MBA not useful in some fields

[jmkmat]

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.

 

[DRWeig]

All engineering involves using other peoples' money. The stuff you learn in MBA school is valuable if you apply it to your work. Doesn't matter what engineering specialty you are in.

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

 

[ivymike]

an MBA will only be useful if you end up using the knowledge for something - like making better business decisions. My experience agrees with what you've said about materials guys. They mostly seem to stay out of the way of decision making and leadership roles. The one materials guy I know who progressed along a managment path did so by going after a "mechanical" role, then a supervisory one. An MBA would have helped him.

 

[ctopher]

I agree with the others.
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

 

[IRstuff]

The question is, why does it matter? Getting an MBA implies that you want to be doing business and making business decisions. At that point, what your bachelor's degree is almost irrelevant, since you won't be doing technical work anyway.

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

 

[stanweld]

I've known Metallurgists who obtained their MBA's and moved into managemnent positions both within and outside their engineering fields. Some became Vice Presidents of major corporations. My own opinion is that if you wish to obtain an MBA and do so, move into management or start your own company or move outside of Engineering into finance or marketing.

 

[plasgears]

If it's engineering you wish to pursue, get a masters in a new engineering specialty. Then you can be the resident expert. I had an attached new engineer with a masters in fracture mechanics, which I put to work in my design. His career skyrocketed after his work with me. His next stop was an analytical unit with wall to wall PhD's. No doubt he got his Dr/eng after a while.

 

[jmkmat]

Thanks guys, very helpful advice. My general thought now is that it is possible to pursue a management job in any field and an MBA would certainly help with that.

Plasgears, what type of work are you in?

 

[materialsliz]

Materials engineering is a "less popular" engineering field?! Tell that to all the recruiters who keep calling me looking for a materials/composite engineer.

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.

 

[BJC]

The real defination of an engineer: An engineer is someone who can do for $1 what any one else can do for 2( or 3 0r 1000). Knowing how to do that is easier if you have more knowledge.
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.)

 

[IRstuff]

Don't want to get into any arguments here, but MBA stands for Master's degree in Business [red]ADMINISTRATION[/red]. You don't learn much about how to make things cheaper, except by outsourcing to China or somesuch. You learn how to run and manage a business, which often has diametrically opposed goals to engineering and even to the longevity of the engineer you used to be.

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

 

[BJC]

Well IRStuff I guess anything is what you want to make it. I had courses that included linear pograming,operations research, scheduling, statistical analysis and experimentation design, manufacturing methods ( a graduate industrial engineering class), OBOT, cost engineering and financial analysis and lots of other things. The people I took it from weren't concentrating on how to keep the supply locker full of post-itnotes and paperclips.

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.