According to a recent study conducted by Begin Group, the most popular criteria on which domestic MBA (Master of Business Administration) students base their choice are the school's reputation, teaching staff, and tuition cost. At the same time, in the ranking of future students' expectations, the top spots are acquiring new knowledge, systematizing already accumulated knowledge, and career growth. However, according to experts, having spent three years of your life and $100,000 or even more on an MBA program, you may... be disappointed.
Work experience is desirable
Recently, the British newspaper The Economic Times asked why such a large number of reasonable people voluntarily give huge amounts of money earned by the sweat of their brow and devote their precious time, torn away from life, to an MBA program. The simplest answer to this question is that they want to find a better job that pays more money, they want to improve the quality of life in the long term and are ready to sacrifice a lot for this.
The logic of future MBA degree holders is simple. Management is where the dollars are, and an MBA is the key to the door behind which management rules. The problem, note the publication's experts, is that in practice this logic is far from always correct. If management is what you are striving for, then you may want to complete an MBA program. But education does not automatically ensure career growth because it does not guarantee that you will be able to work effectively. An MBA degree can give you enormous potential needed for career development. But if you do not work effectively, your qualification does not guarantee a well-paid job.
Therefore, experts do not advise starting an MBA program if you have less than five years of work experience. First, your candidacy will be less attractive compared to those with more work experience. Second, you simply will not be able to connect what you are learning with the necessary practical context.
How to choose the best
Interestingly, recently both in the West and here, there is increasing talk that there are too many MBA programs. The concern is that uncontrolled growth could lead to a devaluation of the MBA concept. John Tuhey from the Australian Graduate School of Management, for example, recently called for the Australian government to intervene and introduce control over the national market for MBA programs. He wants to be sure that "the quality of programs and the degree obtained, as well as trust and respect for these programs, will not be undermined."
In Russia, approximately the same thing is happening. The education market for MBA programs in the neighboring country is going through troubled times. On the one hand, the year before last, the Russian Ministry of Education completed a three-year experiment on implementing MBA programs and approved a list of universities entitled to issue the corresponding state diploma. However, on the other hand, a licensing system for such educational institutions was not created. As a result, the number of business schools declaring their readiness to conduct MBA programs in Russia has now approached 80. Most of them have appeared in the last two to three years. The result is that universities that have been operating in this market for five years or more are talking about dumping, the threat of blurring program requirements, and lowering the bar for MBA education.
Although, as the Begin Group study showed, Russian students have already learned to take this circumstance into account when choosing a business school. For them, the concept of "reputation" of an educational institution consists of concepts such as "compliance of the program with international standards", "the presence and number of foreign business partners of the school", "accreditation in foreign organizations".
Consider local specifics
However, our students, when choosing an MBA program, have to take into account other features of the national specifics. "The status of an MBA in our country has yet to take root," said Sergei Pyatenko, general director of one of the economic and law schools. "For us now, the method of patching holes in basic education can often be more effective than an attempt to get another large but not yet established education."
According to him, currently the domestic employer, as a rule, is not ready to admit that a person with an MBA diploma knows something that makes him worth more than a person without an MBA. "From the employer's standpoint, reading in a potential employee's resume that over the past five years he has completed 10-15 short specialized courses or trainings (for example, in international accounting, finance, team building, and so on) is much better," believes Sergei Pyatenko. "Such a list can tell much more about the person who chose them than two or three years of study in a standard MBA program." Therefore, when choosing a program, you must remember your future specialization, otherwise you can waste money.
Tips for choosing an MBA program
* Do not let an MBA program ruin your career or personal life – tailor it to your goals. The choice of most MBA students is distance learning or flexible learning, despite the fact that most universities and business schools, protecting their interests, promote full-time programs, saying they are better.
* Weigh everything carefully before leaving your job to get an MBA degree. You think you will get the qualification faster, but do you need it?
* If you think you made a mistake in choosing a program, change it. Usually it is easy to do.
* Do not start studying in an MBA program if you have less than five years of work experience. Not only will your candidacy be less attractive compared to those with more work experience, you also will not be able to connect what you are learning with the necessary practical context.
* Talk to people in your organization before going for an MBA. Ask them how they see your future and whether they think the program will help you. Do they see you as a manager? Maybe they know of a worthwhile MBA program? What do they like and dislike about MBAs?
* Don't forget to find out about the program's history. How long has it been around? How many students have gone through it? How many graduates does it have? What are these people doing now? Do companies support this program, and does it have credibility in business circles?
* Many players in the MBA market ignore these rules, although if you compare a manager's career to a cake, experience and work are its main components, and formal qualifications and degrees are the icing on top. In fact, a cake is better when it is covered with icing, but the icing itself has no particular benefit.