Just finished read Ahead of the Curve: Two Years at Harvard Business School
. Philip Delves Broughton was a British journalist who dragged his wife and young child away from Paris in hopes of changing his career. He was successful in spending $175,000 and graduating with the Class of 2006, but the HBS degree does not make him irresistible to consulting firms and investment banks. Broughton achieves an excellent balance between summarizing the material taught and the social experience. Highly recommended to anyone considering business school (a potential $174,983 savings by reading the book instead of attending) or anyone wondering why our economy is where it is.
You know, I was hoping one of the silver linings of this debacle would be that the shine would come off the HBS a bit. If the MBA ruling class is brought down a notch, it could only be good. Never has there been a more naked group of emperors than the MBAs. Leaders should not be chosen because they happened to chose a certain graduate school subject. We should laugh at the idea of leadership self-selection, but alas we’ve all bought into the myth that leadership can be taught in a business school, and not in a business.
According the GRE statistics, those choosing business school score lower on the verbal section than engineers, and lower on the math section than english majors. So it seems we get the greediest, but by no means the best.
Here’s another good article on the subject of the damage Harvard has done to the country and to the world:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&refer=columnist_hassett&sid=a_ac69DqFutQ#
Phil- Love the blog, been reading your stuff for ages. I have read your photography and aquarium info even, and really enjoy the commentary on education and careers especially. As a fellow engineer (although with far more humble credentials and experience) your opinion on those two topics is always welcome.
As an engineer who sees the ceiling that many technical careers hit, I have naturally considered the MBA route. So far I have stayed somewhat technical with my career and education, but the lure of the MBA is still there for some reason ($ maybe? Not wanting to be a 50 year old engineer maybe?). Now I have read all the books, articles, rankings, etc, and believe that any credential whose value is based almost exclusively on the prestige of the school should be viewed in a dubious light. But it seems to me that industry values the MBA, especially with technical credentials on top of it. Shouldn’t the combination of logic, quantitative skills, intelligence, AND the MBA be a killer combination? Unless of course you have the personality of a door knob, then you better be a really good engineer.
So getting to the point, here are my questions:
-Do you have any opinion on MBA engineers?
-Do these people usually get the MBA and then stay working as engineers?
-Do you have any opinion on MBA-ish programs like MIT’s own SDM program?
-Do you have any opinion on Engineering Management programs like the one at Tufts (the Gordon Institute)?
Funny thing is, my wife of less than two months finished an MBA (on a full fellowship no less, what a woman) a couple of years ago and says it is a complete crock except for a couple of classes. She went to a school that has cracked into the BusinessWeek top 30 and said that she was not impressed with most of the other students. Some were impressive, but it was for who they are and what they were before school. Many were people with rich families and it didn’t really matter whether they were there or not. It did help her get a 50% salary increase, even if she is doing a job that she probably could have done without the MBA.
Still can get past the notion that it would help me in some way though…..
Cheers,
Mike
I know a lot of engineers who went through MBA programs and ended up more or less back in their same cubicle. None of them managed to ascend into the $10 million/year investment banker ranks. That was one point made in “Ahead of the Curve”. People who had worked at an I-bank for three years prior to Harvard ended up going back there and having good careers. People who had worked for an industrial company ended up going back to that company or another one in the same industry.
I haven’t kept current with the Tufts/MIT offerings you mention so I’m afraid that I can’t be of much use.
I think that careful career management would be more useful than an MBA. For example, telling your employer “I need to get some more management experience; please give me a project where I can learn and prove myself.” A lot of big companies train their promising employees this way. They may get the occasional classroom course, but mostly their training is done on-the-job with a variety of projects and positions.
Especially at your age I think that employers (if there are any left by the end of 2009) will look at what you’ve done, not at what schools you attended.
Phil, that’s very interesting. Just like Mike, I’m coming from a technical background and have been considering MIT’ Sloan. Now that you’ve mentioned the book, maybe I should go ahead buy and read the book first before deciding for an MBA degree. My passion is Science, maybe I should stick to it, and go for Master and maybe a Doctoral in Material Science. Again, as always, great articles and commentary, I have been reading your blogs for quite sometime. Thank you.
I just finished this book this weekend (based on Phil’s recommendation) and found it very interesting for someone like me (40-ish engineer whose career path seems to be flattening out).
The author describes the struggles of the desire to be successful professionally, while maintaining a sane and happy non-work life. Much of the evidence in the book points to the fact that perhaps these goals are orthogonal in most typical MBA cases. Sure, there are people that get an MBA, then start wildly successful companies and retire rich and young. However, it sounded like most MBA grads (even Harvard ones) go on to become wage slaves like the rest of us, with the MBAs on Wall St. being ridden perhaps harder than the rest of us.
Well worth the time to read it. And for those of you also struggling with career issues, I find reading the great philosopher Bill Watterson refreshing:
“But having an enviable career is one thing, and being a happy person is another.”
(http://home3.inet.tele.dk/stadil/spe_kc.htm)