Is the MBA worth all the work experience and hard work?

I have the experience of knowing a number of engineers that got an MBA. In my opinion, the MBA ruined them. I’ve taken a couple business courses but steered away from an MBA because I believe that a business should be sustainable and it is not necessary to have a continuous growth. I also don’t believe in treating my fellow workers as commodities.

I have seen guys go from extremely talented engineers to unrepentant bureaucrats who can lay off people because of short term drop in orders. In fact, they laid off people for as little as two days, just to save a little money.

Don’t get an MBA, get a degree that allows human compassion and room for personal growth.

According to those that receive an MBA: yes.’

“The 2012 Alumni Perspectives Survey, which is based on opinion polls of 4,135 MBA alumni, including 963 members of the Class of 2011, found that three out of four alumni of the class of 2011 with jobs report they could not have obtained their job without their graduate management education. Meantime, four out of five graduates (82%) in the Class of 2011 said their salary met or exceeded their expectations.”

Poets and Quants

Before you invest the time (and money!) required for a traditional MBA, I recommend that you buy and read The Personal MBA, by Josh Kaufman, and then see how you feel about it.

I don’t know about MBAs, but my old roomie is an actuary-in-training. That is, she is out of school and employed, and is now completing the final phase of the years-long on-the-job training that life insurance companies require of their actuaries. She is very happy with her job, as are most actuaries – it is said to be the career with the highest overall satisfaction rate in the US due to salary and work options. However, it’s no cakewalk to get or keep the job. She had to do tons of advanced math all the time, and freaked out for months leading up to each of her many exams.

Actuaries are always in demand. Actuarial science is a very challenging subject to study, and the certification exams are brutal. How often do you meet an actuary at a party or while standing in a movie queue? Actuaries form a rare breed with highly specialized knowledge and skills.

During the past couple of decades, universities discovered that MBA programs are cash cows. Students believe that they’ll land fabulous jobs, and become very wealthy, after they have the degree; many don’t hesitate to go deeply into debt and pay hefty tuition and fees. Schools that didn’t have MBA programs added them; schools that already had programs expanded them to accept more students. There’s a glut of MBA graduates out there.

No. There are already too many MBAs preaching shareholder value and cost cutting. What we need is scientists, engineers and good teachers.