<p>I am interested in going to get my MBA right after college and perhaps working in the biotech or energy management fields. My question is whether it is better to major in management or business as an undergrad? I mean which would be more conducive to getting into a top B-School? And which offers better job opportuinites?</p>
<p>"I am interested in going to get my MBA right after college"</p>
<p>Two scenarios;
(1) You get into an elite MBA program.
(2) You get into a crappy MBA program.</p>
<p>Scenario (1) will only happen if you are an absolutely exceptional candidate and you get a tremendous amount of impressive work experience while in college or start a business that takes off. Alternatively, you could have very, very rich parents. The final alternative is to go to a school that has the option of direct admittance to an MBA program for 'elite' students. The only two I can think of off the top of my heard are Tepper and Simon, though Simon is only really highly ranked for finance and accounting. IIRC, Simon actually has a bunch of agreements with schools, so maybe that option actually is available to you.</p>
<p>Scenario (2) is what's going to happen, though. So... yeah.</p>
<p>As for finance and management, uh, how about picking the one you like?</p>
<p>I think I could get into a good MBA after college I plan to attend UT and they have an amazing BHP, with special programs life the financial analysts program where I would get to work for a year and a half as an analyst while in school, also since I live in Texas I could potentially get several interships one for every summer. I can't fully know whether I like finance or managment as I have never been a manager or a financier.</p>
<p>You think wrong, if you're talking about the real top tier business schools. I don't know what people list as the best graduate business schools because I don't memorize rankings, but I'm assuming it's Tuck, Chicago GSB, Haas, Sloan, HSB, Wharton, Stanford GSB, Kellogg, Stern and Ross. None of those schools are going to accept someone straight out of undergrad unless they're exceptional. I define exceptional as 2-3 years of full time work experience in addition to a GPA at a minimum of 3.5 and either amazing EC's or some high quality research work coming out of college.</p>
<p>There's also the problem that it's really not in your best interest to get an MBA straight out of college. You don't know what you like. I remember taking my SAT a couple of months ago and as we were waiting for the proctor to let us in I was listening to some 16 year old talk about how he wanted to work in ibanking. He has no idea what ibanking is, and you don't fully know what finance or management are like. You won't know until you take courses in both and work in one or another. An MBA is something you get after you have a few years experience when you're better at networking so you can take full advantage of the program, so you can focus in on a topic you already know you're going to be working in professionally, so you can advance a career you already have.</p>
<p>You need to take the time to explore topics and find something you like. It's what undergrad is for. Graduate school is for specialization. If you desperately want to apply to an MBA program straight out of undergrad you're better off avoiding something business related entirely, because the first question they're going to ask you is "what do you think you're going to get out of this that you didn't get out of the undergraduate program you just got a degree in management from?", and it's going to be hard for you to answer that question because the reasons professionals go to get an MBA (career advancement, informed and intentional specialization, networking) aren't really going to apply to you right out of school.</p>
<p>Neither, you would be better off majoring in something else as an undergrad then going for a MBA. Otherwise you'll just be learning business on top of business.</p>
<p>But if you are dead set on getting a business undergrad, then finance is better by far.</p>
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Neither, you would be better off majoring in something else as an undergrad then going for a MBA. Otherwise you'll just be learning business on top of business.
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<p>If you are truly interested in business, there is nothing wrong with majoring in business as an undergrad. This is especially true if you arent interested in any other major. The fact is that you may well discover that you are able to achieve your goals in business without an MBA.</p>
<p>BTW, it's very difficult to get into a good MBA program straight out of undergrad (by very difficult i mean near impossible unless you have connections). Anyways, why are you in such a rush? You would lose much of the value of an MBA by getting it early.</p>
<p>MBAs are great for people who get stuck in dead end jobs or who don't enjoy the type of work that they are doing. However, if you go directly into an MBA program, you won't know what type of work you enjoy and if you end up in a job you hate, you won't have the luxury of going back to school (unless you want to become a perennial student).</p>
<p>You are in a good business program and should make good money out of undergrad and should have plenty of opportunities to start a great career. Given that, I question your motivation to get an MBA so soon.</p>
<p>BTW, many post MBA careers are leadership positions. You think some 40+ yr olds with 20 years of industry experience are going to want to take orders from some punk kid with no experience? You think anyone is going to want to hire you into a management position?</p>
<p>As for Finance vs Management, discover how much you like your first Finance course. If you enjoy it, then I'd major in that. It will give you a lot more opportunities (including opportunities in mgt and mgt consulting). If you don't enjoy it, then you probably should major in mgt.</p>
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If you are truly interested in business, there is nothing wrong with majoring in business as an undergrad.
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<p>There is nothing wrong with it but it doesn't leave you with a lot of room to be exposed to other things. A BBA plus a MBA is basically two vocational degrees in the same field. Different material, probably, but the business world does not require two degrees.</p>
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MBAs are great for people who get stuck in dead end jobs or who don't enjoy the type of work that they are doing.
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<p>And they are great for people who want to work in business in general.</p>
<p>At UT they have a program which allows undergrads to get admitted to thier MBA program, but they work for three years at certain companies and then enter into the MBA program, perhaps this would be a better route. But then I have another question is their any guarantee that an MBA will advance your career? I mean at Wharton it states that you may not need an MBA?</p>
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The fact is that you may well discover that you are able to achieve your goals in business without an MBA.
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<p>Which is another reason why I wouldn't want to get a BBA if I was planning on getting a MBA later. In theory, with a BBA and a lot of work experience, you SHOULD be able to receive the same opportunities as the MBA crowd.</p>
<p>If you have a BBA and go back for a MBA, it's almost like you're saying you just quite make it happen with just the BBA.</p>
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A BBA plus a MBA is basically two vocational degrees in the same field. Different material, probably, but the business world does not require two degrees.
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<p>It doesn't require a degree outside of business either. I'm really not sure of your point. BTW, the true value of an MBA is hardly derived from the material covered.</p>
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Which is another reason why I wouldn't want to get a BBA if I was planning on getting a MBA later.
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<p>Because you achieved your goals with a BBA, you wouldn't want to get one? I don't understand the logic of that. It would save you 2 years of additional schooling and tens of thousands of dollars.</p>
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In theory, with a BBA and a lot of work experience, you SHOULD be able to receive the same opportunities as the MBA crowd.
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<p>In reality, one can achieve great things with less than a HS diploma. People become company executives with bachelors degrees in engineering and perhaps even underwater basket weaving. </p>
<p>However, everyone's situation is different. Most college students may have goals, but those goals often change once that student has worked in the "real" world for a few years. An MBA can help professionals achieve their new goals. </p>
<p>It's good to keep an open mind to going back for an MBA, but I think it's a little silly to plan to go back for an MBA prior to graduating from undergrad. An MBA should simply be a means to an end, not the end goal itself.</p>
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But then I have another question is their any guarantee that an MBA will advance your career?
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<p>Of course not. It's quite possible that your career won't need advancing.</p>
<p>The main reason that I wanted to get an MBA is for the lateral advance, I figured that a BBA+MBA would be better than a BBA+2 years working experience and would help to expedite my career, in that sense it seemed like a very logical choice. I mean would anyone diagree that a MBA would allow a person to advance faster even without work experience than a person with work experience for only two years.</p>
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It doesn't require a degree outside of business either. I'm really not sure of your point.
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<p>My point is that you don't really need both a BBA and a MBA. If you have a BBA, you should be able to work your butt off to get the same opportunities available to you that are available to the MBA graduates. If you are pursuing a MBA you didn't need a BBA to get there.</p>
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The main reason that I wanted to get an MBA is for the lateral advance, I figured that a BBA+MBA would be better than a BBA+2 years working experience and would help to expedite my career, in that sense it seemed like a very logical choice. I mean would anyone diagree that a MBA would allow a person to advance faster even without work experience than a person with work experience for only two years.
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<p>I would disagree. You're going to enter the job force with a worthless undergraduate degree (because the emphasis for your employment will be the MBA) possibly in a position that will be over your head. You'll also more than likely have a relatively low-quality MBA degree, and you won't have had the benefit of specialization in a field you know you'll work in. In the two years one would work before they go back for an MBA (it's more likely to be 3-5, fyi) they could have advanced in position at least once, they'd know what they want to specialize in, they'd have pre-exisiting business connections and they'd more than likely have their education financed by their employer. In addition, they'd get a better name MBA, which would only help with career advanacement.</p>
<p>At the time when the BA+2 would be finished with his MBA, he'd more than likely hold the same (if not a higher, assuming he continued to work or his completion of an MBA was contingent on a promotion) position as the BA+MBA, and he'd have a free, higher-quality MBA.</p>
<p>Qualifications for positions above entry-level don't say "x years of work experience or MBA", they say "x years of work experience." You'd going to enter the same place as the guy without the MBA if you don't have a job lined up prior to getting it, and you're going to spend more money on it, end up in the same place with it and get it from a worse school.</p>
<p>So from this I am getting that the jump start program at UT would be better, which gives me guaranteed amdission to thier MBA program I just have to work for three years.</p>
<p>Listen to what everyone else is telling you man. Getting your MBA right after undergrad was common 20+ years ago but it just doesn't work that way anymore.</p>
<p>Let's pretend for a second that you get into a top B-school like HBS/Wharton/Stern (even though you won't) whenever you graduate who is going to hire you when every one of your classmates has 3-5+ years work experience, connections etc?</p>
<p>I don't know why you want to enroll into a MBA program so fast. From what I have read, you can't even tell what a management major is like. Finance is part of management, not a separate major. Management includes all aspects of business including finance, accounting, IT, operations, marketing, HR, strategic planning, etc. If you enroll into a MBA program, they would ask you to pick a concentration. Now, if you have no idea what you want to do or like, there is no way any good school would accept you. Same thing goes with undergrad. You would have to declare a concentration your junior year at the latest. Otherwise, you would get a BBA but with no job.</p>
<p>And like almost everyone else on here has mentioned, good school nowadays want 3 to 4 years of work experience under your belt before you even bother to apply. So your chance is very limited.</p>
<p>A MBA on top of a BBA totally would help you! You could have picked different concentrations for the two of them and end up having more knowledge. Many people who did both MBA and BBA did not stick with one concentration and that helped them with their careers.</p>
<p>Another thing, if you want to do biotech or energy management, it's probably better for you to get an engineering degree as an undergrad and then a MBA. It helps if you can understand the industry from a technical standpoint.</p>
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but I think it's a little silly to plan to go back for an MBA prior to graduating from undergrad. An MBA should simply be a means to an end, not the end goal itself.
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<p>This is absolute BS. There are tons and tons of careers today that require MBAs. Therefore, if an undergraduate is looking towards one of these careers, then yes, his end goal should be to get a MBA.</p>
<p>That's like suggesting a high school student shouldn't worry about college because it's a means to an end, not the end goal (getting a career) itself.</p>