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What is the Value of an MBA to a Techie?
Kengineer asks: "I've heard a lot of hype about techies with MBA's being in high demand. I'm an Engineer who does validation for a Voice over IP company, and before that I coded software projects for a controls automation company. I am considering returning to school to seek an MBA, so I'd like to hear from those of you 'dotters who already have buisness degrees, and your post-MBA experiences."
BS == bullshit
MS == more shit
PhD == Piled high deep in shit
MBA == my shit doesn't stink cause I is so smart.
In my experience people with degrees of any kind, especially MBA's are unwilling to listen to anyone else if they do not have a high level degree. Making dumb decisions etc etc, they just are not very smart when it comes to real world things.
Surveys have shown that an MBA from anything other than the first tier schools (harvard, stanford, u chicago, etc) is not worth it as far as money is concerned. Coming out from an MBA program from a second tier school, you won't see an increase at all in your salary. Why not invest in a graduate degree that teaches you something other than how to bullshit and smooch?
Not always so. There's a techie in our region here that is the most in-demand guy out here. This is a very large company too (hint: "we're the dot in dot com") He's also the oldest one. I think that thought process of "you have to get rid of older techies" is only true for companies that value image more than results. Part of it might be that older techies get more complacent and tend to "rest on their laurels" more than younger counterparts. All I know is that in this company, if you know your $#!+ you're VERY well taken care of... no matter how old (or young, in my case) you are, what you look like, etc...
In the current economic environment, the MBA is not a good idea for a techie person. If you are both a savvy and knowledgeable executive and a good technician, how can you know which kind of work you are out of? When you send a resume for a management job, they will pitch it, because you are just a techie. When you send a resume for a tech job, they will pitch it because you couldn't cut it as a techie and you decided to become a manager. I've been there. This really happens.
I have had an MBA for about 4 years now. Why did I get it? You can't beat 'em if they won't listen to you. An MBA tends to get you listened to by upper management. I'm a relatively hard-core techie (example: I wrote my own compiler for a made up language in assembler). I found out after being hired at my current job as an Ops Manager that the company would not even have considered me if I hadn't had an MBA. It doesn't really matter where the MBA comes from. My MBA is definitely not from an Ivy League School. The magic happens when you combine the business double-talk with a technical degree.
I did an MBA full time, 1989-1991. It was probably the most fun-filled 2 years of my life, doing more than 600 business cases. Why? Because I got to solve more than 600 real business problems.
But, from a career perspective, it was one of the worst moves I ever made. I was at the bleeding edge of applications systems development when I started the MBA and I was almost a generation behind when I graduated.
I had planned to use my MBA to transition out of systems and into manufacturing management. Turns out, most graduates get hired, not for what they've studied, but based upon what they did BEFORE they entered the MBA program.
So, be very sure of why you are doing your MBA, before you apply. And, a week before you start, re-evalutate the situation. Are your reasons still valid, or have circumstances changed?
A degree in CompSci helps but it's not a prerequisite for an upper-level job in a tech firm. I have an MBA, and employers have never been too concerned with what I did in my first degree.
Gee, firing someone for expressing truthful opinions doesn't seem like a great way to run a group. Outlook is insecure. As long as he's getting work done, who cares what he's using to run his laptop with? And I'm about as far from a linuxista as you'll get - I use MS products almost exclusively. If your underlings are smart, now they're going to tell you exactly what you want to hear, and the smartest of them will be polishing their resumes and talking to other companies, while telling you exactly what you want to hear. Eventually, you'll get the employees you deserve.
If I was going to fire someone, it would be over things related to incompetence. If someone is checking in buggy code, and not fixing it, that's good grounds to drop kick someone out the door. And an interview should have pointed that out to you right away. Did you do your due diligence?
Good managers use their powers mostly indirectly. They also pick good people from the beginning, and not only get out of their way, but run interference for them. Good managers, like good programmers, though, are often hard to find.
The degree has to be *relevant*. An MBA may not be relevant for this person.
I went to college. A good one too, or so people, the U, and the media is rather fond of telling me (U of Chicago). I got honors in both the college (overall coursework) and my concentration.
And let me tell you--it's a damn letdown that you find you blew 4 years from the prime of your life for a piece of paper, learning what others tell you, when you could have spent more time learning and applying than staying up to 2 in the morning because you couldn't find a freed up laundry machine in the dorm's basement.
A college degree does not show you are smarter, anymore than a professional degree does. I know several people that didn't go to college until they were in their 30s, and then when they did, they whooped some serious ass against the young ones. A degree simply shows that you may have more technical knowledge in a field, something an employer or higher education may find necessary or appealing. People find degrees comforting, a validation of themself or for someone else. I'd rather hunt for the person that knows what they are doing, not a piece of paper.
Anyways, the reason for this rant is to point out that those getting MBAs going into a technical field is because it gives them a leg up. Degrees are the social equivalent of an arms race. Who has the highest degree wins. Like MDs who get their MPHs (Masters in Public Health). Or JDs (lawyers) who want to work with hospital administrators getting jointly their HSMP degrees (Health Science Management Programs). It separates you from the field, gives you an extra degree of notice. If enough people do it, at some point, you cannot get a job unless you have the extra education. It doesn't matter if it's relevant or necessary to the job, it's simply that the base expectation has risen.
I am a firm believer that education is always good, but at some point, you have to realize that higher education has a signficant private component--it is also a money-generating machinery who'd love EVERYONE to pay them $25,000 a year for each of their 2-4 year degree programs (and sometimes get returns for the cheap labor and intellectual property that you give them). Raise the standard, they make more money.
Not to mention that with the proliferation of degrees, some people may become simply sensitized to them. Years ago, an MD/PhD holder was rare, now it's difficult not to run into one. Further, consider the divide that's created--really only the upper middle class has the need and reserves to drive for multiple degrees. Where does that leave the poorer individuals that don't have the cash reserves that mommy and daddy will leave them or support them (e.g. rent/food) while in school? Not all schools have the grants to pay the student to attend; students pay them now.
and we know that
Time=Money
And going further, since:
MBA = Time x Money
therefore:
MBA = Money x Money = (Money)^2
and because money is the root of all evil:
Money = SQR(Evil)
Therefore:
MBA = (SQR(Evil))^2
We can conclude:
MBA = Evil
Amazingly, the same applies to women.
An MBA IS NOT FOR PEOPLE WITH BUSINESS DEGREES ALREADY. I hate the morons I went to school with that got a bus admin degree then went back to take the exact same classes to get a mba. When I worked at Arthur Andersen those with BBA's and MBA's started at the exact same position.
A MBA was created for Engineers and CS types that are ignorant of actual business methods. I've worked with many CS people at a Mortgage company I did a conversion for and they couldnt understand the system they were trying to program. This is where an MBA comes in handy (as well as advancement in companies)
I'm a PhD myself, and so I can't really speak from personal experience on this topic. But a few of my friends are MBAs, and the best reason I've heard is from one of my female friends. This may not be very politically correct, but it is important to a lot of people.
She said that she got her MBA from a top school to have flexibility in her life going forward. Management isn't yet a science or even a vibrant craft that advances rapidly. The training that people receive in an MBA program isn't something that goes out of date very easily. MBAs are also in demand in different sectors of the economy and in all geographic regions. Engineers and scientists do not have that luxury. Our knowledge and skills get out of date quickly without continuous learning and practice.
Her reasoning was that when she got married and had kids, she'd like to be able to take a few years/decade of her life and be able to dedicate them to the hard work of raising her children. But after that, she'd like to be able to serve society in some sort of capacity by taking a paid position in a nearby company without having to uproot her family and disrupt her husband's career. She might not be making the big bucks, but at least she wouldn't be starting at rung 0 of the corporate ladder if she had the durable skills that an MBA certifies.
I guess that this reason is a big part of why a seemingly disproportionate number of female engineers decide to get MBAs, rather than "staying in engineering." It may not be relevant to the general Slashdot crowd, but we should keep in mind that other people have different priorities.
Posted by polar_bear:
Not really - He's asking specifically if techies with MBAs are really in high demand and the kind of experience people who already have MBAs have had.
Unfortunately, he doesn't mention where he wants to go from where he is now - if he wants to continue doing the same kind of work he does now, but maybe make a little more, he's probably going the wrong direction. He's more likely to price himself out of jobs. Having too high a degree is sometimes worse than not having one at all.
If he wants to go into management, then he's probably on the right track. Then again, it could be that an MBA is a waste of money - hence, asking for other techies experiences.
Read before you post.
Your post gives very little context about your firing of the "open source zealot", and what little there is seems to indicate that you fired him for daring to dissent publicly, rather than for any actual problem he may have been causing. (What makes this seem espicially so was your comment about how mentioning how things could have been done different should be shunned because it is bad for "morale". That kind of attitude leads to stagnation.)
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
It is the most extreme irony to see a manager complaining about how engineers can have negative productivity. Good lord. Managers founded the very institution of negative productivity.
A bad engineer can slow some companies down. Bad management sinks entire companies every day.
I'll go out on a limb here and suggest that MOST managers are employed, Peter-pricipal-style, above their level of competence. This is not the case with engineers.
Are you really so naieve as to believe that sufficient "quality" can counteract any amount of smooth marketing? One would think that the awareness of the microcomputer market would be sufficient enough to beat that idea out of you.
Your target audience has to at least be saavy enough to recognize quality when they see it.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Actually, a mere 10K doesn't sound that impressive. One can achieve that sort of salary growth (or better) merely by gaining the right sort of experience or completing a vendor certification program.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
...except you didn't dredge up the "rest of the post" that clearly implies that the fellow was a significantly disruptive influence. Not being cowed like some drone from 1984 doesn't count.
Someone that was genuinely disruptive could have been fired without manufacturing an excuse. It's as simple as that.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
It's a bloody corporation, not the Marine Corps.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Quite so. Lawyers that are even eligible to take the patent bar are so rare that you could probably go to just about ANY law school and get ahead this way.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
That extra 10K may or may not positively effect your subseqent "raise level". You're forgetting that your salary wouldn't (shouldn't) remain stagnant if you just stayed in your old technical position.
There are also other methods of achieving a 10K increase in your base salary that don't require spending a significant amount of capital or lost wages.
If you only expect to get a 10K gain out of an MBA, it's simply not worth it.
You would be MUCH better off with the other suggestion that has popped up in this thread: BSCS + JD + Patent Bar.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
> the nice _stable_ GUI that microsoft provides
This is a joke, right?
Besides, "Linux Zealot" doesn't imply the need to interfere with the free will of others. Such obnoxiousness is primarily a Lemming attribute.
Linux: because no company that pushed MS-DOS until 1995 deserves to live.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
What is a "Harvard equivalent"? Just curious...
cbd.
I did a four year commerce degree in one of Canada's best Commerce programs, Dean's honour list, blah blah blah.
I decided I didn't want to manage consumer products at P&G (or whatever) and spent another two years getting my Computing and Information Science degree, Dean's honour list, blah blah blah.
Now I work as a hardcore software developer, just over 5 years, 2.5 companies later. It's what I've always wanted to do; it's what I'm really good at.
My Commerce degree gives me a good understanding of what's going on. What does that mean? It means in most cases I have had more formal business training than upper management has. It means I understand why they are screwing up. I'm still powerless to do anything about it.
And I'm still paid horribly.
I should move to the U.S. and quadruple my salary (after taxes etc.).
--
Marc A. Lepage (aka SEGV)
--
Marc A. Lepage
Software Developer
"If technical people were involved in the 'strategy discussions' 2 years ago, the dot-com thing wouldn't have been nearly as disasterous." Speaking as an old-timer programmer (both in the applications field and in the UNIX-kernel field) and as a person that is currently in a management position and finishing up my MBA: The problem was that the "techies" were selling their wild-eyed dreams (without any clue how business reality looks like [which an MBA would have given them a hint about]) to PHB's with MBA's (that didn't have any clue what the techies were talking about, except when adviced by likewise enthusiastic hired techies (which didn't ....)).
I'm a programmer (since 20 years), I still program (C, C++, tcl/tk, etc.), but I'm also a manager that has to say NO to braindead ideas that self-styled geeks has sold to ignorant MBA-only PHBs. An MBA coupled with solid IT skills, allows you to understand why you don't want to standardise on Win-NT (it sucks technically and the TCO can easily be beat by other solutions) while at the same time understand why you would pour money into MSFT on the Nasdaq (consistently beating earnings per share projections and a solid gearing).
Regards
Roland B.
-- Roland Buresund MBA, MCMI, CISSP
"What is a "Harvard equivalent"? Just curious... "
Business Week or Wall Street Journal top 20 MBA list. Actually, Harvard hasn't been on top of any of those lists for quite a while.
Now, I am NOT commenting here on the value of an MBA, nor trying to reopen the discussion of the value of learning something vs. having a piece of paper that says you have learned it (although both Competitive Strategy and Labor Economics courses discuss why this seemingly "stupid" behaviour is quite rational).
I AM saying that if you are going to sell your soul to the dark side, it is best to sell it to one of the top ten on those two lists. And again, Labor Economics can help you understand why.
sPh
Not necessarily a bad point, but people still talk about "the Cadillac of x" or "as good as a VAX", even though Cadillac hasn't been a leader in engineering, quality, or sales for 30 years, nor DEC for 20. It's just a culturally-recognized shorthand, like kleenex.
sPh
"I'm considering an MBA or equivalent form of buisness education myself. Why? Because, as any truly aspring techie does, I want to work for -myself"
Based on my experience (MBA from a Harvard equivalent), if you want to work for yourself you would be better off to take a few semesters of Intro Accounting (so you understand the finance lingo) and Business Law at a local community college, then just go start your business.
MBAs are more useful for working in established organizations, or stepping in to provide adult supervision once the person with the new idea/startup drive hits the wall in terms of organization and management.
MBAs don't much help with having the idea or (dare I say it) the entrepreneural spark.
sPh
(wish I had time to write a 2 page essay on this)
That depends on your view of work and organizational behaviour. If you truely believe in the creed of the Second Dilbert Era (that is, Dilberts penned after Scott Adams left his day job):
* All "managers" are idiots
* Resource allocation and setting priorities are useless functions
* All problems have one correct answers
* Per the second and third points, project management and conflict resolution are just political wastes of time
* Marketing departments are only good as sources of dating prospects
then you won't find much use in an MBA. Similarly, if it is very important to you to stay current with a detailed technical speciality (say router network design), you will have a very hard time finding a management job that lets you do that.
If you are interested in learning more about how and why organizations are structured, why people behave as they do, and how to handle resource allocation and project management, then an MBA could be useful to you. Or if you would like to catch up on some of the non-engineering techncial skills, such as financial theory.
However, based on many years of observing technical people and managers, I think there are very few techies who are really interested in, or would really like, jobs in management.
sPh
Practical experience and knowledge versus "This is the way it was written in the Lieberman-Dostoyevsky-Chou book!"
--
Never hit your grandmother with a shovel, for it leaves a bad impression on her mind...
In my experience, MBA programs teach some very dangerous things.
The bigest of these is that you do not have understand the process that you are managing.
If management is the process of making decisions about a project and allocating resources to complete that project, then you have to have some rational understanding of what is involved in that project. (Otherwise you can be replaced by a random number generator. Probably with better results.)
What happens with managers who do not have that requisite clue is that they make decisions based on "other criteria". (Things like "how good of an ad does the vendor have", "The product the airline magazine recommended", or "which one had the prettier marketing rep".)
Harvard MBAs are the worst of the lot. They are the ones who seem to have started the trend that clueless managers are a good thing.
And heaven forbid that you actually work for a company run by someone who taught in the MBA program! (*cough*NCD*cough*) It is guarenteed that they will drive your company into the ground.
Dilbert exists because this style of "management" has become the accepted norm.
Management has been used as a place to put all of those oxygen-robbing morons who had the fortune to be born to a good family, but not the brains to go into a trade that would really require actual thought. (Like criminal lawyer (redundant, I know), oilwell salesman, or brothel owner.)
And it seems the less you know about the business and what it does, the higher you will rise in the company.
Makes you wonder just how American businesses survive at all. (And judging by the dot-coms, we have our answer...)
"Trademarks are the heraldry of the new feudalism."
The worst part about going to the business side is the lobotomy :-)
Having an MBA from a well-known business school is a significant helper in getting a start-up business funded...for reasons including prestige and old-boys/girls-network.
Of course, getting funding for a start-up is getting pretty tough, MBA or not.
An MBA doesn't mean you're hot stuff - it shows that you at least have a half a clue about how business works. Without actual management experience, it is not worth much. But add to it management experience, and building a successful team, and you've got something.
Okay, I admit, I am a geek.
And yes, okay, I also admit that I love money.
But if I have to be truthful to myself, not everything I do, I do for money.
I have a Master degree in Computer Engineering, and I have just gotten my MBA degree.
The first degree I got, I got it because I was too deep into the computer stuffs - really addicted - and I might as well get something for the time and effort that I have invested in the field.
And about the MBA I got - I got it not solely because of money, but rather, - I got it because I realize that being a geek may be cool, but sometimes, I need to have the ability to look at things not only from the geek standpoint.
In other words, I may be able to come up with a cool software/tech project, but if I don't have the ability to gauge what the market wants, my time/effort for that project will ultimately NOT be fully utilize by the society at large.
If I do something, I might rather do something that will be used by more people than myself, right?
If so, why don't I gain the ability to see what the market at large wants, and then do something that will be acceptable for them - maybe, at the same time, help them (whoever use the product) in their daily lives.
That is why I got my MBA - to see the world from a DIFFERENT point of view.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
How very true.
Not everything can be solved by technological mean. There are things that can be solved with the combination of tech-savvy, and the understanding of business process / market trend.
For those who don't agree with me, remember that old Ford story - that story of Ford Edsel ?
See how well that car was accepted by the society?
There are lots of tech/software projects in existence today can be categorized as Ford Edsels, - yes, they may be technologically wonderful, and yes, they can do something good for the society, IF the society accepts them - but because of the lack of understanding of what the world wants, and the lack of business acuments, most of these projects end up either complete failures, or not be able to be completed in the first place.
For instance, that Nautilus project - true, it's something that is REALLY good for Gnome/open-source, but because of the LACK of understanding of how business should be run, the company which produced Nautilus went under.
It's just lucky for us that Nautilus was, from the start, an open-source project. That saved Nautilus from being left languished in legal abyss and never see the light of day.
But today, Nautilus is not faired too well either, look at how it is being maintained, after the demise of the company which produced it?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Nothing is overkill, if what you learn from the course will do you good.
MBA in itself is not an overkill for me. Perhaps it's an overkill for someone else who has a better brain - I am really stupid, you see? - but sure enough, the training I got through my MBA study has enabled me to see things from MORE than one viewpoint.
Things I do today is different form what I did before I got my MBA - that is, before I start a project, I will try to get a more comprehensive view of the WORTH of the project I am to deal with, and if I find that the outcome of the project (even if it is successful) is not market worthy - that is, nobody will want to use it - then, I will have two options -
1. Cancel the project, or
2. Try to find ways to ENHANCE that project so that it will have more chance of being accepted by the market.
I think that many software and/or tech projects in existence today can really benefitted by people who have better understanding of market acceptance, and they (the developers of the projects) should consult those marketers and see what they can do to enhance their projects in order to increase its VALUE.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Okay, I admit, I am a geek.
And yes, okay, I also admit that I love money.
But if I have to be truthful to myself, not everything I do, I do for money. And not everything I do, I do for the "management" reason.
I have a Master degree in Computer Engineering, and I have just gotten my MBA degree.
The first degree I got, I got it because I was too deep into the computer stuffs - really addicted - and I might as well get something for the time and effort that I have invested in the field.
And about the MBA I got - I got it not solely because of money, but rather, - I got it because I realize that being a geek may be cool, but sometimes, I need to have the ability to look at things not only from the geek standpoint.
In other words, I may be able to come up with a cool software/tech project, but if I don't have the ability to gauge what the market wants, my time/effort for that project will ultimately NOT be fully utilize by the society at large.
If I do something, I might rather do something that will be used by more people than myself, right?
If so, why don't I gain the ability to see what the market at large wants, and then do something that will be acceptable for them - maybe, at the same time, help them (whoever use the product) in their daily lives.
That is why I got my MBA - to see the world from a DIFFERENT point of view.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
I'm an (ex-)techie who's in the third (and final) year of a distance learning MBA from the UK's Open University. For the last 21 months or so, I've been in management - working in Product Management on the interface between the engineers and the real world.
I decided to take an MBA for a number of reasons. Basically, I'd come to the realisation that although I was a competent software engineer, I was never going to excel at it. I was self-taught, and not driven or brilliant enough to make it to the excellence in engineering. I was also getting frustrated with being told "put this in, take this out" by managers who I really didn't reckon had a clue _why_ they were saying what they were saying. So, I took the plunge, and decided to take a broader view - which meant moving into management.
Of course, I could have moved into management without going with an MBA - good software companies are always keen to find people who can talk to techies and customers - but I was very aware that I really didn't have the frameworks to talk to people outside the discipline in which I'd trained. How do marketing people look at the world? How do finance people calculate future gains? What about HR, Operations, Strategy? I'm genuinely interested to make a difference to the business I'm in, and knowing how it works, and how different types of people think it works, can only help.
So, I'm taking an MBA, and I have to say that it's been very useful. I _can_ see the wider picture, but at the same time, I'm still in a position to talk to the tech folks and, I hope, retain their respect. They know that I've been there, and despite their ragging that I've moved into Marketing, at least I can appreciate their point of view, which can be very helpful.
Conclusions? As a "straight techy", I'm not sure how useful an MBA would have been to me, but as a manager who thinks tech, it has been, and continues to be, absolutely invaluable. Think about why you might do it, and what you might gain, and if it makes sense for you, and you have the time and resources to apply yourself, then go for it.
I have a math degree and a finance-econometrics MBA (with honors) and more than a few years in the field. My experience is that other than attempting to get hired out of school to a Big5 consulting company then it has little if any value unless you are SERIOUSLY considering working in IT for only a few years and have set your sights in Sr. Management, VC's or tech law.
The point is that we work in an industry that does not typically value advanced non technical degrees - unless - and this is a narrow use of it - to specifically get into a Big5 consulting hiring program which is specifically targetted at those people. If you get into a program like that then EVERYONE will have an MBA so it's pretty much just a door opener and a wash
When I started in engineering, I noticed that engineering managers were often either ignored or
misunderstood in meeting with the marketing, finance, and other "business" types. I started an
MBA (finance), mostly as a vocabulary exercise that would allow me use the terms that the
business types would be able to hear, when I became a manager.
I later discovered that I had no desire to (or talent) to manage, and never finished the MBA,
but the vocabulary has still come in handy since I work as a "hired gun".
If the MBA has 5+ years of experience as a programmer, then the answer is "yes."
I can't speak to the business-degree thing specifically, but I've been coding for over ten years, and managed engineering teams of a dozen-plus at several different companies. I can tell you that the respect I got from "my" programmers was significantly more than was accorded to people in my position who didn't have that sort of time in the trenches.
spawn_of_yog_sothoth
- Have a high proportion of headcount in engineering.
- Have a CTO with a lot of de facto power--ideally a founder.
- Have marketing and biz-dev organisations that demonstrate a deep understanding of the relevant technologies.
- Keep the hiring/interview process for engineers within the engineering department as much as possible, with the bulk of the interviews given by midlevel-to-senior peers.
That paints a reasonably accurate picture of most of the companies I've worked for in the last five years. Some of those have succeeded and some haven't--but the ones that failed didn't fail because of technological insufficiency. If you value individual and collective self-respect, that's an important thing.spawn_of_yog_sothoth
I agree that the degree is no substitute for experience. Heck, people hire me and I hire based on experience. A degree should never be used to judge competence.
However, the MBA is a source of knowledge. I eventually will be going back to college and getting one, just so that I can see where I still have holes in my knowledge.
Getting the MBA is like a study guide, it tries to prepare you, but you understand that it isn't going to give you the "real" questions that you will be asked. When I started, I had very little understanding about what was on the test.
Still the more education you get the more prepared you can be.
If you spend a couple of years preparing, ie not getting a degree but actually examining the course material and planning, you are definately going to have an easier time than the guy that jumps in with both feet.
So I agree with you that a degree is no guarentee, it's just tipping things into your favor so that you have a reference when you start getting experience.
Lando
/* TODO: Spawn child process, interest child in technology, have child write a new sig */
For what it's worth. I've been running my own businesses off and on over the last 10 years. I've been learning business through the school of hard knocks. A couple of months ago I had to lay off a majority of my staff, relocate the business and dump some problem customers. So I am definately still learning. We are back in the black again, but have a debt load that has to be repaid before expanding again.
Many times along the road I have had problems that I did not forsee, that in retrospect were pretty obvious. A MBA may not teach you everything you need to know about running a business, managing, etc. But it should help you to see where the gaps in your knowledge are before you hit them rather than in retrospect...
My first business went out of business because I made a simple mistake on a contract. I screwed up because I simply didn't realize some basic business principles. With my current business, I have jumped into the water blind again, though I have learned a great deal.
Anyway, my point is that with a MBA in order to reach the point I am now probably would have taken 2-4 years rather than the 10 years that I have so far invested. You will be exposed to a larger divercity of problems and resolutions, which will help you avoid costly mistakes in advance rather than having to deal with them retro-actively.
My advice if you plan on pursuing a management job, thinking about starting your own business, or something similiar, is to get the MBA.
Lando
/* TODO: Spawn child process, interest child in technology, have child write a new sig */
I've heard you get an average of $10,000 more a year with an MBA.
And of course it's much easier to move into a management position if you have an MBA.
Otherwise, when a programmer reaches a certain age, he/she gets kicked in the proverbial nuts and sent on their way. (Or so I've read)
With 25 years experience as a developer, I'm just now finishing my MS. Despite all my reservations, I've learned a lot. It was worth it.
Man, you are just pathetic.
Sorry if my original post gave you the wrong impression.
No, I believe it gave the correct impression. 1) a company that hires you I will run from, because it is going down 2) you have a serious problem, consider getting professional counselling
--
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
There are many fields in the business community that require an MBA to even land the job, never mind having a reasonable chance of getting ahead. For instance, to: become a venture capitalist with a well respected firm, make partner (or MD) at a respectable investment banking firm, land an upepr management position at (most) large corporations, CFO at mid-to-upper level corporations, etc, etc, etc.
Anyways, I have a degree in Finance and I'm seriously considering getting an MBA, and not because I love school [I happen to think that much of it is redundant, unnecessary, or flaky]. Stupid? Hardly. Maybe if you want to work in a staff position your entire life it's fine, but for many of the better paying / more rewarding jobs out there, it's extremely helpful.
I've been researching the same topic for teh last year. I have an undergrad degree in architectural engineering. but after school I worked in a tech job for two years, writing technical docs, doing customer support. now I work in architecture. everyone I've talked to insists that given my field expereince, and a non business background an MBA would be ideal. I have also had ppl say just stick with yoru guns and work hard enough. but the reality of the situation is there is a ceiling in every career, and most of the ppl that have been my superior have been MBA's I think it is understood that technical, hands on ppl are not good managers, they are good programmers or engineers but that does not necessarily mean that they have managment skills. having an MBA proves this and pretty much catapults anyone to a managerial level.
no, you don't need formal education to start a company. You don't even need experience.all you need is the $100 or so that so many companies in delaware will charge you to incorporate in their state. But that doesn't guarentee you'll succeed.
Comparing your experience from 3 years ago to today is mostly useless. Money was free back then, everyone was eager to find the next big thing, and you barely had to say that you knew anything but "computers" in order to get a decent job.
Well, it wasn't that easy. But lets' see you take that $700 today and turn it into $30,000 in your checking account a year from now. No offense, but it's different times...
What I'd be curious is to know how valuable it would
be compared to an MA/MS in Econ. Yes, I know they're not
the same thing... just curious if anyone has any
ancetdotal or actual info about salaries, employability...
Or what about something closer to running a business,
like Operations Research?
--
Tweet, tweet.
Egad. An MBA that incorporates econometrics? Where,
:)
pray tell, did you get this?
My biggest problem with an MBA is that I fear it's
not going to quantitative enough. My undergrad is Math.
I added the Math Ed option for the heck of it and found
the glittering generalities that pass for curriculum
in teacher training to be either self evident or suspect. I'm worried that
MBA curriculum would be much the same way.
Bu combine a serious examination of financial markets and hard quantitative analysis and I could get interested.
--
Tweet, tweet.
To further the previous post I feel that there is such thing as 'business sense'. Basically when you work for a number of companies, and you haven't been locked in the dark room, you get a general feeling to how to manage things, because you see what things work and what don't and since most techie tend to analyse the stuff they are doing they apply this same thing to what they see of management.
The only problem with an MBA is that it doesn't teach you how to react to things that aren't in figures. I am sure most successful entrapaneurs have a good grasp of the job they are doing and will take certain actions inspite of what the figures say. One example is Pokemon. Pokemon is something that shouldn't have worked according to most business analysts, but Nintendo seemed to see something that figures weren't revealing and went ahead anyhow.
I must admit one thing that gets me about the MBA is all that writing and math. Although I am not good at math, I have what I would call a feeling to what the result should be, and I am sure that there are a fair few people share this ability - sometimes its simply a matter of relaxing and letting your brain's natural calculator work for you.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
There are two different types of motivation I have seen in this area. 1) A person is trying to get into management. 2) A person is trying to get management to listen.A pure techie is often believed to be 100% business ignorant. The MBA gives the same creds that techie certifications. It mains you knew enough to take and pass tests, but is not proof that you will cut it in the real stuff.
In a place beyond time and space, in a land far better than this, look for me there...
And I'm putting doo-doo in your socks! So there!
From your comment, I'm assuming you think a requirements document that employs the words "paradigm shift" and "quality oriented" and "customer centric" is an informative one?
Either that, or it was another of your trolls.
Sometimes I can't tell where you stand - but your posts are always exciting!
The things I enjoy in my job are delivering solutions that work to customers that have cash. Anything that gets in the way of that I destroy.
How bully for you. I have many friends who make TON of money at companies that make a TON of money peddling shoddy products to people that have lots of cash by convincing them that their product works well enough to keep them from jumping ship to a competitor.
How? By having managers more concerned with single source lockin, rabid copyright and IP hoarding, armies of lawyers, and a minimal underpaid (and underqualified) engineering staff.
For your information, while the management team is perfectly happy, and the CEO is flying around in his corporate jet, the rest of the company just does barely enough to stay employed to get their next paycheck.
Sorry if my original post gave you the wrong impression.
What, that you are a deluded, narcissistic, shallow, greedy, concieted prick who enjoys putting down other people by stifling their creativity all while making sure you are surrounded by people who don't make you feel insecure and stupid?
No, that came through fine the first time.
What is the Value of a Techie to an MBA?
The only reason all cover-ups appear to fail is that you never hear about the ones that succeed.
*snore*
Yeah, duh, bad managers cause problems, and so do bad engineers. I do both, and know that very well. Just leave it at that and move on... this petty us-vs-them bullshit is a big part of the problem.
-Ed
A techie with an additonal MBA has more value than a BBA with an additional MBA. If your ambitions are to end up in the higher management echelons of the organisations where you want to work, MBA is the way to go. An MBA will provide you with the understanding of the business issues, while your technical background helps you to analyse and manage complexity.
-- Spelling and grammar errors tend to be a sign of erroneous thinking.
As has been indicated, YMMV. The MBA program I attended (most definately not a 'Harvard equivalent') had instructors who did or, rather, would, spend time discussing various issues of importance to the entrepreneur. Finding investment money, business plans, etc. Sure, all of that can be found in most any MBA program, but the instructors I had were willing to tailor the discussion to entrepreneuers.
So, as with any education, the degree doesn't matter, but the school, the classes, and the instructors do matter.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Here is a little excercise. Get your basic finance book. Any finance book will have this info.
Look at the cost of the MBA. Now figure out the FMV of the money (it's in the finance book if you don't know). Now, take that same amount of money, and figure the FMV invested at... 8% (or some other figure that you think you could invest money at today).
Now, for the really fun part. Do the same, but figure in the salary differentials. Lower your salary for the next 2-3 years to compensate for time spent in school. But raise it for the year immediately afterward and into the future.
Take all of these things together, and see where you will be better off in 5, 10, 20 years. (ie, invest the money you would spend on education in the stock market, or spend it and get the ROI)
Having done this, you are an accountant. Decide if the money and career change are worth the time lost to family. Now you are a businessman.
go forth grasshopper...
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Follow along with your slide-rule kiddies...
Since we know that
Knowlege=Power
and we know that
Time=Money
we can go back to high school to get
Work=Power/Time
Substituting variables we get
Work=Knowledge/Money
Now solving for Money we get
Money=Knowledge/Work
This tells us that the more you know, the more money you will make, but you must keep work to an absolute minimum to increase profits. As every MBA will tell you, skip the MBA and enjoy being a low-paid hard worker that knows nothing. It just means less work and more money for them!
(Shamelessly paraphrased from Dilbert's Salary Theorem)
LOAD "SIG",8,1
LOADING...
READY.
RUN
An MBA will teach you the basics of how to hack organisations. Little things, like whether the head of development reports to the CTO or CEO, can make a big difference to how the organisation performs. Getting hundreds of people moving in the same direction is a non-trivial challenge.
I'm taking a Masters with my employer. Its labelled an "MSc", but the content has a lot of MBA-type stuff in it as well. I keep coming across senior managers in my work who think in MBA rather than Hacker, and I need to know how to talk to them. If I could talk to the animals, learn their languages, what a neat achievement that would be... (with apologies to Rex Harrison).
Paul.
You are lost in a twisty maze of little standards, all different.
we can go back to high school to get Work=Power/Time.
Maybe you need to refresh yourself with high school physics, because:
Work = Power * Time. This derives:
Work = Knowledge * Money (this should be intuitive), and:
Money = Work / Knowledge
I'm not sure what comical conclusions can be derived from the last formula.
Do you want to go into middle and upper management? If you find that gratifying, and that is your long-term goal, then yes, an MBA from the right school will help you out tremendously. It is possible to get into upper mgt without an MBA, but the odds are against you. Notice I said MBA from the right school, and not just MBA. An MBA from a state university is not going to buy you much compared with what an MBA from Hahvahd will get you. Sort of like law schools, I guess.
If your goal is to write the next generation optimizing compiler or device driver for the set-top box that hasn't hit the market yet, an MBA will help you about as much as a kick in the crotch, and it will be about as much fun.
Personally, I think the world needs a few less managers and few more people who actually do stuff. But what the world needs and what the world rewards are two very different things...
What do you expect to get out of a MBA? Just more money? There are other routes to doing that. Unless your ambition is to aspire to a top-level executive position in a large, established corporation (haha) then I wouldn't bother with it, unless you want more pretty letters after your name.
I have my engineering degree now, and at this juncture, I can't see going back to school aside from learning something really technical and exotic that required signifigant lab time and resources. If I was to go into business, most of the people here have witnessed how NOT to manage, if you haven't, then you're a lucky soul indeed. Most of that managerial crap can be picked up through reading the textbooks - it REALLY isn't rocket science. The only benefit to doing a MBA will be to make contacts - and again, in a technical field, I'm not sure how valuable those MBA contacts are going to be.
YMMV. The subject pretty much sums up my analysis of (most) MBA's..
..don't panic
If you mostly get a charge out of getting your semicolons in the right place and enjoy bellowing about randomness at every requirements change, skip the MBA. We'll all be happier.
If you have the urge to understand what happens to cause requirements changes, get the MBA. You'll be happier.
If you think the highest goal is to guide systems through long, graceful, and profitable business lifetimes, get the MBA and use it wisely. You'll be happier, those who pay you will be happier, your bank account will be happier.
(signed: BA in CSci + MBA)
"Consider yourself a member of a virtual corporation with Mr. Torvalds as your Chief Executive Officer." - Linux Advocac
I think I am going to do this http://www.udel.edu/engg/overview/engg-mba.html You get a bachelors in Engineering + an MBa in only 5 years. I think science and business make an excellent combination that will give people a diverse set of skills. I am going to be a freshman this fall so i have a while to decide.
Problem with this discussion is that you dont only get a higher payroll with higher education.
I mean, you spend nine years reading/basic maths. thats not because it takes nine years to learn it. It's because you have to LEARN how to LEARN.
That's also a very important thing in learning, by taking a break and learning something new you also learn alot about yourself.
I often see ignorance around me ( hey! I've been there myself ).
For 6 months ago I thougt I could code Perl, everybody else also thought soo, they asked me questions all day long, I was coding perl for most of my time. I read my o'reilly books, I looked for information on internet, i asked gurus and my knowledge increased.
Until one day, when I realised I did not know much perl at all. I had reached the level where you understand the depth of the topic. before that point I did not even know how MUCH there is about Perl. After learning that I realised that my knowledge about Perl might be around 10% of the whole subject.
This ignorance is only bad, because people THINK they know something very well just because they doesn't know SHIT about it. I have found that people that really knows alot on a topic often are humble about their knowledge because they understand the "whole" about it. They are more intresting in learning new things than bragging about their own knowledge.
It is in fact a piece of paper, just like an MSCE... the diffrence is, an MBA is a membership card into 'the club', whereas an MSCE is simply good for framing or lineing bird cages...
Your choice affects what you will do. Do you like being a tech? Then spend your time being the best you can be. Do you like meetings, buzzwords and ties? An MBA is in your future!
This may look like a joke, but I'm serious. And it isn't intentionally disrespectful to MBAs - I mean they must like that stuff or they wouldn't do it, right? Go with what you like.
I once turned down someone with a PhD in computer science and 20 years experience working for a major aerospace company because they didn't know jack about the job they were applying for. We ended up hiring the self-taught kid and never once regretted it.
The reason why many companies prefer degreed individuals is because a degree is a form of certification. Hiring managers feel that if someone else has certified an individual, they've already screened them. In other words, the hiring manager doesn't have to do as much work.
The problem with this approach is that certification is worthless if it doesn't apply to the job at hand. Hell, I'm certified on Harris 20/20 telephone switches, but that does me absolutely no good if I'm interviewing to become a bank teller. Many hiring managers see degrees as a form of all-encompassing certification. If someone has a degree, then they're automatically better than everyone who doesn't. That attitude is a good way to get burned.
- Milo Hyson
Frankly, it sounds like the guy was trying all along to tell you the project was hosed from the beginning. I've worked on numerous projects that relied on proprietary software (IIS, NT) to work. I know for a fact I could have created the same end result, faster and more robust, with open source software than the other 15 or so developers I worked with combined. Look at your methodology. What is going to make you more money? Something that you have to pay for up front or something you don't have to pay for at all? This is one of my pet peeves, managers that think the end deliverable can only be based on MS (or other...) products and the client will only buy such. BULLSHIT! If you support your product, who cares what it's based on? Only the VP's and higher, who Ms markets to, knowing full well that us techies think it's crap (most of us anyway). Please look closer at open source software and listen to your geeks, we know what we're talking about.
Dive Gear
--- Think of it as evolution in action ---
And I can see where a lot of the comments are coming from. I just graduated from University of Texas' Option II program (a top ten weekend program regarded by some as the toughest around), and it has completely changed my view on coding and technology in general.
The fact is that while much of the dotcom disaster was caused by MBA/management types, the technical community has a tough time dealing with the business issues involved in actually running a business. While I often applaud the "scratch an itch" kind of development that seems to be coming out, techies generally don't know how to market their solution, manage the growth of their organization, and make money doing so.
Now, does a techie need to have, say, Cost Accounting, or Business Stats? Probably not, but if you want a fuller vision of the organization as a whole, rather than just the techie piece, then you'll do well with an MBA. If you truly love coding, the MBA probably isn't for you. If you're all about closing the door, putting on some tunes, hacking, and you're happy with that, forget about it.
Over the last couple of years, however, I've developed the opinion that the technology is just the start of the business. With the IP environment that exists, and the inability of companies to defend their competitive advantages, it's difficult to make a case where the best technology wins out. To wit, a company with a solely technical advantage will lose out to a company with a business structure more suited to the market (see OS/2 v. Windows, Netscape v. IE, Notes v. anything). There's a pretty good article on this by Porter in a recent Harvard Business Review. (Strategy and the Internet, March 2001).
If THAT's more what you're interested in, I suspect the MBA will serve you well.
Good luck.
mckwant.
ceci n'est pas un sig.
"I'm considering an MBA or equivalent form of buisness education myself. Why? Because, as any truly aspring techie does, I want to work for -myself"
.02.
Just my 2 cents here, but I started a full class "c" corporation in 1998 after being in college for 1 year 1 semester. We started with $700.00 and a good lead and ended up in our second year with over $30,000.00 in the checking, no dept and had it not been for stupid partners, I would probably still be in it today. Because of them I left the company of my own accord. I'm 22 now, and no one in the company was over the age of 19 when it started. None of us had a "formal" college education, nor do any of us go to school now. Our company was eventually sucked into a much bigger company and that's where it lies now, but point being, you don't have to have an MBA to stat a company, you just have to have lots of common sense, a good salesman, and alot of caffiene for those late night accounting sessions.
just my
Ed.
Ed.
To Be or not to Be.. It's all the same at the end.
Accounting is mind-wrenching -- you won't believe their assumptions -- so need to take 2 courses. You may choose to do a finance course after that, assuming you don't instantly grasp the concept of NPV, and can't re-do the thinking following it in an afternoon or 2. Immediately, begin reading the WSJ and Forbes. (Forbes isn't a big-company view of life, as Business Week is.) Read some of the business-oriented pubs in your technical area, and you will soon know as much as the great majority of MBAs. Marketing is a great game requiring deep understanding, IMHO, but very few people actually grasp the essentials, and so I assume it can't be taught. Don't have advice here. As an alternative to the MBA, go start a company. You will lose $ the first time, but you can plan so this is less than the cost of a Harvard MBA, and you will learn much more of relevance. Lew
"The Constitution, the WHOLE Constitution, and nothing but the CONSTITUTION."
Probably because those successful companies were started by people with really great ideas... when you have a good idea, and have enthusiasm, and can insite that in others, you're going to have a good business :) (probably :)
Even while subscribing the creed you described, it might be worthwhile to do an MBA and move into management. There are enough people just playing along with the management bullshit even though they don't believe in it, only in order to maximize income and career perspective. Kind of like a sect leader that is deceiving his followers for his own purposes.
Now on to education. BA Management. BS Computer Science. And an MBA (no emphasis, but Marketing is more my focus than Finance.) I've started three businesses, have worked for three multinationals (Philips, HP, Reuters) and even worked for the United Nations for 8 years, building secure Internet infrastructure. I now own and run a small business, doing consulting and building web sites for fun and profit (http://www.lanifex.com) in Vienna, Austria.
What have I learned from my MBA? Well, lots of great stuff. Finance of course. Marketing, especially Global focus. Strategy, analysis, HR, communications, etc. And from all this stuff, I've distilled three things that matter:
- Life-long learning is an attitude.
- It's the people that matter.
- It's not all in books
Bottom line: if you're willing to put in the effort, an MBA is certainly a good thing to acquire for geeks, or even non-geeks. But remember it's the journey that matters, and what you learn and how you change along the way, and not the certificate at the end. Never, ever stop learning, until the Harrower calls time -- and even then, you might learn something new!Start learning, and never stop. It doesn't really matter whether you study for an MBA, or Origami, but keep learning. You'll improve your own life, and that of the people around you.
When you do a classroom MBA (which I did) you make a lot of great contacts. These are the people who will help you in future business. Cherish them.
You can learn some theory from the books, but the best way to learn is by trying things, and see what works for you. Leadership is innate, although you can learn a few tricks.
--
Paul Gillingwater
Paul Gillingwater
MBA, CISSP, CISM
From your comment, I get the impression that you think someone expressing their opinion/being strongly biased and opinionated is a bad thing. You're write, most secretaries would flip if they didn't see those lovely clowds when they turn on their computer. But at the same time, to use your logic on you, some jobs are better suited for different tools, like, say, programming in Linux?
Now, if the guy really was unproductive (or negatively productive, as I gather from the first reply by sllort) then he should be fired, from the business aspect of things. But, like I said, if the guy was trying to help the company by offering his expertise and opinion (which doesn't sound like the case) and he was fired for that, I see that as nothing other than stifling creativity and originality in the employees.
---
Linux: The world's best text-adventure game.
If the only reason you like your management job is so you can fire passionate employees, I either say you can have your damn management job, or I hope to God I can get a management position to keep another guy like you from taking charge.
---
Linux: The world's best text-adventure game.
Here's a good article from Monster.com entitled "MBA's for Techies" that should help.
http://technology.monster.com/articles/mbas/
The world needs more business people with a technical background (Master of Science & Master of Business Administration). Businesses would be more likely to succeed if this were the case.
Far too often, you have technical people that can't understand why management makes the decisions they do. (Why are you cutting the R&D budget but doubling marketings?) It's quite possible that in return, management just plain doesn't understand what the techies do.
First, let's look at management's viewpoint. It's easy to understand marketing, to see how much profit a dollar spent on advertising will return (if we advertise in Playgoat magazine, people will flock to our door with money!). But put a dollar into R&D so that Fred the Engineer can get a 21" monitor to replace his perfectly good 14" monitor (What a waste!)? At this point, the profitability is more inderect and abstract. To management, it looks like a dollar down the toilet. The management just can't comprehend that the larger monitor may mean getting the product out to market a month earlier, ahead of the competition, and certainly more profit to the corporation than the cost of the monitor. The R&D manager is looking toward his quarterly report, when he has to report to his bosses how much his department cost, and how much it returned. Typically, it's very difficult for R&D to claim credit for profits. Besides, managers are looking to keep costs down, so they will get a nice fat bonus check.
OK, now let's consider the techie's perspective. The techie takes pride in his work, and really doesn't want the customer to get a shoddy product, no matter how long it takes to finish. *Bug Free* is every engineer's goal. The techie, unfortunately, is out of touch with how people act & react, how they purchase things and what they are willing to sacrifice & accept, and out of touch with the marketing department. He can't see that for each increment of improved quality, the cost for that increment is greater than the increment before (think of a hyperbola in the (-x,y) quadrant, where x=0 is perfection and y=0 is free). At some point, bugginess becomes acceptable because the cost of perfection is too high.
Someone with both a business and a technical education (not just background, but education) is considerably more valuable, because he or she will be able to balance the needs of the engineers with the needs of the company in order to maximize profits. I say education in addition to background, because while you may be exposed to both fields in your work, the education teaches you accepted methods of doing the paperwork, interacting with others, and general business practices. (Disclaimer: I have the background, but not the education *and I feel it*)
Oh yeah, and clothes really do make the man. Dressing for success should be a required college course.
~webmoth
P.S.-- A note on bugginess: In the parabola I mention above, "perfection" is practically impossible to reach, because the cost approaches infinity as quality approaches perfection. You might disagree with this, but you must consider all the factors.
Consider the program "Hello World" and all its variants. It's something every programmer learns, and can be done in one line of code (or less). While you may say that it can be coded bug-free, remember how many other pieces of software and hardware it must interact with. One of those may *not* be bug free, causing "Hello World" to crash your system, fry your computer, put a sudden, large drain on the power grid, resulting in a nuclear meltdown which kills half The Planet. "Hello World" will be blamed for it!
Give me my freedom, and I'll take care of my own security, thank you.
In the parabola I mention above...
I meant hyperbola. Nothing makes an error more glaring than the "submit" button!
Give me my freedom, and I'll take care of my own security, thank you.
From experience (BSEE + MBA):
An MBA is a great idea IF...
You are willing to make a career change...
if you stay a techie, you will have wasted the opportunity.
You WANT to do business...
you must enjoy the thrills of business.
An MBA is Valuable for (in order)...
The contacts you make AND keep,
The reputation of your school,
What you learn from observation and experience once your business vision is focussed,
What they teach you.
Techies make great MBA students for the first year, then get lost when numerical skills and linear thinking become less important.
In the few jobs I've had (the couple during college, and my current position after graduation), I have noticed that you are more valuable if you can perform multiple roles. The way the economy is going right now, I am sure that most companies (including mine) want people who can adapt to business needs.
I have been considering a MBA lately. I have been thinking that being a techie w/a MBA could open doors in the future that I cannot think of right now, especially if my interests change (which is highly likely, considering I'm only 23). The only thing that is causing me *not* to jump right in and get my MBA is that I am not sure if I want the commitment of work and night school.
That's all... just wanted to say that I agreed
I can see your point; however, the world will never change unless we get some techies to become managers. I have worked for a few people who truly understand the nature of a software project. There are many managers who think that building software is like buying a piece of hardware or something... They do not understand the intricasies of the design and build process.... However, working for those managers that do understand the process is truly rewarding.
I would assert that if there more techies who did become managers, then our view of managers may change.
Just my $0.02...
This is true, however MBA or other advanced degree is still a readily available advanced degree for all undergraduate types. I just got mine ('01) and I have a BSBA in Marketing for undergraduate.
Anyway, relax. Breathe. MBAs are virtually useless for people coming straight out of undergrad, but they are very valuable to people who have been in teh workforce for some time. I was out of school for 9 years before going back for my MBA and I have been told by companies that they view my particular experience with the MBA as far more valuable than otherwise. In otherwords, the people starting at Anderson with BBAs and MBAs were more thabn likely people without real world experience. But, put two identical people together - one w/ 10 years industry experience and another w/ 10 years industry experience and an MBA and who do you think will get the second interview? You bet - the MBA -- mostly because it shows perseverance, drive, commitment, ability to handle multiple priorities etc. Even better is when you can demonstrate you ability to handle work, school and a family (as I have) - people are impressed.
Then again, geeks should stay coding and forget about advancement into the management ranks. You'll hate it. Leave it up to us MBAs with hobbyist experience to lead your projects!
This post brought to you by your friendly neighborhood MBA.
MBA is at *most* an 18 month full-time commitment. For me, as a business undergrad, it took me 3 years part time - 5 courses per year (2 per semester, 1 in the summer).
The current recommendation for PhD is 3 - 4 years full time. I am currently researching a part-time PHd program, and the miniumum is 4 years. (University of Phoenix)
This post brought to you by your friendly neighborhood MBA.
Of course, most, but not all, open source (including Apache) can be compiled for Windoze as well.
Besides, as a vendor, the customer is paying you not only for the product, but for the expertise and experience you (or your company) bring to the table. Otherwise, they'd be buying something off the shelf and doing it themselves.
It never hurts to back up and look at the business reasons early in the project. Many times, by paying attention to the ins and outs of the business at hand, a techie can see a better way of doing things that will end up saving money, being easier to support, cost less to maintain, or all of the above.
A person that lives in the woods never sees anything but the trees.
The following is a paid advertisment....
Sig??? I don't need no stinkin Sig!
there is no thing
what else could you want?
haha. whoever has moderator points, mod up the post below this one (currently at score 0); it's hilarious ;).
- j
it's true that if you get into a postion where your MBA would be useful you'll do less technical work, that's absolutely true. if you absolutely love geeking out then it really wouldn't be your thing. however you shouldn't fall into the assumption that the only thing you can do as an MBA is to go into management. there are lots of other career options for business people! you can do marketing for technical products, technical sales, strategic marketing or business development.
sure you may have some people under you in many cases, but if you're the director of business development of a medium-sized tech company it's very plausible that you'd work on your own to develop strategic partnerships for your company and report directly to the CEO. management is nowhere in this equation. there's much more to business than just management, but most slashdot geeks don't seem interested enough to leave their cubicles for 10 seconds to learn the alternatives. that's fine if you're not interested, but please don't spread complete nonsense to those that might want to learn what an MBA can really provide.
- j
an aside: it's quite apparent that many slashdot users could really benefit from aquiring some business knowledge simply by the way marketing people are regarded by most people here. ;)
but anyhow, if you have any aspirations of getting out of a generic cubicle job, your best bet is to learn a little about business. while experience is great, ultimately you need a starting point and that's what a good MBA can provide. it'll give you the fundamental knoweldge of how finance, marketing, sales and business development work, and hopefully a base that you can apply to your learning on the job.
having a technical degree is useful, but if you can pull off both a technical degree and have an MBA you'll be absolutely golden. if you're one of those people who can be techincally-minded and yet convey your thoughts easily to others then you may really enjoy taking an MBA as well as learning a lot from the experience. engineering is great, but ultimately it takes the business infrastructure to market and sell a product. of course, to do this properly those in sales and marketing have to have a good understanding of the technology they're pushing or you get the "clueless marketroid" symptom so often discussed here slashdot. this is where techies with MBAs come in, and there's a real need for this.
from a personal perspective, if you're the type of techinical person that also love to interact with other people then ultimately you'd be very happy taking an MBA. i personally work in marketing at a semiconductor company that produces microprocessor companion chips for the embedded market. i get to work on some interesting geek projects, such as working with embedded Linux, but i also get included in the strategic product roadmap, sales, and partnership aspects of the company. personally i much prefer this to the ASIC design or coding that i was doing in previous jobs, and of course none of this would be possible without some kind of knowledge of business.
many will say that you can get into these kinds of positions without any formal business training, but i'd argue that the MBA is still extremely important. in addition to giving you basic knowledge and the piece of paper to prove it, the most important thing that many people ignore is that a lot of business is about building relationships with other people. to that end, i can't stress enough how important it is to go to a proper business school! the people you meet during your MBA may very well be some of the best business contacts you ever meet in your life.
all in all i'd say that if you think you'd enjoy the work, go get an MBA. it's an extremely useful carreer move, especially for the technically minded.
- j
I agree with your assessment, I spent 6 years in an engineering program and then took a job where I was lucky enough to manage a large system integration project. It was a hell of a lot harder than I thought it would be.. But it was fascinating to work at a level where I actually had a lot of control over the destiny of my project -- not just be a cog in the machine designing amplifier circuits or writing code. Gave me a whole different outlook. I learned about the importance of good communication, presentation, and people skills.. Things they don't emphasize in engineering classes. In the projects I worked on, I had to manage budgets, play referee, and all sorts of things I never thought I'd do.
I realized there was more to engineering than just writing code and designing circuits. Keeping yourself focused on engineering cuts you off from a whole other world.. I think an MBA may be helpful to provide insight into how the world works outside of engineering, because as an engineer who sits behind a desk who lose perspective. Having the alternate perspective is invaluable..
As for the opportunity to fire the "open source zealot".. Don't shoot the messenger.. Let's not forget that Outlook is insecure and many open source products are excellent. Don't forget that because the guy annoys you.
If you get an MBA, either you want to run a business of your own, or want to become a manager of someone elses business. Both concepts suck-ass. Do you have an interest in computers, programming, hardware, etc or in payroll, accounts rec, taxes, dumb employees, moronic customers?
I don't have any interest in BS, so I don't have any desire to run my own business. Too many things I either dont care about or even would hate to have to deal with.
The nice thing about working with computers is they are interesting and it is highly skilled trade. You can get a very nice salary, etc. Jobs are quick and easy. I can involve myself as much as I desire. 9-5'er or become totally absorbed by the work. You are not stuck in any place you dont want to be.
However, if you leave the technical side, you will become not a knowledge worker, but someone who's value is in how well they manage, push papers, ride employee's asses. Quickly your skills drop away, technology moves on. You become a DOS3.0 guy in a windows2000 world. You are dependent on networking, not cat5 or frame relay, but suck-up skills, being a company-man, BS. Death. And eventually there is a cut in middle management, and they you are an old grey guy with no humor and few skills. Woe be unto you if you follow this path.
Oh but of course you, unlike 99.9999% of the planet, have only the brightest Bill Gatesian-style future ahead of you. Nothing can go wrong.
The current Slashdot moderation system is made by gay communists!
Now, an MBA from a top program is a different animal. At those programs, you will be in the program with career executives needing the MBA for the next level, people changing careers after a reasonable degree of success, and people coming from well-known companies out of a pre-MBA job (the grunts in consulting firms, investment banking, etc).
I think that that's an unfair assessment. I work in systems administration, and I'm currently getting my MBA at a local college via night school. I find that, like my undergraduate experience, the classroom discussions are the richest part of my education right now (which is one of the major reasons why I don't think online education programs are worth very much, but that's another topic...). I'm only in my third semester, and it's pretty rewarding so far. Could I have learned it all from reading books for two years? Well, you can't exactly debate a book to help you get at a kernel of truth about a subject. Nor will a book give you the perspectives of your classmates, who come from a wide variety of industries.
I'm meeting a lot of folk who may not be senior management, but but are middle managers with ambition. Ok, so the fruitful networking opportunites aren't as abundant as they would be at an ivy-league school, but there ARE people in my class who will be CEO's, CFO's, CIO's, etc; just not as many. It's up to you to identify who the movers and shakers are and stick to them like glue.
Sure, I may not be able to command the starting salary of a Harvard grad when I finish; but then again, I' won't have to spend 15 years paying for it, either.
If want to move out of the basement and into management, and you can afford to go full-time for two years to a top-tier school, then by all means, do it. However, an MBA from a good local school and a lot of ambition will take you pretty far, too; don't sell it short.
Just goes to show, there's no substitute for common sense, no matter what your educational background is.
Also goes to show that a lot of B-school grads dove head-first into the "New Economy" with hardly any understanding of the underlying technology.
For most people who are working for someone else (i.e., not self-employed), I would imagine that the whole point of getting an MBA is to move out of the hands-on tech stuff.
After all, if you get your MBA, and you remain a staff programmer, then it really hasn't benefitted you, has it?
The local branch of the state college here has 3 electives in their MBA program focused on IT management. If all you want is to manage other programmers, it would make more sense to just sign up for a class or two, not to enroll in a degree program.
As a techie, you will learn the basics of business, and economics. This will cover all areas like Marketing/sales, Finance and Accounting, operations, Human Resources, etc. Primarily though, what you will learn,is that despite what you have believed since becoming a techie, and despite what other techies have told you, the other people in the company are not all idiots. You will eventaully come to respect the level of knowledge and complexity that many other jobs in a company require. You will be able to then have a 10,000 foot view from which you can see techie jobs, as they relate to an organization, and even to the economy as a whole. I say go for it, it will change the way you think!
Master of Business Administration
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
good luck in dotcom 2.0
Actually, I would argue that business experience will make you a better coder, but with a caveat I will mention in a second. How many times, while in the thick of coding, have you had an idea strike for the product itself? In a smaller work environment where your ideas will be heard and not buried under administrativa or the sheer bulk of your organization, your newfound knowledge may lead to better, more refined products in the long term. Of course, if you keep up the good work for long you will eventually sprout that pointy head.
I'm sorry, but you sound exactly like the Dilbert manager...
The value of a bit-twiddling sock-puppet with business skills is obvious. You can interface with your little plastic box AND interface with the commerce game. Your value as a corporate component has just increased geometrically. Like a prostitute who can take 6 penises at the same time; it's a skillset in demand. I imagine cog of such caliber would warrent the executive-grade KY at the very least.
I am an independent consultant (a DBA / data modeler / architect by trade). Before that I had, IMHO, way too many jobs - corporate, vendor and large-firm consulting. What my MBA has gotten me career-wise is flexibility - if I wanted to get a management spot, the degree paved the way; if I wanted a high-level technical spot, the technical certifications I've achieved got me the time of day for an interview. That's all the piece of paper means in the workplace. You can self-teach the subject matter easily enough (that's what grad school mostly is anyway); if you can get into a top-ten B-school your income will certainly go up; but most important is that your resume will have a better chance of catching a hiring manager's eye. After that it's all up to you, anyway. Oh, there is one other thing - your selection of women will improve. They figure a graduate degree shows ambition. But then, wrenching your abs into a six-pack will probably do the same thing...
The "skills" from an MBA are pretty trivial. You could pick them up from about two dozen books in less than the two years for an MBA program. A non top-tier MBA program will also teach these. You can go to the local university and learn these skills. If you want to go into business for yourself, learning accounting, etc., will be helpful.
Now, an MBA from a top program is a different animal. At those programs, you will be in the program with career executives needing the MBA for the next level, people changing careers after a reasonable degree of success, and people coming from well-known companies out of a pre-MBA job (the grunts in consulting firms, investment banking, etc).
Can you learn this all from business by paying attention? Probably not. Say you spend 5 years in business, you have your experiences. At an MBA program, you are involved with other people with DIFFERENT experiences. You exchange knowledge and learn as a result.
MBA programs aren't like engineering schools. Sleeping through classes and reading the book (my approach, sadly, as an undergrad) won't help you get anything out of the program. If you want the "degree" this may be all you need, but you won't have benefited from it.
These programs focus on networking and shared experiences. When you go out for drinks with your classmates at HBS (Harvard Business School), Sloan (MIT's b-school), Wharton (Penn's), etc., you are also meeting people with a wide range of connections. If you do a good job of keeping in touch (which is a prerequisite for business in general) you have a varied group of people to contact.
Someone that codes all day in the company they joined at 15 and dropped out of high school for won't have these advantages. I know plenty of people that can code circles around MIT CS grads that don't have a high school degree. However, if they need to find someone that knows about the steel industry for a proposal for a contract job, they don't have their friend in Pittsburgh that is a VP at a large Steel company to pick their brains.
An MBA is very different from more traditional educational experiences. If you want it, you should know what you are investing time in. If you want to take accounting and finance classes, go take four classes locally and save a fortune.
Regards,
Alex
It's funny how you presume that his advice was good.
I was just wondering if you have looked into the MBAs with emphesis in E-Commerce or even masters of business/ e-commerce. Some of these then to combine the technical aspects, along with the business aspects of the whole new internet thing that academica is just finding out about. Some of the ones that I know about are MIT, Carnage Melon, and Creighton (where I am... you just can get a job in Omaha). Ya might want to check these out, some of them look like they might be a better bet.
Actually I think a degree in cs is sort of a minus for the job, just like in physics or math. Why get a degree in moving fertilizer? Come to think of it our company has fired every single linux geek that came in. I hink the problem was they had too many opinions and just didn't listen to people when they said they liked things the way they were. I like the nice stable GUI that microsoft provides. I like getting my software update via the web autonmatically instead of having to click windows update. I'm not sure how they do it in linux, but all those libraries and system utility versions that people keep on talking about and compiling can't be good. Those people like to do things by typing in windows. What's the point when you can just click?
Take this personaility test.
The education you get will allow you to converse easily with accountants, marketeers and HR people. This is sometimes a surprisingly useful skill.
Note those lines, and read them carefully! They warn you the very essense of MBA's - You end up as a manager. We all know how horrible mannagers are - they were not (all) born that way, the education and work experience turned them into assholes! It takes an unusually sever case of masochism to knowingly choose that road, especially if you already are moving in a better technical direction!
In Murphy We Turst
Power = Work / Time
Substituting the first two equations, we get:
Money = Work / Knowledge
Thus proving that the less you know, the more you will make.
I'm going to live forever or die trying.
MBA programs offer a lot of different opportunities. For example, the courses cover accounting, organizational politics, marketing, negotiation, etc.
If you obtain a position where you need to be able to read a balance sheet, motivate employees, build credibility with higher management, negotiate, yada, yada, you can learn valuable things in the MBA program and apply them to your job. (If you think such things are irrelevant to techies, consider that if techies were better armed to deal with organization politics, the space shuttle Challenger might never have exploded.)
Apart from MBA-defined career tracks, such as investment banking, most of the opinions I have heard prefer a weekend/evening MBA program where you improve skills called upon for either the job you have or the promotion you want.
Therefore, you are probably better off asking yourself where you want to go, and then seeing if an MBA program supplies the missing elements. You can do the cost-benefit analysis as to whether the improvement in career track is worth the time and expense you would have to invest.
IQ tests are meant to be centered around 100, I believe. So yes, an average person taking an IQ test from 1950 might score 110 (what I've heard is 3 points per decade since 1900, mainly due to less lead paint), but someone taking a new IQ test would still score 100.
The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
Now then, if you're smart, it can help you. Not too much, more than anything else you'll just benefit from having the certificate, but you will learn things. And it will help you get promoted. Up to you whether it's worth it...
The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
It seems that companies are starting to realize that people with an MBA don't neccesarily have what it takes to run a technical company. A pure MBA has no idea how to estimate programming timelines and costs, hardware deployment, so they woul dhave no idea where to cut costs and where to put extra time/money. Bad products result, adn companies go under.
...Time is the best teacher, unfortunately it kills all of its students.
10,000 is not worth the 64,000 + 2 years the MBA will cost you.
For instance here in Germany you get paid to do Masters work in Computer Science (Informatik), so it's really worth it. Consider internationalizing yourself and getting away from overpriced education in the US. Yes, they have English programs here too.
-
more to the point, companies are looking for people who can fill multiple positions; an engineer with business sense, a graphic designer with a coding background ...
because there tends to be so much cross-over in online business companies that can find a jack-of-all trades type of employee can easily save them the cost of trying to select individual employees that then have to constantly collaborate to succeed.
_f
Let's see, I have a CS degree, I have 4 years of professional programming and almost 13 years of programming experience in total. As a coder - there is no use for your business degree. As a person - the more you know in life, the better you understand what is going on around you. As a contractor software architect - I find myself more and more involved into business analysis, understanding what is the client's business and what benefit do I and my team provide, understanding the requirements of client's business better than the clients themselves (thus forseing various traps in future design and development and hopefully builing better systems.) That's it.
You can't handle the truth.
I expect that I'm like a majority of the /. readership; I found high school to be a breeze and I struggled through college because I hated dealing with all the bureaucracy and being forced to spend money on classes that I had no interest in taking (gee... that mandatory class on how to use Lotus 1-2-3 and the history of urban planning was so useful). So after four years of university, three quarters shy of a diploma, I left to see what the world was like.
I found that the world was a lot of fun. I made a shitload of money for a 23 year old and found myself moving up the ladder (sometimes by switching companies) of the IT profession. Eventually, I was promoted to be the head of an IS department in a small start-up and the position was what I felt was my ideal job. I had all the technical knowledge I needed for the job (Thank you O'Reilly!), but I suddenly found that I had three employees working for me. I doubt I could have been much worse as a manager. I knew that returning to university was probably a good place to figure out how to effectively motivate and co-ordinate people.
While working full time, I went to San Jose State to pick up a few classes and get me closer toward a Bachelor's in IS. When I could see the light at the end of the tunnel (two quarters to go!) and I'd saved up enough money, I quit my job, moved back to the town I went to university in originally, and finished off my degree. At the same time, I enrolled in the (not nationally acclaimed) MBA program.
The first year of the MBA program was somewhat useful. I took classes in Economics, Finance, Organizational Behavior, Business Law, Accounting, etc. The second year was made entirely of elective classes, where I focused on Organizational Behavior/Design and Finance. I studied corporate leaders to learn a few tricks and I learned how to gauge whether a project would be profitable or not considering the time value of money. I was even offered a one-quarter position to teach a class in computer networking where I got to learn how to communicate information effectively.
When I graduated with my MBA, I was anxious to get back to doing what I loved: working with technology. I was hired as a Technical Marketing Manager where many of the things I learned from my MBA program are utilized. The important thing is that what I use was mostly not learned from reading the textbooks, it was learned from digesting the information and thinking about ways that I could improve the process.
As I said: getting my MBA has been very useful for me. I feel personally enriched because I now feel comfortable managing a staff of employees. I've had employees tell me I'm the best manager they've ever had, and I have one of the most successful on-time project co-ordination records I know of (comparing to the other managers at my present and previous employers). The important thing is that I did not go back to get my MBA to become a better employee; I got the degree for my own betterment.
--
What are your career goals?
I frankly didn't think that programming and working as a cog in a technical position would be very challenging. Sure I would be pushing the edge of technology, but I wouldn't have the chance to make decisions about the direction of my organization/business, and certainly nobody would listen to me on issues outside of IT. That's why I got into consulting. My reasons for going to business school are much different.
What your career prospects will be: Approximately 80% of MBA students change employers after graduation. This reflects another aspect of business-school, the proximity to new ideas. Certainly going to MIT will allow me to help nurture new technologies into potentially successful new businesses, and help me build some great connections. Youre choice of school should depend on what type of options you'd like to open.
Upwards of 60% of all graduates go into consulting or investment banking. These two careers certainly offer the most money (at least 100K for most firms), but also offer an exciting diversity of work. Most consulting firms will give you exposure to a variety of challenges and industries for a couple of years before you're pressured to specialize. The issues you face in i-banking are a bit more specialized and high-stress, and the MBA helps to reduce the risk that you'll screw up in a major way.
What you'll get out of the experience: What you'll get will be 2 years of working with the largest concentration of the smartest and most passionate people you've ever met. The people at my company are pretty cool, not especially techies, but very smart in there respective diverse fields. My future classmates (met several already) are simply that, and in addition are actively thinking about starting new businesses and making an impact on society. You've really got to check whether the student culture to the school that you're going to matches what you're expecting. Some other poster mentioned this, but it deserves repeating: you'll thrive in b-school if you're proactive, have a natural tendancy to lead or organize, can lead with your heart, and can think through diverse problems well. It /really/ helps to have as much work experience, especially in management, and possible. You will not enjoy your time if you're in it for the salary bump or you simply want fast track access to to middle management.
You will probably never touch production code ever again if you graduate from business school. If you're fine with this, and want to tackle some other challenges, then great. If you want to continue coding, then I'd just concentrate on improving my coding skills. On the other hand, your chances of leading a business project that requires IT, which in turn needs responsible project managers to lead a team that can deliver quality code, in time and on budget will be much increased.
Lots of dilbert-wannabe's on this topic are moaning that an MBA will turn you into a PHB. This is simply bull, and unfortunately, probably comes from never having worked with a good manager. An MBA represents 2 years of education, project work, internships, and working in teams in high-stress but low-risk situations. It prepares you to be a good manager, and tries to nuture good leadership. You can be a jacka$$ PHB regardless of the degree, but the chances that you'll survive b-school to begin with are much reduced. It really depends on you, and how much you want to lead rather than follow. All my opinion of course...
- panurach.patiwat@bcg.com
if you're looking to get a technical MBA, come check out Northeastern. i'm an undergrad CS major there, and the program is really strong... our tech MBA program (collaboration btw. college of computer science and college of business) has been rated the best in the country a couple times... besides, boston's a fun city...
-----
09
The MBA gives the same creds that techie certifications. It mains you knew enough to take and pass tests, but is not proof that you will cut it in the real stuff.
I don't want to start a certification/degree vs. experience debate here. But, an MBA from a top tier business school actually gives you hands on experience to help you make the cut. Sure, some people will slip though, but an MBA is much better than just taking a few tests. It is like a two year long hands-on project course.
First, IANAMBA ;) but, I think the question you might want to ask yourself is, what career path would you like to follow? I have seen zero evidence that MBA training can do anything for your coding prowess. In fact, I could see that some recruiters might be led to question your value "Why did you get an MBA? Wouldn't MSCS have been more appropriate?" However, as a team leader, or when working directly with customers, your MBA may prove valuable in understanding the underlying business needs and thus allow you to provide a better product.
On the other hand, I would say those people I've met in management with an MBA who also have even a little technical savvy, can not only be more effective in dealing with technical people in their company, but are also more likely to be well-regarded, higher-paid, and in general, listened-to/valued.
These people looked deep into my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined.
so why are all of the (mis)managers that I've come across completely clueless about technology, buisness, social skills etc etc.
Most people with MBA did them because they couldn't manage but wished they could.
Once they had the qualification, they were still just as incompetant, the only difference was that now someone gives the a job doing it.
MBA are simply the ultimate one-of-us qualifications. If you run a company and want a good manager, take someone who's got the brains to understand the technical details, a modicum of 'people skills' and get him doing the job wether he wants to or not (preferably with a big pay increase.)
I was a UNIX developer in the 1980s. Moved into mgmt (remained technical) and then pursued my MBA in 1990-92 while working. Got away from programming, but stayed on top of using computers and the technology as best as possible. Now I am a technical industry analyst (more technical than most of my comrades I would say).
An MBA is not an avenue to pursue if you want to remain a top notch programmer. The MBA degree covers a vast amount of territory which in itself can be quite technical (economics, financial, market theory, etc...) but has little to do with programming. If, OTOH, you want to be a technically knowledgeable senior manager, it could help and give you an edge seeking executive, venture, wall street or industry analyst jobs. Keep in mind technical knowledge is important in these jobs, programming skill is not, and knowledge of the "market" and people skills are paramount.
Good luck....
Aide: Grant drinks too much to command an army. Lincoln: Find out what he drinks and give it to my other generals!
Ok... This reminds me of a Futurama episode. Fry decides to enroll at Mars University, and his roommate is a monkey that the Professor has designed a hat for to make him super-intelligent. At the end, the hat gets damaged, and the monkey becomes much less intelligent than before... It goes like this:
I modded the Troll Investigation and I got
It also let you see the bigger picture within the company as a whole. How will this upgrade effect the bottom line. It see it more for a IT manager, overkill for the IT grunt not aspiring for upper management.
Actually, I think it works out even better. This means if you are dumb as dirt (Knowledge ==> 0) your money will approach infinity. Thus, PHBs.
If you work in a large company then it is possible to get the company to pay for your MBA. In fact I am doing precisely this. They're even paying for my books. It's a pretty sweet deal. So my total expenditure is zero. The classes are interesting and a nice change from software design. After a couple of years when I finish I will get a promotion or a raise.
This really depends on the program you are talking about.
Once you get away from the Ivy Leagues many smaller, not-as-well-known MBA programs actually give you real experience in business. You learn to make decisions which reduce risk even in situations where there are no numbers involved. For example, you learn to move in small-steps, which reduces risk. This is a general principle which has no requirement of numbers.
Experience Dotcom Mayhem
If you work in a large company then it is possible to get the company to pay for your MBA. In fact I am doing precisely this. They're even paying for my books. It's a pretty sweet deal. So my total expenditure is zero. The classes are interesting and a nice change from software design. After a couple of years when I finish I will get a promotion or a raise.
We've (geeks) always known the intelligence level of the average MBA holder, now, with everything going down the tubes, maybe the rest of society will figure it out.
"See, we plan ahead! That way, we never have to do anything now."
The gist of the report was that if it came from one of the top (5 or 10) schools, then there was a slight advantage (salary-wise) after 5 or 10 years, compared to people who entered the field without an MBA at the same time the degree program started. If the degree came from anywhere else, there was actually a benefit to not spending the time getting the degree -- the experience more than made up for the extra letters. (The monetary cost of the degree was also accounted for, in addition to the time cost.)
So, some of the suggestions to just take a few key classes at a local college might be a good idea. Unless your local college/U happens to have a top-ranked business school!
You still don't really answer the question. Was the Open Source guy just a complainer trying to inform you that the solution proposed sucked, that worked hard anyways to deliver a product on time that he knew was going to be crappy because "there's no way to make a silk purse from a sow's ear"?
If so, so what? You should take the good advice in stride. If you have to deliver crap, then fine, just tell him "I'm considering your ideas but the client doesn't want anything else". Sure he'll probably still bitch and whine, but only to himself. Now if his productivity is still good, big deal. If not, well, that's the real reason to get rid of him -- not because he likes Open Source.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
An MBA is a skill set, a set of connections, and (to a certain extent) a way of looking at the world through a particular point of view. Entrepreneurship is a burning desire to build something new. They aren't opposite skill sets.
Certain MBA programs, e.g. MIT's (disclaimer: I'm currently at MIT's Sloan School of Management), can expose you to as much of the business environment around entrepreneurship as you want so that you can develop the skills to deal with VCs, patent attorneys, market analysts, companies who want to acquire you, etc. An MBA program also exposes you to business fundamentals like accounting, organizational theory, strategy, etc. so that you can develop an effective business plan--or at least know enough to recognize when your business plan goes wrong and how to fix it.
I agree with your assessment that the degree doesn't have anything to do with the spark. But I think the NASDAQ has already suffered enough from an overdose of people with good ideas and not enough business skills to build good businesses around them.
It ain't just insecure, it's unusable!
But seriously...
If you're supposed to be a manager, give me a firm set of requirements up front and access to the customer(s) or get out of my way!
You put the words "technologically innovative", and "easy-to-use" in my requirements, and I'll be putting the words "resume" and "job-searching" on my website.
IF.....you realize that the value is in the thought process. An MBA will give you the accounting, OB, stuff that the academics like......but.....the different thought process and the concept that a really cool idea is not destined to Make Money is the real value. Want to not waste that VC money - get an MBA.....
And he'll be putting the words "arrogant, uncooperative assmunch" in your reference.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
If your idea of logic is exemplified by "I know for a fact I could have", then I wouldn't want you working on any project of mine.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
let me preface my remarks by saying I work in the industry (marketing MBAs). That said, I think the MBA gives YOU control over your career, and is a degree designed for management. Thus if you want to run an organization, or at least be responsible for making some macro-level decisions, it is a worthy degree. It will not guarantee success, and there are clearly successful managers w/out the degree, but it will increase your skill set and prepare you for management. It basically offers three value propositions: technical skills (fundamentals in business subjects) networks (businesses are increasingly driven by ppl networked together) brand (once you have an MBA its a seal of approval as it were, and the particular school you attend also represents a brand) Be careful, there are many types of MBA degrees, and some will serve you better than others. Cheers, Alex
Observe:
Linux is free = Linux is available at no cost
I'll just hack Apache = I'll leverage prior efforts and decrease our time to market.
Kiss my ass = I think you should reprioritize my primary action items.
etc. If you know how they talk, you can understand how they think, and use thta to your advantage. But beware the dark side. Pretty soon you might say something like "I believe this solution will allow us to leverage our synergies across markets!" ...and actually mean it.
Actually, I'm not sure if it's a smart question, but what value does an MBA bring to a small to mid-sized business?
To phase it another way, what skills does an MBA bring to a business that require college in the first place. Given enough practice I can probably figure out how to tie a tie, but they must do something more valuable than that ;)
I recognize the value of good management, but is it something that can be taught?
Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.
I have to differ, and severly, on your last point - "...an overdose of people with good ideas and not enough business skills..." -- it's just dramatically wrong. The last couple years have been rife with young MBA graduates building businesses either copycat or trivial. Ambitious Wharton grads flew out here to SF to sell pet sweaters online, and get 8 digits of VC money to try... Most knew little to nothing of the technical details or the history&trends of net usage, and thus couldn't discern statistically valid numbers from fantasy (thus rendering their training on feasibility/rink analysis worthless). I think the last few years have made very clear that a company based on a trivial idea and staffed by MBAs with the ability to fleece VCs through multiple rounds will inevitably fail; whereas a company built on a solid technical innovation and staffed by scuffy hackers with years of experience in their space and rudimentary business knowledge has at least a fighting chance of survival. The latter company may be less efficient than the former, but stands in good stead to make revenue, which the former does not.
...and it's my job to make you do your job...
---
Several years ago, I aquired my technical background in the US Navy. After my enlistment, I got my degree in accounting. During this time, the best jobs I could get while going to school were programming and other computer-related jobs (hey, beats working at the mall!) I applied my accounting knowledge in designing various small systems that did accounting work. After graduation, I didn't want to pursue a career in accounting. Long hours, low pay (initially), boring co-workers, and a few other things made the career less attractive to me.
I applied to a graduate business program and got my MBA two years later in finance and MIS. I spent the next 5 years working for different IS firms programming, administering networks and managing projects. Today, I am employed by a fortune 100 company.
The value I provide to the firm I work for lies in the fact that I can bridge the gap between technical and business people. I am NOT the greatest technical talent here, nor do I think business 24/7. There are TONS of technical people that care not a hoot for business and there are TONS of business people who understand NOTHING about technology.
My MBA got me my present position. It wasn't a magic key that got me in the door. I like to think of it as a tool or resource I aquired along the way that enabled me to open the door once I paid my dues by working in the trenches.
Organizations like technical people that are able to see the big picture. For myself, I like seeing and working with the bigger picture. I would like to go into upper management someday. If you don't care to go into management, a business background will help you to understand how to communicate with management. If you can communicate your value to them in THEIR language, it helps you immensely. Likewise, it helps you understand what's going on around you. Does the company have a solid business plan, or doesn't it? What do all those accounting and finance terms and numbers mean? It's a good way to watch your back.
Of course, you don't have to use an MBA as an insurance policy in your professional life. In your personal life, you can use it to evaluate investment opportunities and build your savings more efficiently.
For me, an MBA has been a valuable resource and a good tool.
The trade-off is becoming hands-off for coding, but gaining the ability to do the right thing for the company/department
We lose the good we oft might win
By fearing to attempt
My debut novel AMITY now available: http://jeremydbrooks.c
An MBA means that you'll likely be promoted into a management position; remember, the BA stands for Business Administration.
If management sounds interesting, go for it; if management doesn't sound interesting, then don't go for it. It's mostly about what you want.
In terms of a techie with an MBA and a techie without one, the one with the MBA will generally get better pay, but will work with tech less.
Hope the advice helps!
Devolver's Homepage... more fun than a box of crackerjacks.
Since the so-called Tech Bubble burst last year, many software consultants and other techie types have taken advantage of the downtime to return to school for their MBAs.
Whether or not this is a good move depends largely on the individual's long-term career goals. Most companies will probably see prospective employees holding MBAs as desiring management positions-- which is good, unless (a) you don't want to be a manager, or (b) the company wants to hire a developer, not a developer who really wants to be a manager.
That said, I've been wondering what happens in a couple of years, when all of those MBA-seeking techies start graduating and re-entering the job market with their new certificates.
But
You will very quickly realise that just about every managment fad is lacking an intellectual rigour. You will see through the 2 by 2 matrices and think, but...
Only go for a full MBA course if you really want the type of post that goes with one - otherwise just read the books and think.
Most MBAs tend to focus on very iffy concepts, which don't standup to serious thought, let alone reality. So if you do read the books, make sure you read the 'other' books as well - particularly those that say that you don't really need those people with MBAs in the first place.
I was in IT for 4 years, in a higher education environment, and really didnt have a clue was to why decisions were made. I would go to meetings, watch a project presentation on some kick ass techno-wonder and the project would get scrapped. Why? Standard hard core geek answer "PHB".
I got an MBA in an accellerated program at night school. Was costly but in the end it was worth it. [For the short minded my salary did increase enough to pay for the MBA, no, Im not going to calculate ROI] No I go to meetings and I can pick apart a financial report; I understand project planning; and the best part is, people KNOW I understand this.
So now I can argue against scrapping (or against choosing) a project and its not from a unix weenie, its from an MBA and people will listen. Doesnt mean they will agree still, but you have alot more credibility when you argue NPV and projected rising fixed costs then when you just say ' sucks'.
Now looking back I understand WHY the projects were scrapped, or attempted. I still disagree but I have a fully formed valid argument. So, yes, it has been useful and worth my time. I dont think it particularly matters where you go, unless you are getting out of the techno field. I dont think a Harvard MBA would have done me any more good then the local state university MBA I have.
-Nick
[Disclaimer - standard disclaimers about certification apply; holding a certification (or an MBA) doesnt PROVE you know or master a subject.]
the funny thing about this is that people found your comment funny.
it's scary.
i have been at my first true corporate job for about a year now, and i have witnessed firsthand the doublespeak jargon battles in the management meetings.
though reorganizing my primary action items is new to me, i will not hesitate to appropriate it for the greater good of telling my boss to suck it.
--endcycle--
The article on page 41, for the ComputerWorld magazine (the May 14, 2001) issue discusses this. It pretty much says (with quotes from HR managers and CIO's) that a techie with a dual-degree (B.S. in CS and MBA) would easily garner much more respect and hiring preference for two reasons 1) dedication to gaining personal knowledge and skills and 2) being able to think outside the box (the box being applicable to standard techie thought and the MBA thought)
on how much toilet paper you have left, I guess...
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
However, if you're looking for:
- 2 more years of extensive Excel training - The art of creating daily Powerpoint presentations that make no sense, have a lot of pretty diagrams, and are littered with buzzwords - The secret of how to get paid for spending a day of doing nothing but going to meetings, going to lunch with contractor, and responding to email - A new position steeped in technical ignorance
Go for the MBA
If nothing else it might teach you how to spell business.
What do you want?
Business or engineering?
If you do the MBA, you'll probably get either directly into management, or will in a pretty short time.
IOW if you like to stay in techland, forget it.
If you have had enough of technical details, try the MBA.
If you are in it for the money only, choose also MBA.
Some of the people I started the study with did MBA, I didn't. And in retrospect, I'm happy I didn't.
But it worked out pretty well for them too.
In virtually every company I've worked for the developers scorned the sales, marketing, and exec people for making the wrong decisions for the wrong reasons, and the developers inevitably paid the price in unpaid overtime, cranky customers, and irate stockholders. Now, MBA in hand, you will get to make those decisions and your developers will conclude that, unlike every other MBA they've seen, you're making the right decisions for the right reasons. No, really.
Careers should combine three things: what you can do, what you want to do, and what you can get paid for.
I thought most, if not all, graduate business schools have some sort of hard quantitative analysis. (That's why a lot of them have statistics or hard math requirements for admissions.) Of course, each school will differ in the amount of quant focus, but you could look that up in, for example, the businessweek rankings.
Control Algorithms/Devices: Become an Engineer
Control People: Become an MBA
Control Both: Get Both
Control Everything: What are you doing here? Go get every degree thats available.
Now probably isnt the best time to go for an MBA. Lets see:
.COM or Consulting firm fails --> Lots of unemployed BS degrees get laid off --> some get severence, some have money already --> cant find another job --> I know! Lets all go get an MBA!
In the next 2-3 years we are going to see a HUGE increase in the numbers of students graduating from B-School. Even this year many of the top schools are reporting huge increases in the number of applications received.
I am exactly two months away from receiving my MBA in Strategic Leadership from Dominican University of California, an executive MBA program modeled loosely after the executive MBA program at UC Berkeley.
When I first entered the program I was most interested in earning more money and a management level position (all that remains is the lobotomy...). After being buried in course work for a term or two, I came to find that good business sense can be put to use (and more importantly, is appreciated) regardless of position.
I am a Senior Network Administrator at a start-up telecommunications software company. The knowledge that I have gained in my MBA program about capital budgeting, communication, project management, the differences between leaders and managers (managers manage things, leaders lead people), the need for clear business strategy, and the necessity of strategic fit in technology / software development infrastructure planning and implementation have made me a more valuable employee in my current job. The education I have recieved has allowed me to see more clearly why my job exists and has given me insight into how I might do it better with my company's goals in mind.
I may get more money out of the deal. I may even become a manager or director at some point. But I am here to tell you that there is value beyond the superficial, and it may even help you find a way to become more content with the role you are currently playing in your organization.
I think anybody who goes into something like this specifically trying to be a "more desireable" employee is going to be disappointed.
There is a guy here at work who wants to get his MBA. He's not the most technical person, although he thinks differently (don't they always) and he feels that getting an MBA will make him a more sought after person. What he doesn't realize is that he could get all the degrees in the world, pass all the certifications, etc...as long as he's a dumbass, it doesn't change the fact that he's going to get passed up for better jobs.
I rank people who goto get MBAs just so they can put it on their resume at about the same level as the MCSE people who never touch NT, etc...
Of course, i may be biased, i've seen "high and mighty" certified MBA-having techies come in and not know shit. And then i've seen people come in without a college diploma and blow those people away.
I guess what it comes down to is that if you're using the MBA to complement an already kickass skill-set, then more power to you. If you're using the MBA as a cover-up of piss-poor technical skills, then i suggest finding another area to work in.
Yes, my girlfriend is a BitchX
I'm the CTO of a to-remain-nameless web retailer. I have never once asked tech people during interviews if they have a MBA, because I believe that would really be irrelevant to the position. Programmers and Sysadmins don't need to understand every aspect of the business, they just need to be able to do their jobs in a way that keeps the business' interests in mind.
You don't need MBAs for that, just people with intelligence. For the tougher and more expensive tech business decisions (i.e., should we get a redundant T1 into one of our offices from another provider), it is always up to management.
I find that our best tech workers are actually undergraduate students from MIT-- MBA? We don't even ask for a BA/BS.
Sooner or later tech will be flooded with people. I plan on getting an MBA to jump into a CIO/CTO position or be a Wall Street analyst. There is a bond analyst, forgot his name who is an engineer and used to design CPU's. Now he sees through all the crap that investor relations, press, marketing and management tout about their companies and products.
Didnt know there was such a thing. I'm in a good MBA prgram now, but unless you go to Wharton or maybe Stanford I wouldnt call any other program a Harvard equivalent. Amazing that he uses the Harvrad brnad name on this post instead of the second rate diploma shop he got his MBA from.
CIO. In that order.
And in capitals.
Murphy's Law of Copiers
I love the smell of Karma in the morning
Ahhhh how much I love watching people twist other peoples words around... read about 4 words past that statement... the guy was wasting other employees time complaining about such-and-such software that was being used, or whatever buisness practice that was going on. Thats not firing for enjoyment, that's eliminating a person who is losing the company money by disrupting other peoples work enviornment with their own view that they think is right. Aside from the fact that the original poster mentioned open source, there's no argument there. What if the person was going around saying that Macs were the only way to do buisness, everything else sucked? Or what if it was a GNU based company and the person was running around saying that windows was the only way to do buisness? Now granted, I'm not pro-anything. I use both linux and windows in my everyday life, and I woundn't choose either if I had to. Some tasks are just better suited to different operating systems. Your secretary wants to check email and write some documents... well then she needs to be using windows with outlook, office, and a good SA who can block all of those annoying email viruses that she is going to open no matter what program she's using. Why? Because thats what she's used to. Thats what she and 99% of the people out there know. For the coder, maybe they want to use linux because of system stability. But one tool is not the only tool for a job, and your post doesn't need to talk down to someone who made a decision to get rid of someone who was losing the company money who also happened to be pro-open-source.
Of course, I should now expect some flames from other pro-open-source-only people. Ah well, such is life : )
"Well kids, you tried your best, and you failed. The lesson is, never try." -Homer Simpson
I think the best IS program and assets are at University of Austin, and they are well ranked otherwise.
Check these sites for current rankings and contact admissions asap so they can start a file on you and track your interest in their program. Don't forget to contact financial aid asap too, and look for the free money, because it IS out there. Business Week B-school Rankings are at http://businessweek.com/bschools/index.htm US News and World Report rankings are at http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/beyond/gradrank/m ba/gdmbat1.htm
ANY MINORITY APPLICANTS PLEASE CHECK OUT http://cgsm.org !!! They want to give you free money. Contact them immediately. I will accept e-mail questions about the program.
Good luck, the recession is coming.
Minority MBA applicants should check out http://www.cgsm.org. They offer full scholarships to an array of top schools, including University of Austin, which is ranked #1 for Information Systems. I will respond to e-mail questions regarding the program. I strongly encourage any qualified applicants to look into this. The sooner you start the application process the better.
If you have such a problem with them, you should support the infiltration of the MBA world by technical people. I would think that a geek with an MBA would be *much* better at communicating and working well with other geeks.
Such personel might break the negative stereotype of MBA's in the IS world, another advantage. Stop whining and take control.
If you want to go, it is still a good idea to apply. The application process can take years, and having applied to an institution in the past increases your chances of getting in next time. I know many folks who sit on admissions boards and continued interest is a big factor in the admissions process.
Top MBA programs usually have nearly 100% placement after graduation. This is a bad year to graduate from an MBA program, however riding out a recession while being a full time student is always a good idea.
I guess the rift between MBA's and geeks and the relationship between both groups in the context of an organization is more complicated than I had assumed. The points of view all over this discussion certainly have added to our depth of understanding. I still think the geek shall inherit the earth, but they are going to have to find the right buisness guys to overthrow the establishment .
This past weekend, I met dozens of pre-MBA students for an orientation program. I am not as technical as most dotters. I'm a a/v engineer, Mac user, use server apps a lot but can't install or do much at the command line. I am, by this sites standards, probably not a geek. However, the pre and current MBA students I met thought i was a computer whiz. They cant do anything but check their email. I believe simply our perspective of loving our machines, pushing them to the limit, and understanding part of the socio-political and community aspects of network philosophy offer us perspective which is crucial to the future of all organizations. How exactly it will fit remains to be seen. Either way, I feel it is up to libertarian nerds to avert the impending Orwellian/Huxlean/utopian nightmare on the horizon. The suits may never understand that.
The worst ones were usually well educated but not very good and they wanted the MBA so they would "get the recongnition the deserve." These folks have real problems and the MBA got them nothing. The result was a very bitter person with a number of degrees.
The best learned enough about business to be able to understand how what they do fits into the bottom line of the company and learn to channel their efforts to actually improve the bottom line. These people get the big bucks and the big options and they are why some companies have a technical track. Of course, some of them moved up in management and some started their own businesses.
Being able to understand your boss, your grandboss, and your great grand boss is not a bad thing.
Then there is the simple advantage of having an advanced degree. I went to college in the early 70s and graduated at a time when demand for techies was just starting to boom. During the lat 60s early 70s a technical degree was good for wiping your butt and not much else. I went back and got a MS degree during the early 80s when demand for techies was peaking. During the late 80s early 90s when techies couldn't find jobs that MS helped me stay employeed where people with BS degrees were learning to sell insurance. If you want to be a techie at the end of the next down turn you might want to get a graduate degree now.
Stonewolf
I graduated from a top notch college with a degree in business, and I was going to worka few years, then go get my MBA from Harvard, but when I found what pay and work conditions were like for developers, I scuttled my plans to get my MBA. The non-IT degree is very useful though, because I think I have a much more well-rounded background than most strict techie geeks. An MBA, though, is probably overkill, unless you want to be a top-level exec. But if you don't mind cranking out code, or doing project management, or being freelance, an MBA is not really helpful.
Except work = power * time (e.g. joules = watts * seconds), which leads to the opposite conclusion: money = work/knowledge
My last job, I worked with folks who had their MBA's and when we ran out of toilet paper, their MBA's came in compltely handy.
-Nuke the moon
Sure, companies like to see people with MBAs, but that's just because you're dealing generally with HR departments, initially, who know nothing, but do know what MBA means. Personally, I would think an MBA would be a good idea, just to get a better understanding of business and finances. This can help move you up in a career track, into more of a management role, which could be positive or negative depending on what you want. You could also use the knowledge to help you start/run your own business as a consultant. Before you commit the time, think about what you really want in the future.
Getting a PhD. usually entails a pretty big sacrific. You research and disseration are always hanging over you. The research process in itself is somehting you have to learn as well. You usually have research and/or teaching assignments taking up lots of time. And even with scholarships, still a major paycut from industry And then there is all the other academic stuff you have to worry about: conferences,articles, committees, seminars....
I was referring to after you get the PhD. The total number of hours spent to get a PhD for someone with drive and tech understanding is only a bit more than that to get an MBA. Figure an extra 8 months to a year if you apply yourself.
But, the bonus is that it can lead you to the more rewarding positions without all the extra hours during the work week, and allows you to really get into the meaty subjects, rather than the grunge of people-oriented stuff.
I say this based on friends with both, and how long it really took them to get through both types of programs.
So, ask yourself - am I really a techie who just wants to tell the big shots the real truth without all those interfering labels and who loves the tech side, or do I want to go the people skills route and become part of management itself. If you are a true techie, the PhD route will be more rewarding. If you are a techie who'd like to switch to management, go the MBA route. If you're not sure, think about a Tech MBA program.
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
It's a two-edged sword - an MBA is, indeed, a great way to move into management, where your personal communications skills will be stressed more than your technical ability. The hours in tech management are generally longer, but you won't be making more per hour worked in general, although your stress level will go up.
If you're a good manager, you'll be doing all the shielding for your techies to keep the other PHBs and Users from driving them crazy or distracting them from cranking out good code.
Some places offer tech MBAs (e.g. University of Washington), which are probably more rewarding for most techies.
And, yes, you may have to deposit your soul in a safe deposit box until you retire, but that's up to you.
If you want to stay techie, but get more into theoretical stuff, you should consider the PhD route in a tech field - this may be just as rewarding and the hours aren't quite as bad.
Note I say this knowing a number of MBAs who are great people, and my brother's a lawyer (many many hours, pay about the same per hour as mine but I have a life), so it's not just theoretical.
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
Well, I'm certainly not a momma's boy...
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
My mother, who had a CIS degree, felt she was going nowhere and missing out on promotion in her government job because she 'wasn't qualified' to manage other individuals or the business aspects of her field of expertise.
Since she got her MBA, she has lost or quit most of her tech duties and now manages projects, works on software budgets, etc...
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
OK, I'm kidding. More seriously, it's a piece of paper. The piece of paper is supposed to be a token that authenticates you as an individual possessing certain knowledge, but I think we all understand how specious that proposed authentication is.
So I guess my answer is that if you plan to work someplace where they care more about what pieces of paper you possess than your skills (or are too lazy to evaluate your skills and therefore rely on your magic pieces of paper), then go for it. Otherwise, I don't see what there is that you can't learn from buying and reading a bunch of relevant books and actually working at a business and paying attention to what goes on.
OK,
- B
--
http://www.bradheintz.com/
- updated
Thanks, all of you for the great input! To answer some of your questions: I am 2 years out of College. I have a 4 year degree in Computer Engineering from Lehigh University. I learned a great deal from my undergrad experience, but I used little of it for my first job (a validation contractor), and even less for my current job (Validation engineer for a VoIP company). Most of the skills I use in my workplace were picked up after college. If anything, my undergrad experience taught me how to assimilate technical and mathematical knowledge. I picked up a lot of stuff since then, but most of what I learned in school, I have never touched (calculus, op-amps, assembler code, binary trees..) .. the only exception is C.
I minored in Economics, and enjoyed the subject a great deal.
The company I currently work for is small, they probably do not need an MBA. The degree would basicly make me more appetizing for other companies in the future. As I have not done any technical development over the past two years, most of what I do now is validating the work of other Engineers, and other administrative tasks. Anyway, since they probably don't need an MBA, they are unlikely to pay for one!!
My grades in school were decent, but nothing to write home about, so barring spectacular GMAT scores, I am not likely to be accepted into the top-tier programs.
Hope this helps!
Again, Thanks to all.
I am going nuts trying to read EVERY post, I see firsthand now the dedication of the moderators!
You are all echoing a lot of the same ideas I've had of late. Yes, it is obvious that persuing a buisness degree will shift me away from 'Pure Tech' and I'm quite comfortable with this adjustment. I LOVED computers when I was in High School, and then some time during college, it sort of faded. When I started engineering school, I wanted to know EVERYTHING about how my 486 worked. Then after Digital Design II, a crapload of Calc and enough Assembler code to make me tear my hair out, I decided I knew enough.
There are things I love more than computers now. Beer, video games, cars.. the real Purpose of getting an MBA would be to getting a big house with a Pool, and maybe a camero. I see this as the path of least resistance to my coveted 6 digit salary.
I know that as techies, we have a monopoly on many of the useful skills out there. However, most of the developers and engineers I have met out there (and I met many when I was a sword for hire) never step up to earn high salaries. Hope this Helps! -Ken (the Engineer)
I'm a developer with degrees in sociology, library science, and law. I'm convinced that the extra education outside of cs gives me significant insight that cs-only developers sometimes lack. I don't know if it avails me much when I'm job hunting, but on the job it helps me model business rules and work with clients. (Whether the performance gain was worth the cost is another question. :-)
However, I'm not convinced that an MBA in particular is any better than any other humanities degree.
I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve. BB
I assure one and all being the world's greatest authority on techie stuff will not contribute on whit to a successful business.
Well, if you are interested in any being the lead in any kind of serious projects. Say a new, cool defence contracting project, you won't even be considered if you don't have an MBA. At least from my experience. That's also where the serious money is. As well as the serious headaches. I recommend you see a career counselor and take a personality test before you go down this route though. If you don't exceptional communications skills, wit and a passion to lead people you may be miserable. If instead you would rather keep your head doug into some techinical project, get your masters in that. But I'm by no means an expert.
Last year I finally had the opportunity to fire the office "Open Source Zealot" - the guy who wasted everyone's time complaining how "Outlook is insecure" and "I only use Linux on my notebook computer".
That was me you jerk!
Just kidding...but I bet he is hiding around here somewhere....=)
It means that if you have a certain amount of work to get done, and the person doing it has a small amount of knowledge, it's going to cost you a shitload. Vice if the person doing it has a lot of knowledge, that drops the cost of doing that work.
Which is kind of the same as
if you are dumb as dirt (Knowledge ==> 0) your money will approach infinity
Because it will take you forever to get it done.
--Blair
There's another degree out there: Master of Science Business Administration. It's like an MBA but with a focus. We had a year each of accounting, marketing, finance, and management principles in addition to the emphasis classes. I got my MSBA with a concentration in Computer Information Systems and it does open doors. A MSBA suggests that its holder has social skills (a requirement in business school) with a technical slant. At least that's what I tell myself.
One of the guys who works for me pointed me to this discussion, since I'm not a regular slashdot reader. I started out life as a unix sysadmin, and when the product manager quit and it was just me, I had to do things like write marketing collateral, do competitive analysis, trade show support, plan future releases, etc. It turns out that I had a flair for marketing, so I was advised to go back to school and get my MBA. Fast forward 4 years and change - I've been doing this degree at night, at great personal and financial expense. Was it worth it? Well... I've learned a lot, and I hope to be able to put it to use in the near future. At the moment though, the job market seems to favor those with hands-on skills, and it seems that a CCNA is more marketable than an MBA. The other problem is that I make a decent living as a techie, so I would have to take a major pay cut to get into marketing, since I lack the formal experience most companies are seeking. I want to be what this thread shows the market lacks - a marketing guy who understands his customers and can relate to them, not someone who is just pushing product into the channel. As for the comment about just learning this stuff from books on your own - don't delude yourself pal, there is a reason it's 60 credits to get an MBA.
Sure, but Bill Gates isn't exactly a good example of the value of education, considering he dropped out of college without any degrees.
Nooooooooooooooooooooo! Please don't do it. If you fall for the become an MBA line, MBA's will never become extinct.
What is pirate software? Software for inventory of stolen treasure?
Being in my last few weeks of an evening MBA program and having an M.S. in C.S. and going on 10 years of experience working, my opinion is that it builds "Emotional I.Q." And yes it's a recent and questionable measurement (and why isn't the acronym E.I.Q. not E.Q?)
Anyway, it has helped me understand the perspective of others in business. Why is the marking person making what appears to be a stupid decision? Maybe it is and maybe it isn't but at least I can understand why they're thinking that.
By understanding what business-ey folks are thinking about, you can wield your analytic skills combined with business to move projects and people where you think they should be. It's also fun to relate to people in terms of things they're interested in.
An MBA for me is a tool that helps me know more and empathize with people rather than grouse about the irritating projects coming out of sales.
Further, I agree much of it is about networking. I do not believe, however that you can pick up a book and learn it all in a couple of months.
Disclaimer: I am a 4th-year BSc student in Computing Science who has taken all of 1 economics course, and 0 business course.
Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but before you go and quit your job to get an MBA, you should take a look at the economic cost and compare that to the "value" of an MBA.
Unlike most graduate-level degrees, many people take MBA's not out of an interest in the subject, but to "further" their careers (read: make more money).
I've seen that an MBA will, on average, increase your income by $10,000 per year. So let's take a look at this.
For the sake of argument, let's say you're making $60,000 per year in your current job.
Now, the actual cost of taking an MBA (a 2-year degree at my university) will cost you around $15,000 total (double that if you're a foreign student).
Add into that the money that you're NOT making at your job for those 2 years, and the economic cost is $135,000.
That mean that, at an extra $10,000 per year, you're looking at almost 14 years just to break even on the investment! Depending on where you are in your career, that may or may not be acceptable to you. When do you want to retire? You may be better off taking the money that you would have invested in that education and stick it in a retirement fund - you'll most likely end up with more money at the end of the day.
The moral of the story: don't quit your day job. If you're thinking of doing an MBA just to make more money, think really hard about it.
Of course, that's just my opinion. :-)
I dunno... What do you wanna do?
I have started investigating MBAs and find my self drawn to two programs either the "high-tech" one which is sort of a product development track or entrepreneurship. The only problem is that I think I would miss the whole creative/production side of things. Are there any programs/jobs that embodies both.
Money = Work / Knowledge
... a lot.
Money increases without bound as knowledge approaches zero. This explains
Well, an MBA won't make you a better coder, but it will give you a better understanding of business process. It all depends on the career path you want. If you want to be a hard-core techie, an MBA is not likely to be of value. But if you aspire to be a pointy-haired boss, it would be a wise move...
*** Where are we going? And what's with this handbasket?
I'm considering an MBA or equivalent form of buisness education myself. Why? Because, as any truly aspring techie does, I want to work for -myself-, Not some Pointy-Haired-Boss at PointyCorp. Many techies dream of having their own "Really l33t Hardware/Software Inc." type company; and you'll never get there without a buisness education. Now, if you want to keep working for PHBs, and you don't aspire to management, then don't bother.
- Turq - "That's TRON, he fights for the users."
I worked as the techie for a school region of about 20 schools. I was in the process of getting my bachelors asuming that I would get a raise. After I talked to my boss I found out that wasn't the case. The school system didn't care if there techies had degrees, certificates or whatever. They just wanted to know we could do the job and that's it. And that was the school system!
I've worked for two different companies since then and neither of them cared if I had degrees. They just wanted to know I could do the job.
What's worked out the best for me is spend the money I was going to use for college buying books, DSL line, server, and creating different apps and things I can actually show people during interviews. That's turned out to be my best assest and something that interviewers actually cared about.
Keith P Computers are like air conditioners. They don't work well with Windows open.
As someone already mentioned it, if you just want to be a developer/coder, MBA may not be the best idea.
From my own experience I know that having MBA is really helpful in actually landing a job in a prestigious company (Intel, Maxtor, Seagate, Microsfot(?), AMD).
If you don't have MBA and - as one of the readers pointed out - you want to freelance, work as a contractor, etc... it would not be as good as more hands-on experience or actual specific training.
If you would be aiming at upper management, Masters is definately a must, although it should come in Management/Business area.
I work for a large multi-national Semiconductor manufacturer (this company also makes light bulbs *hint hint*), and all of the managers and bosses here have Masters in general management/business areas. The only ones who have those degrees in engineering or IT are among the corporate IT or certain department managers. It is very unlikely that they would rise beyond that, to let's say being a head of a facility or supervise a large area.
Of course, those are taken from what I have seen and heard by myself in a large company, and it may be different in smaller-sized ones. But to get an idea if it's worth going for MBA or not, I would recommend thinking about where you want to go with it (CEO of the company doing politics or a supervisor still getting down and dirty with code once in a while) and then deciding on where you want to go with it.
If you have a solid Technology background (i.e., a 4-year Engineering/Science BS), I would suggest you consider pursuing a degree in Operations Research (OR). OR is the "hard technology" side of Management. You would be expected to use quantitative techniques (analysis, modeling, simulation, etc.) to gain insight and solve problems in business, government, military, etc.
Some good sites to check out include:
Michael Trick's Operations Research Page
Institute for Operations Research and Management Science
Sure, and then you will "win". You will certainly win at life after you've killed the competition. No matter that the cost of higher education in both time and money is unbe-mother-fucking-lievable. I hope you really like those extra words on your resume. They were very expensive. -iamdwarf
Not a Dumb question.
What it comes down to is what you want to do, and what size company you work for.
If you are looking to make the jump to management from Engineering then an MBA will most certainly help you out in a large company.
In a small company that is a very company specific question. In the place I work an MBA would be of no use, because we are all engineers, though some of us do more administration then others. In a case like I am in an MSEE would be better then an MBA by far.
If you work for a medium to large size company an MBA could help greatly. Because everyone likes a manager that understands the technical side of things as well, especially if they have been on the technical side of things before. I know I would rather report to an x-engineer with administration skills then some idiot in a suit that knows nothing about how I do what I do or what it requires...aka the Dilbert complex
what's motivating you in getting an MBA?
where are you expecting to go in your career?
printf("value is: %d\n", ((techie_t *)mba)->value); /*prints -1!*/
--
To quote Lewis Carroll, "If you don't know where you are going, any road will take you there."
Kind thoughts do not change the world
After a certain point on the promotion ladder getting a promotion will put you in charge of other people (at very least others will be reporting to you). If you don't want that in a job an MBA is a waste of time. If that is something that you are looking for or it is something that you are willing to do an MBA will be a great asset to your career. Your bosses will be much more likely to promote you to a postition in which management skills are required if you have an MBA. One would also help you understand exactly what your company wants you to do. Any new degree you get is going to make you much more attractive to a company, it all depends on what your goals are. I know a guy who had a degree in biology and was doing research for a company in that field. The project he was working on was nearing completion and he had a feeling that he was on the way out. However, for some time he had already been pursuing an MBA (just because he knew it would be good for his career, not to keep his job). When he completed it and his company learned about it he was offered a huge promotion with a starting salary of $60,000 a year. His situation is different from what a programmer's is, but bear in mind that biology and business are even more unrelated than programming and business are; he still benefitted greatly from getting his MBA and he's never regretted getting it one bit.
"A witty saying proves nothing." - Voltaire
If the only reason you like your management job is so you can fire passionate employees, I either say you can have your damn management job, or I hope to God I can get a management position to keep another guy like you from taking charge.
Absolutely not! Firing employees is far from being the best part of managing a development group. The actual process of firing someone is horrendous, they're always very emotional, and the paperwork that can ensue is dreadful. However, the upside comes slowly over the next couple of months. Unlike many professions, it is possible for engineers to have negative productivity. I refer, of course, to the Bible of technical management: The Mythical Man Month. The title of the book, summarized quickly, refers to the fact that 30 men working for a day can't do the work of one man working for a month. This effect is particularly true in software engineering, where a superb engineer can not only do the work of 10 bad engineers, but sometimes, the work can only be done by a superb engineer! Conversely, bad engineers can hinder the work. This is why firing people with negative productivity can be so rewarding - a single bad cog in the machine can slow everyone down. "This wouldn't have happened if we had just used Apache" -BLAH BLAH BLAH! That doesn't get PRODUCT to the CUSTOMER! And it's bad for morale.
The things I enjoy in my job are delivering solutions that work to customers that have cash. Anything that gets in the way of that I destroy.
It's just part of being a manager. More money means more responsibility and a lot more stress. But when you do it right - more credit, and success and financial security for everyone in the company.
Sorry if my original post gave you the wrong impression.
I started out writing code with a four year degree, and while it was a good living, I had one problem with that career path: lack of control. My projects could be scrapped without warning, or sent in directions by Marketing that were totally without technological merit. That's why I went back to school - I got my MBA from Johns Hopkins through their three-year night school program. I was able to work my way through the experience, and I feel that it was totally the right way to go for me personally.
It's not the right path for everyone. If you have bad social skills, don't like to make command decisions, or don't feel that you're a pro-active person, you should probably just keep on writing code. But if you feel that you can combine your technical expertise with leadership abilites, an MBA is a great stepping stone.
Managing a technical project is very stressful work (I've heard the task of managing developers compared to "herding cats") but it can be very rewarding. Last year I finally had the opportunity to fire the office "Open Source Zealot" - the guy who wasted everyone's time complaining how "Outlook is insecure" and "I only use Linux on my notebook computer". The things you can do as a good manager:
- Refining your working unit only to productive, focused people,
- Refining your product definition to a technologically innovative, easy-to-use product
- Keeping your team in touch with the latest advancements in the marketplace
... can be part of the most rewarding career experience you will ever undergo.
For more information, Sharon is the man (so to speak).
Good luck!
Yes...go back to school! "MBA's" has no apostrophe unless it's posessive or contracted with "is":
Correct Usage Options:
Contraction:
"My MBA's bigger than YOUR MBA, PeeWee!"
Posessive:
"Your MBA's mother wears Army boots!"
Simply Plural:
"I think I'll get two MBAs!"
S'T'O'P A'M'E'R'I'C'A'N A'P'O'S'T'R'O'P'H'E A'B'U'S'E'!
::Let's::Abuse::Colons::Instead!::
MBA school teaches you the skills you need to run a company. But just as a programming class will not have you developing your own OS overnight, the MBA will not make you the head cheese in a company. Having a MBA makes it easier to talk to Accountants, auditors and general managers. If you do a LOT of business work it helps to know the mental models they use. If you want to supertechie, go another route.
"Turn when being pushed, step to the side when being pull" - Judo wisdom
an aside: it's quite apparent that many slashdot users could really benefit from aquiring some business knowledge simply by the way marketing people are regarded by most people here. ;)
Oh, I don't know, my experiences with marketing has left me with the feeling that Slashdotters regard Marketeers pretty accurately. While I realize that a good marketing team can be a real asset to a company, they are generally given far too much power over things in general. Marketing controls not only advertisements but also the look, feel, taste, and functionality of all the products, which means they spend a lot of time stepping on the toes of the engineers that design the things. I'm sure my bitterness comes from working on computer centric products where I have a good deal in common with the user base, and watching as marketing redesigns things in arbitrary ways for a user group they haven't taken the time to understand. I suspect this is true in most companies, marketing folks redesign cars, make suggestions on how the newest cola should taste, and generally muck around with things without any facts or figures or reasons as to why they're doing it.
I'll stop before this explodes into a full blown rant. I'll merely sum up by saying that due to the nature of their jobs, marketing folks will continue to be the thorn in the side of all engineers. I don't see this changing any time soon.
As others have pointed out, it depends what you want to do post-MBA. An MBA is a signal to the marketplace - it tells employeers you are smart and trainable (just as a BA/BS does when compared to a HS diploma. Employeers let schools do the first cut at weeding out potential hires. That said, unless you go to a top tier school ,seriously look at part time programs. A top school gives you name recognition, and as the economy slows, the network you get will be much more valuable than the degree. Need to do an IPO - call a classmate at Goldman. Need strategic advice for your company- call one at McKinsey. Starting a company - call one of your professors who is a VC. Looking for a big-ticket job - you get the idea.
Most schools can offer a fine grounding in business fundementals, such as accounting, finance and strategy. Where schools start to differ is in the more advanced topics - at Chicago and Wharton you learn from the folks that created the ideas, not from a profesor who has studied them. Kellogg offers the same for marketing. HBS is well, HBS - its alumni machine is well worth the price of admission.
An MBA also mkes it easier to move from tech work to consulting/banking etc. It's not that you couldn't do as good a job without the degree, but it gives employers a warm fuzzy when you've got that ticket punched.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
I was very lucky, because the teacher I worked with has very good connections with some great companies, so I was able to apply a lot of what I've learned right away in some real companies.
Warning: The most difficult part to me, as an engineer, to accept were those "simplistic" and qualitative models (Porter's competitive forces is a good example). I've also been told that this barrier is common to most technically oriented people, so know what you want, because your first times will be rough and will make you put aside most of the notions you know (problem is one of the notions you'll change). Choose very carefully the people/school you'll be on. Engineers always want to check how things work in practice, so make sure the school has a good contact network.
Ok, this is what I've been told: *Beer swilling fratboys get MBA's. *People too stupid to get MBA's go into Human Resources. *Good programmers are often too useful to be promoted. *Bad programmers either 1) Change careers, 2) get promoted, or 3) found dot coms.
"D'oh! Stupid poetic justice!"
Kill the competition, get as many degrees and skills as possible.
Yes, it is a dumb question. I can't believe it's on slashdot. but more importantly, I can't believe the number of answers who think an MBA or any degree is really important. I don't work with anyone who has an MBA, at least not anyone technical, and there are several of us, who work all over the world, none of us have MBA's, a few have 4 yr. degrees, but everything is related to what you can do and have done much more so than any degree. I think they are a waste of time. But of course, I don't have one......
-- -- Warning. Do not stare directly at the sun.
Wow. What company do you work for? Sounds like I need a change of scenery!
I've also applied for places like Yahoo, HP, Compaq, eBay and even MS, and have not even heard a response yet. I'll keep people posted though. These are my dream jobs. I only need one to tell me yes to walk away estatic.
What degrees and years of experience do you have already?
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
Some of the most successful guys in IT are in that position because they are both tech- and business-savvy. Just look at Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, for example.
OLPC Australia
The best part about an MBA is that you'll learn about how to do cost/benefit analysis and evaluate good business plans.
Umm, Nico, all the busted dot-coms with poor business plans were lead by legions of MBA's. And ironically, the most successful computer businesses are being run by those who never even received their undergraduate degree.
Oh, umm, nevermind.
some unknown law of nature seems to prevent sombody who knows anything about technical implementation from getting a MBA.
you're asking for trouble, at graduation you'll probably be abducted by the government or something...
---
"i was saying gnu-rd"
Well, for starters, holders of MBAs make very good fuel for furnaces on those cold winter nights. Other than that, I'd say it's a damn tricky question.
"I don't know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots." - George Bush
I've recently graduated with a BS in CS, and have been considering pursuing a higher degree. I'm considering both a MBA and a MS in CS, but frankly neither seems to be worth the cost (time/effort/money). I've seen a bunch of arguments for and against a MBA, but what about getting a techie MS? As a competent techie with a natural tendency to learn new stuff on my own, it seems like the benefits of getting a MS are pretty much on par with getting experience in the workplace. Both salary/desirability, and knowledge/experience are going to be gained along both paths, and it seems in approximately equal quantities. I've heard people say that having a MS helps guarantee being able to get a job, but it seems like 2-3 years of experience with good job references and demonstratable competence is a good deal better than a sheet of paper that says I know how to cram for tests. Plus, it seems like moving up in management is going to much more a factor of politics and schmoozing than education. If you're competent, is it really necessary or even really helpful to get a higher degree?
Well, I guess I am "in the industry" as a web developer. Yes, I do see more people "asking" for folks with degrees higher then a BA, however your interview, work experiance, and portfolio are what really hold up. I am strongly against going through more school just to try to get a pay or status raise. If you want to learn something new, yes, go back to school. However if all you are concerned about in life is a nice pay check then you should seriously take a look at how fulfilling your future career will be. When I hire a good geek I want someone that learned what they learned because they enjoyed it. These are the people that are a good asset to have. People that just got there intiutional requirments burn out. People that did it for the love of the geek-ie-ness continue to grow, bring new great ideas to the table, and as just plain fun to work with. Now I'm not saying that certs and degrees are not important. They are. But proving to me that you are capable, motivated, and creative is much much more important to me. Honestly, the folks that make the most money in "tech" jobs are usually the folks that do not have the greatest educations.They are the folks that have motivation, skills, work experiance, and one hell of a resume/portfolio. Hell, I'm a sociology major, Bill Gates was a drop out, and my company's backend database guy was schooled in the US army and makes half a million a year. I may get my masters some day... if I feel like opening my mind even further. I don't know if it will be in CS or not. I may just contiue to get future certs and keep pushing myself to further ubber-geek-dom at work simply because I enjoy it. Take a month to really examine the skills you have. Focus those, find what you love, create a resume with goals/accomplishments, and trust me... you will always have nice job and you will never hate work. But hey... that's the soc major in me talking. It works :)
It'd be nice to get a masters in "spelling"...I still suck at this... sorry for the typos.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
Many answers. It totally depends on you and what you want. I disagree with all those people who say that you have to attend one of the top-notch schools to become a good manager. What you will get out of this (in fact every) kind of education is up to you. If you chose the school right (i.e. international and not necessarily top tier, like HBS, LBS and stuff) you might get to know a bunch of very interesting people, maybe friends for life. As to what they can teach you: Well, a lot of stuff you already know, but you get to know the jargon, which might be helpful. If you are really lucky you will have one or two teachers there who might be able to alter your perception about a little. BTW, at my school I met a lot of people with a technical background, even one of my lecturers has a technical first degree. So, you will not be alone :-)
But beware, this will be a lot of work on stuff that you will not like. It sometimes is just like being back at school.
Just my 2 cents.
After working in the tech field with an international MBA, foreign language skills, and coding skills that are really not too shabby I'd have to conclude that the most useful thing for a techie to have is still a penis. If you've got good skills, an MBA, and a penis, you'll probably go far in whatever aspect of the business you choose. If you don't have that critical attachment, don't bother about the MBA. Seriously, the coursework for the MBA helps a lot with communication between the business side and the production side. It won't make you a business genius any more than a music degree will make you Jimi Hendrix, but you'll be able to translate geek speak to PHB lingo. That could make you either highly useful, roundly hated, or both. Check out some of the specialized MBA programs that focus on IT. If you are doing it to get a higher salary, well... that might not be a sure thing. If you're doing it for the knowledge, go for it.
So I'm a techie MBA (BS Mech Eng, MS Mech Eng, MBA) and here's my bit:
An MBA is an investment. Not that you won't find a surprising amount of intellectually interesting material at business school, but I will gander a guess that for the majority of the people reading this thread, they're in it for the career advancement (read MONEY).
So make sure the investment will pay back. Here's the formula:
Value of MBA = NPV(future additional earnings - cost of tuition - lost earnings for not working)
This value had better be >0, and there are things you can do to improve the value. Going to a good school increases your future earnings, but increases the cost as well. Going to night school decreases the lost earnings, but usually isn't regarded as highly as the full-time program from the same institution. Depending on your choices, not going at all is often the best return on your money.
Some of the best bets are dual MS Eng./MBA programs, many of which allow you to qualify for engineering RA positions to offset the cost of tuition. Some also provide fellowships as a result of their industrial ties.
My shameless plug is for the MIT Leaders for Manufacturing or Systems Design and Management programs, either of which are great choices for somebody with a tech backgound. Check out http://lfmsdm.mit.edu/ for more info.
Actually, alot of the point of getting any kind of any college degree from a future employer's PoV, is that this person has the dedication to make it through what were some major obstacles in their life. I know when i see someone got a computer science and engineering degree vs. computer science degree (depeneding on school of course) that that person stuck it out and did the extra physics, math, EE courses, etc. so it is more likely they won't buckle under any kind of difficulty/new challenges. The same would apply for someone who went the extra mile for an MBA
Welsta Forbie nalk rilch fal yubbie welt hast grad.