Get MBA? Opinion requested

[WWilliams]

I am currently in school to complete my MBA.

Here are the background statistics:

Age-48

Current Occupation: Quality Manager in a small company

Education: BS-Organizational Managerment, CQE, CQA

Completion for MBA-12 more months, cost $18,000 MBA is from a accredited school

Will this help me in my career? Is it too late to leverage it to advance my career. Seems I am sector stuck, or position stuck.

[Wes Bucey]

I am reminded of an Ann Landers column from 20 or 30 years ago. The writer had written:
"I'm 40 years old. I'm considering going to school to get a degree to qualify for a better job, but I would have to go part-time and keep working to afford it. It will take me 6 years to get my degree. I'll be 46 when I get my degree. Won't I be too old to use the degree?"

Ann replied:
"And how old will you be in 6 years if you don't go to school?"

It seems to me there are lots of data which suggest payback on an MBA's cost is very rapid. My daughter (a CPA manager at a Fortune 100 firm) reliably informs me that new CPAs fresh out of school and the CPA exam now START at $50,000 at the big accounting firms with minimum 10% raise in 6 months. I haven't heard about MBAs, but I know that 5 of my young relatives have become CPAs in the last 4 years. One of them got her degree and CPA while working full time and raising two kids. I'm not sure if it took her 8 years or 10.

Bottom line:
Go for it. Use student loans. Look for scholarships and grants. Will the company you work for subsidize any of it? Two folks (early 40's) in one of my Toastmaster clubs got their MBAs from Northwestern and Loyola paid 90% to 100% by their employers in the past 4 years.

[Statistical Steven]

Originally Posted by WWilliams

I am currently in school to complete my MBA.

Here are the background statistics:

Age-48

Current Occupation: Quality Manager in a small company

Education: BS-Organizational Managerment, CQE, CQA

Completion for MBA-12 more months, cost $18,000 MBA is from a accredited school

Will this help me in my career? Is it too late to leverage it to advance my career. Seems I am sector stuck, or position stuck.

From experience I can say that if you plan on staying with your current company, the MBA will do little to help your career. If you are looking to move to another company, then an MBA can be instrumental in helping you move from a QM to a VP of Quality or Operation Management.

I find that once you are in a company, your reputation is what makes your career, and not the degree you hold.

[David Hartman]

I guess I would have to ask, Are you attempting to gain the degree so that you can say that you have one, or are you attempting to earn an education?

I am 53 years old, and three months ago I began my first steps toward my ASB with a desire to obtain at least my Bachelor’s in Business Management. I am attending class each Monday night for 4 hours, then working with a Project Team for 1 - 1.5 hrs in the middle of the week. The track I'm on will allow me to earn my Bachelors in 4 years, while working full time during the day.

I am not doing this for the degree in that career advancement is not my goal. My personal goal is to increase my knowledge base and understanding of business as a whole. Several years ago I promised myself that once I got a job where I wasn't on the road for 3 hours a day I would begin my formal education process. Well it just so happens that as of February I now am on the road a total of 25 minutes a day, so in March I began my quest for education (classes started in July).

It bothers me to hear so many people (not that WWilliams is one) striving to "gain the degree", but minimizing the opportunity to "learn" from the experience. This seems so similar to the "getting an ISO cert for the wall -Vs- improving our processes" scenario.

My wife's grandfather at 78 years old (and until he passed away at 87) would save articles from Popular Mechanics and Popular Science to discuss them with me when next we met, so that he could increase his knowledge of the world around him. That example spoke volumns to me.

[Jim Wynne]

If you think there's significant payback, either in salary or personal edification or a combination of the two, then you should go for it. Personally, I think that the value has been significantly cheapened in the last 15 years or so, with the advent of so-called "executive" MBA programs that were developed as money makers. A lot of the MBAs I've dealt with in the past several years appeared to have gotten their degrees here

[Kevin H]

My personal experience in getting an MBA with an emphasis in operations was that it didn't seem to open any additional doors. My original undergraduate degree is in metallurgy & materials science from Carnegie Mellon University. The MBA is from the University of Pittsburgh. I originally chose to get the MBA because it was one of the criteria for advancement in the company where I worked. Unfortunately, they had one of their periodic purges and laid off 25% of the engineering force and I was in the wrong location at the right time. I had either a year left part time, or a semester left full time - I cashed in my accrued retirement benefits and chose to finish up on a full time basis. I completed the MBA when I was 38, 15 years ago now.

What's somewhat amazing to me is that even now the BS in metallurgy seems to attract more attention than the MBA and the ASQ certifications I've gained.

If you feel sector or position stuck, your first move should be to identify what sector or position you'd like to be in, determine the required qualifications, and work to acquire them. Richard Bolles describes how to do this at length in his book "What Color is Your Parachute" - he also has a web site that can be found by doing a search on the book's title.

If you've already done the work and determined that the MBA is the answer, go for it. If you don't, a year or two from now you'll still be a year or two older and still wondering if the MBA will help.

Good luck in your decision.

[Randy]

In the long run the MBA is worth more than a Masters in a specific field. The MBA (right or wrong) will allow you more flexibility and acknowledgement from the folks that can impact your career the most than a Masters in Quality.....been there, done that!

[Wes Bucey]

Right! Flexibility is the key here.

Just as it is no longer viable to expect your entire career to be with one organization, so, too, may we consider the career path or field as equally flexible. Stay open to opportunities.

If you are seeking now or may want to seek different employment in the future, an MBA from a tier 1 or Tier 2 school will allow you to get a chance to interview, but the bottom line will always depend on how well you can communicate you have the combination of education, skills, and experience to give the prospective employer VALUE.