a stretch there.
If you’re an intelligent being and have read some of my old posts, do you really think that I will do what you want me to do? The answer to that question is obvious so you’d save yourself a lot of trouble and save the environment by using fewer electrons by trying to stop what is going to happen anyways.</p>
<p>In the end it’s about making money because that’s one of the most important aspects about business. It wouldn’t be business if we’re not in it for the profit, it would be charity. I’m a huge advocate of the ends justifying the means. I really don’t care about the prestige of the degree, only what it may enable me to do. If that is a BS for someone so be it. If that requires an MBA, the whatever.
I don’t attack the way someone wants to achieve that goal. I only highlight the risks they may encounter and if they succeed, that’s great. Some people find that as a personal insult but it most definitely is not. However, once their personal attacks start, I can’t help but assist them in hijacking the thread because I could care less as you can tell.</p>
<p>No, I suppose you won’t just “let the grownups talk”. I’ve wasted enough time writing about this and you clearly aren’t listening. </p>
<p>Enjoy your spamming, but know that anyone with any intelligence won’t take any of it seriously.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>haha what in the sam hell are you talking about using electrons for?</p>
<p>I hear the electrons are being hunted into extinction. I wonder if Green Peace knows?</p>
<p>Conservation of Mass, what a crock.</p>
<p>just for fun:</p>
<p>[Charge</a> conservation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charge_conservation]Charge”>Charge conservation - Wikipedia)</p>