MBA not useful in some fields
MBA not useful in some fields
(OP)
Hi All, in your professional opinion do you think that an MBA would not be useful when paired with a less popular enigneering field such as materials? It seems that Materials Engineers are less likely to be be Executives or in Managers within a company, which would deem an MBA useless for a Materials Engineer. Is there any truth to this? Your thoughts/stories would be greatly appreciated.





RE: MBA not useful in some fields
If you're just looking for three letters to stick after your name in hopes of advancement, it's not worth anyone's time no matter what their Bachelor of Science is called.
Those are my thoughts, it'll be interesting to hear others!
Good on ya,
Goober Dave
RE: MBA not useful in some fields
RE: MBA not useful in some fields
In the past an MBA may not help you in a technical way. These days some people don't know what it is and/or don't care what type of master's program you graduated from.
Depending on the field and company, it may or may not help. For the materials area, an MBA may put in management in the company, but not necessarily in the materials arena.
Chris
SolidWorks 10 SP4.0
ctopher's home
SolidWorks Legion
RE: MBA not useful in some fields
Even when you are a technical manager, your level of technical expertise and technical involvement drops substantially. There are very few jobs that allow you to be a manager and still do detailed technical work.
TTFN
FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies
RE: MBA not useful in some fields
RE: MBA not useful in some fields
RE: MBA not useful in some fields
Plasgears, what type of work are you in?
RE: MBA not useful in some fields
I would think an MBA and management knowledge would be useful no matter what engineering degree you have, but I second IRstuff in that I've heard from friends who have both that one gets transitioned out of doing engineering work and into doing only management work.
RE: MBA not useful in some fields
The technical skills and knowledge you got with an engineering degree is only part of a tool-box.
Making things happen on a bigger scale involves managing people, processes, organizing production processes, etc.
What ever it is you engineer has to get out of your cube and into the world, maby hundreds of thousands of them have to be made, new factories built, new factories build,new distributions channels developed, etc.
Before you decide you don't want into management look closely at what management does and how you could do it better ( even if it means hiring people to do your job.)
RE: MBA not useful in some fields
At the end of the day, if you can't make enough money to pay the bills, the salaries, and feed the investors, it doesn't much matter how good the engineers did on their last design; you're all out of a job...
TTFN
FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies
RE: MBA not useful in some fields
Telling JMKmat it's useless to prepair hisself is like telling Ed Heinemann or Kelly Johnson to stay on the board and design aeleron hinges. There's as much reward in doing that.
I like to look at forest not trees. There is always a place for the people that want to specialize in the beetles on the bark.