Since many people are doing very well on Blind, I wanted to reach out for some advice about different career paths I'm considering. I've been in management consulting and now in tech - operations and looking to decide what graduate school and career path I should pursue. I've been admitted to U Chicago comp sci program and an M7 MBA program. The idea is the comp sci program would lead me into product management (did business undergrad) and the M7 MBA would be lead me into I-Banking. I've always appreciated hard work and don't mind putting in the hours. I'm ultimately trying to maximize salary, health, and opportunity. what career path do you think is better (banking or PM)? Thanks for your help! TC: 180K #finance #banking #tech #mba #product
Go MBA. That’ll get you into PM or Banking MSc will only get you into PM
honestly, every PM I talked to in the bay told me to go get a technical degree, but I appreciate the feedback.
Which way are you leaning
I always hear people say networking as the key value but it would be awesome if anyone can elaborate on what that means. Does it mean the friends you make in business school? Does it means you can meet people on LinkedIn and people will respond because of similar business school? Also, if anyone has example on how their business school network helped them would be amazing.
All of that and more: recruiting, mentorship, getting financing. Only caveat is that unlike other top schools CBS is skewed towards a particular industry, not sure how is their presence in tech. Also, you don't really need a CS masters for PM roles, if that's your end goal - try to transition internally or find a PM role in another company.
CBS
Undergrad wasn't a target school for IB. I should have networked harder but honestly didn't even understand IB until I started working with bankers in consulting.
I had a friend who did MCs at UChicago and he said he wasn’t all that impressed with the Booth kids 😂
But in all seriousness, CBS network is all across the states, and you’ll spend the next 2 years having fun and *hopefully* traveling around the world. MCs might be more studying for the same job outcome, and more subdued Chicago social scene due to intense winters
MCs don't get to interact with Booth much, so not sure where he got that impression.
Do both?
Thinking of adding an evening mba to the masters from Chicago.
I did a top 10 MBA > product management at Amazon > product management at Facebook. No technical background. Tech and banking are basically on the opposite ends of the spectrum but an MBA could set you up to do either.
That's really interesting. Did you feel that not having a technical degree would hold you back from PM gigs?
I’ll probably never be able to get a PM role at Google as they have a technical round, but other than that, not at all. PMs need to learn how to ask the right questions and understand enough to call BS when they have to.
You should speak extensively with people in both jobs, process what you hear, filter the bs / false championing people might do, and make an informed decision. Also think about where each career track might take you in 10 yrs, and whether you’re someone who will succeed in that situation. Personally, I think one should only do IB if they plan to exit to the buy side and make their money there. Product offers a very different set of challenges and opportunities.
Product will offer more variance in TC (likely, your pay will be based on the performance of the product you are aligned to, and that alignment is probably not very fluid) However, IBanking will likely pay you more and with lower variance, but the hours are brutal, so health will suffer. I'd say go with the MBA as it provides many different career paths, but try to learn programming and computer science concepts on the side (maybe some side projects)
Computer Science not even a question...
If you don’t mind , what makes me you say so ? Did you do MSCS ?
It's all about the network.