MBA - worth doing?

[Carthage]

Hi
My boss has said I can do an MBA free through work if I want - what benefit would there be to this?
I'd rather do a taught Doctorate, but my work isn't able to pay the fees for that (and nor can I at the moment).
If anyone has an MBA - what use did you find it?

[Tyrewrecker]

Carthage said:

Hi
My boss has said I can do an MBA free through work if I want - what benefit would there be to this?
I'd rather do a taught Doctorate, but my work isn't able to pay the fees for that (and nor can I at the moment).
If anyone has an MBA - what use did you find it?

http://bit.ly/LvCJAQ

[Carthage]

Tyrewrecker said:

http://bit.ly/LvCJAQ

Sorry, perhaps I should clarify for those who don't understand what I was asking.

I was looking to see if anyone had personally found an MBA useful in their career, or whether they regretted spending the time to do so.

I suppose I tried to also ask for a comparison with taught Doctorates too (although that was more implied than explicit, I grant you and so could easily have been missed by someone eager to look clever by posting a LMGTFY link).

I should make my posts clearer so they don't confuse you - my apologies - and thank you for taking the time to answer.

[Tyrewrecker]

Carthage said:

Sorry, perhaps I should clarify for those who don't understand what I was asking.

I was looking to see if anyone had personally found an MBA useful in their career, or whether they regretted spending the time to do so.

I suppose I tried to also ask for a comparison with taught Doctorates too (although that was more implied than explicit, I grant you and so could easily have been missed by someone eager to look clever by posting a LMGTFY link).

I should make my posts clearer so they don't confuse you - my apologies - and thank you for taking the time to answer.

I wasn't trying to look clever I was trying to get at more what you are looking for in terms of information. My advice, take what you can from them. However, be careful what you take, I had to do a course costing over 20k in the past and had to sign a bond with the company to do so.

I know people who have completed them and not regretted them and are doing well, I don't know of many otherwise. It depends what your aims are and line of work is surely as to the usefulness?

[Carthage]

Tyrewrecker said:

I wasn't trying to look clever I was trying to get at more what you are looking for in terms of information. My advice, take what you can from them. However, be careful what you take, I had to do a course costing over 20k in the past and had to sign a bond with the company to do so.

I know people who have completed them and not regretted them and are doing well, I don't know of many otherwise. It depends what your aims are and line of work is surely as to the usefulness?

Glad you only appeared to be a tool - and aren't really.
To answer your points - I wouldn't have any obligations to my employer, financial or contractual. At the moment I work in education, and have conflicted views as to whether I should do a (free) MBA now or start an expensive Doctorate next year.

(Or stay uneducated and use Google links evermore ).

[Light n Hairy]

Best advice I have heard: If you're gonna to do an MBA, do it at either one of the top 5 (UK this means Oxbridge, or LBS, LSE and maybe Warwick, or at the other extreme, one of the cheap MBA-by-numbers schools. Everything in between means you are doing all of the hard work but not getting the kudos.


Having an MBA is one thing, but ifor it to have the cachet, it really does count where it's from IMO. In addition, the networks of business people and the amount of alumni support (vested interest: I got mine at Oxford) is immense. My income increased by 50% in the first year after leaving it, just by taking on other projects or putting different groups of people together. I can go for senior positions in contracts etc just because I have the background lingo to make my pitch sound confident.

Needing to learn what's on an MBA course can be done at even the cheap schools. Using the MBA as a business credential is another aspect of it altogether.

[Carthage]

Thanks L & H - I take the point about the provider. This would be distance learning (OU I think).
Can you tell me the best source for the ranking of universities providing MBAs and Doctorates?

[Tyrewrecker]

Carthage said:

Thanks L & H - I take the point about the provider. This would be distance learning (OU I think).
Can you tell me the best source for the ranking of universities providing MBAs and Doctorates?

London business school?
http://rankings.ft.com/businessschoolrankings/glob...

Doctorate I would suspect would be less dependant on where it is completed and more important for content quality of your work. It is very much a more individual merit award in my experience.

[Light n Hairy]

Carthage said:

Thanks L & H - I take the point about the provider. This would be distance learning (OU I think).
Can you tell me the best source for the ranking of universities providing MBAs and Doctorates?

The OU is pretty good as it happens IIRC.
In terms of rankings, the most commonly quoted source is the Financial TimesT. The rankings jump around quite a bit, and I know that schools try to game the system because these rankings are important to MBA 'consumers' , so ignore the minutiae- you'll recognise the big names soon enough.

http://rankings.ft.com/businessschoolrankings/glob...

[Carthage]

Tyrewrecker said:

London business school?
http://rankings.ft.com/businessschoolrankings/glob...

Doctorate I would suspect would be less dependant on where it is completed and more important for content quality of your work. It is very much a more individual merit award in my experience.

Well, I didn't ask for the best ranked university, I asked for the best source of rankings. I'm guessing from your link that you think the FT is it?

The Doctorate would be at a very old Scottish University, and is partly taught, mostly research so maybe a better move. That's if I plan to stay in education and it's not a comfortable environment with redundancies on the horizon.

[Tyrewrecker]

Carthage said:

Well, I didn't ask for the best ranked university, I asked for the best source of rankings. I'm guessing from your link that you think the FT is it?

The Doctorate would be at a very old Scottish University, and is partly taught, mostly research so maybe a better move. That's if I plan to stay in education and it's not a comfortable environment with redundancies on the horizon.

FT is the best source for rankings.

[rog007]

MBA or Doctorate? It all depends upon your motivation; knowledge aquisition, status, financial gain or career development? Funding of course is a factor, as is your own availability of time when balanced against any other commitments, such as family or current job. From my experience, MBA is best for public and private business sector career enhancement (despite the panning MBAs have had since the collapse of the banks (they all had MBAs, but still managed to cock things up)), whereas a Doctorate may be best if you intend to remain in academia. And as said before, which provider you choose is really important. Good luck!

[Carthage]

rog007 said:

MBA or Doctorate? It all depends upon your motivation; knowledge aquisition, status, financial gain or career development? Funding of course is a factor, as is your own availability of time when balanced against any other commitments, such as family or current job. From my experience, MBA is best for public and private business sector career enhancement (despite the panning MBAs have had since the collapse of the banks (they all had MBAs, but still managed to cock things up)), whereas a Doctorate may be best if you intend to remain in academia. And as said before, which provider you choose is really important. Good luck!

Some interesting points, thanks.
I've already got an MSc in Business Man, so not sure the knowledge would be greatly different, and I don't want to do an MBA for status, that's for sure. Financial gain/career development are the difficult ones - I work in HE at the moment so it wouldn't help with that, but things in HE are getting tough, and I may have to move career.
Decisions, decisions.

[Phil.]

I completed a PhD many years ago and supervised a couple. My experience is that Doctorates require a different level of committment to a masters/MBA, are prone to failure, and in most cases you will need to demonstrate a MBA before beginning a DBA. So the MBA is a good starting point rather than an alternative. If you can succeed with a MBA you have more chance at succeeding with a Doctorate and if you choose your MBA dissertation carefully it can accelerate your Doctorate.

There are examples of career development experiences with an MBA here and alternatives to the OU MBA for a lower price:

http://www.rdi.co.uk/distance-learning/student-tes...

[Carthage]

Phil. said:

I completed a PhD many years ago and supervised a couple. My experience is that Doctorates require a different level of committment to a masters/MBA, are prone to failure, and in most cases you will need to demonstrate a MBA before beginning a DBA. So the MBA is a good starting point rather than an alternative. If you can succeed with a MBA you have more chance at succeeding with a Doctorate and if you choose your MBA dissertation carefully it can accelerate your Doctorate.

There are examples of career development experiences with an MBA here and alternatives to the OU MBA for a lower price:

http://www.rdi.co.uk/distance-learning/student-tes...

It wasn't a DBA I was thinking of doing, sorry - it was a Doctorate in Education at Glasgow.
I've got three Masters already including an MEd (I know, I need to get out more) and so didn't want to do much more of the same level stuff, especially as I did quite well in them.
I am not good at this decision thing.

[Phil.]

DEd is a good differentiator in HE, both publicly funded and the emerging private HE sector in the UK. With an MEd already under your belt I would go for the DEd too rather than an MBA unless you wanted to teach business related subjects. HE is a thriving sector currently worldwide so there of lots of different career opportunities and paths you can take. I made the jump from from the publicly funded to the private HE sector 10 years ago and have never looked back. Just decide where you want to be in a few years time and go for it!

[steveatesh]

Carthage said:

I am not good at this decision thing.

Don't waste your time doing an MBA or a Doctorate then, just go straight in to be a senior politician, although your current qualifications make you far too over qualified

[Carthage]

steveatesh said:

Don't waste your time doing an MBA or a Doctorate then, just go straight in to be a senior politician, although your current qualifications make you far too over qualified

[johnfm]

I seem to recall INSEAD fund some PHDs.

[Carthage]

johnfm said:

I seem to recall INSEAD fund some PHDs.

You're up late/early. Will google INSEAD tomorrow (today?) thanks.