How does MBA affect an engineers career?
I am planning to go into technical management roles, MBA is an expensive venture considering the time, money and effort spent on it. I have MS in computer sci and 6-7 years experience. So trying to understand if an MBA in engineering management or similar will help me go into leadership roles faster and perform better.
I have both bsc and ms in cs and now doing mba. It depends on specilization, there are good specilization topics, like international business or technical leadership. If you want to move to management/start up/pm world, it adds value. Otherwise, it makes no diff for pure tech roles. Don't forget, diploma is nothing, anyone can definitely buy one. The thing is how you utilize the knowledge you learn there.
An MBA does not help with the startup world, since it's a very different skill set. Management or Product manager, having a MBA helps get you that first break.
There are studies in my program specifically for startups. They help you to go meet investors, practice elevator pitch, if you have a team or project, you will even get chances to sell it. So, as I said, it depends on specilization. Mba is too broad.
MBAs are essentially signaling mechanisms that you have access to a network of similar peers. As such, it’s ONLY worth it if it’s from one of the top 5-7 full-time programs. (ie Pass on evening/weekend programs.)
I’d say top 25, depending on the school’s prestige around certain Programs. I.e, Carnegie Mellon known for their Analytics heavy program, ASU for their Supply Chain. Overall, I do agree that you should go to a full time program and not nights. Indiana does have a relatively inexpensive program online and Kelley is a good school so might be worth that if you’re not going to do a career change.
What about evening MBA from Wharton or EMBA from MIT? Both have evening/weekend program.
I am planning to go into technical management roles, MBA is an expensive venture considering the time, money and effort spent on it. So trying to understand if an MBA in engineering management or similar will help me go into leadership roles faster and perform better.
Unless you already have superb business skills and it’s from a top 10 school, it’s not worth the investment.
Waste of money
I'v been thinking about this myself. My goals are working in a hedgefund and making serious cash. An MBA is only marginally useful since they prefer hard science PhDs anyway or sharp undergraduates with a few years of experience and train them themselves.
I am not sure how much overall value can an MBA add for jobs in the valley. For tech companies for EM/PM roles having stronger technical understanding helps a lot more than jus an MBA. Also unless it’s an MBA from a top 5 US school it won’t add much value. I have seen European MBAs from schools like INSEAD, IMD but they are very rarely at par with the quality of top US grads.
I wouldn’t think of it this way. An MBA doesn’t magically do anything to your career. Instead, what are your goals and how will and MBA help you achieve those.