Quote: (08-29-2014 10:49 PM)Atlantic Wrote:
Thats all good man. And as I said already you seem like a great poster so I am not attacking you.
I cant remember your PM off hand so Ill go back and check.
I think your points are valid just not for the Oil industry. Can you outline more your experience and thoughts on what you have seen?
The key to success in an MBA program, and many other things in life, is managing your expectations. There seems to be two types of people who get into an MBA in North America:
-Those continuing the college experience because their bachelor's degree hasn't landed them their dream job and;
-Older students (generally men) who own their own businesses or are about to quit their 9-5 and go into business for themselves. They are often going back to school to learn about business basics (i.e. Quickbooks and Payroll) that they didn't have time to learn when they were working 16 hour days starting up their business.
Both of these groups come from BA or STEM backgrounds. Generally, the STEM students bring more to the table when it comes to the accounting and statistics courses but the BAs do better with marketing or human resources. Remember, you have to go through all different types of classes (HR to statistics) to complete the MBA even if you never want to work in the HR department.
There weren't too many STEM guys in my MBA but I can tell you the biggest complaint they had was that there wasn't much numerical substance to many of the classes. We might spend an hour talking about cultural differences in the workplace. Or the ethics of declaring tips from a service job on your annual tax return. I'm sure that sounds fucking silly but remember, this is what is going to be peppered all throughout your 60 credit hours.
So why does a STEM take an MBA course? It depends but IMHO there are two types of STEM people:
-The engineers who are introverted and need to become better socialized to move up at their corporate job. This would be your strongest electrical engineer stereotype.
-The engineers/STEM who are adequately socialized or even outgoing (this is a Game Forum!) and are looking to piece together the steps it takes to sell themselves and get away from the corporate gig. That would be either through inventing, starting a small-business or consulting in their particular realm of STEM expertise.
We also had a lot of people Skyping into the classroom to do classes online. The difference in what they got and what we got out of it was night and day. I am not a big fan of the explosion in online learning because I feel like I learn best sitting at a desk but I realize that is actually probably a minority these days. I am only stating that online classmates we later met in person told us that there was a huge reduction in the quality of education when they were trying to Skype in through some kind of projector/Blackboard/etc.
Anyway, the most important factor would still be getting what YOU are looking for out of the degree. That might mean signing up for the right electives or instructors, networking with classmates or e-mail instructors to ask them for more about real world applicability of coursework.
I did speculate on what the MBA would do for you in the oil industry so that is something only the RVFers in that industry or a mentor at work could answer. I would definitely talk to the guys that do have MBAs and ask them what kind of doors it has opened up and if they got it online or if they would consider online if they were signing up in 2014.
It's hard to explain but I feel like having an MBA is like having Game in the sense that nobody is going to reward you based on that fact alone. The MBA experience is meant to broaden your horizons and eliminate any tunnel vision you might have just like Game can get you to travel the world and get over one-itis and pedestalization problems. A lot of people are "Game-aware" but don't act or bury their heads in the sand (MGTOW) and likewise, we see MBAs sticking out the corporate grind as an employee ID # when their true purpose might be to start up a consulting business and have those oil companies fight each other to fly you out for a consultation or to hear about your new safety product.
