Let's talk MBA, old guy edition

March 25, 2016 6:38 AM

So many MBA questions, so little room here

Hi MeFi.

I'm 46 year old guy, small business owner, worried that market changes will make my business irrelevant. Few real obligations (no spouse, no kids) and a little money saved.

I'm working on changes to keep my business relevant.

I'm also exploring an MBA so I can get a job in the 21st century. I took a GRE class and took the test as a first step. 149 math, 159 verbal. Good enough to have my application considered by the two big universities in my state with ranked MBA programs.

I'm getting a lot of push back when I look into full time programs. Apparently Old people (decades of experience) don't fit the program well, don't get good internships, don't intern well. Then I get the hard sell on the "Professional / Executive" programs. I can't tell if those are much more than a correspondence school. Are they worth doing, if you aren't already in a company paying for and requiring it? Is it really top ten schools or nothing? Is a strictly on-line, pay as you go, plan worth anything at all (think U. of Phoenix)?

Lastly, while investigating this, I applied and was accepted into Seth Godin's altMBA program. I've read a few of his books. Have you done it? Is this the way to "level up"? It will be a tough month of work, $3k isn't something to sneeze at, and I can't explain this adequately to others (so do I really understand it?)

Mefi mail is a-ok with me.

Thank you for your time

posted by Classic Diner to Education (6 answers total)

U of Phoenix is not really looked on as anything but a vanity project. I know a guy who got one and he says it was a complete waste of time. And a shit ton of money.

I got my MBA on a free ride, via an Executive program offered by both my company and Nova Southeastern University. Basically my company paid for the whole thing via Tuition Aid. Yay for me.

I found my program very interesting, and I learned a lot. It did NOT lead to any kind of internship or Entry Level MBA job. Basically, it just made me slightly more hirable than someone without the paper. I got a lot out of my program, but I can't say that it made a huge difference in my career trajectory. No one says, "Wow, you have an MBA, and from NOVA!"

I rolled my eyes at altMBA. You can't brag that you got accepted, since everyone with money gets in. And frankly, I wouldn't want to work anywhere, where they though Seth Godin was some kind of guru.

If you want to start over in a new career an MBA is probably the WORST way to waste time and money. It is not a door opener, and if you get a mediocre one, nobody cares at all.

What exactly do you want to do next? When a career change was foisted upon me, I learned Salesforce, then I worked with it for a few years, and now I have a job as a consultant with a national firm.

Have you identified exactly the kind of job you want? Because you have to do that first. Getting an MBA does not provide you with a specific skill set for any particular job.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 6:57 AM on March 25, 2016 [4 favorites]

I'm just finishing my MBA. I'm in my later 30s and fairly successful in my career but wanted the credential and to polish my business skills. I don't know that the MBA alone would open any new doors. The internship offerings were definitely geared toward the younger folks -- but also not a requirement of my program.

My program wasn't geared toward networking and while I have a few classmates I'd consider colleagues -- the MBA wasn't useful in leveraging a network to launch a new career direction. Some programs ARE geared toward networking but these may be the more traditional and more "youthful".

MBA coursework work is a bit common sense and business folks tend to be a competitive -- but also lazy. With most programs, I expect you'll get what you put in. Nearly all the work *could* be applied to an actual real life business scenario but you'll need to bridge the gap between the class room and the business application. Possibly a terrible metaphor but think of your ideal business self as a brilliant novelist. MBA coursework is like taking the time to learn how to word process and format things nicely -- possibly outline, maybe a little dabbling in pitching to publishers. MBA coursework is NOT going to give you the business idea or the actual framework to execute (in my experience) but an overview in the tooling that you'll need to figure out how to use.

There are a lot of online programs even with larger traditional schools. You may want to broaden your search to include non-local but recognized schools. I don't think it's big 10 or nothing -- but it depends on what you want to achieve.

Don't go into a lot of debt. Figure out your objectives (networking, academics, tooling). Specialize to meet your needs. Invest time in the parts that interest you and don't just skip through it for the grade. Make a multi-pointed career plan that involves more than just an MBA.
posted by countrymod at 7:18 AM on March 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

My ex did an executive MBA program, while we were still together, at a Catholic university I won't name. I will say it has a 91% acceptance rate, and it's also ranked in the top 35 part-time MBA programs by US News & World Report. He went every weekend for 2.5 years, and the tuition was around 45k.

And I'll tell you what: It was mostly business fundamentals you'd get in any undergrad business degree program, plus a couple of leadership courses that were probably helpful for him, plus some absolute garbage regarding IT management. (I work in IT, and I was appalled at the outdated and inaccurate--and frankly way too granular--stuff they were teaching. Absolutely nothing strategic regarding IT. Example: They taught the students how to use MS FrontPage--less than 10 years ago.)

He had this idea it would help him change industries, but he was vague about the industry he wanted. He seemed to have this general idea it would help him "level up," but since he already had another master's and 15 years experience in that field, nobody was interested in giving him a leadership or executive position in another field just because he'd paid 45k for a piece of paper. Several of his friends from the program had similarly disappointing, if naive, expectations and experiences. And on the other hand, several other friends from the program quickly propelled into executive leadership ranks--but in or adjacent to the fields they were already in. And those people were, by and large, already good leaders and great with people skills before they did the executive MBA program.

Based on my experience, I would never, ever advise anyone to do an executive MBA program.
posted by ImproviseOrDie at 10:37 AM on March 25, 2016 [2 favorites]

I got a MBA through Babson's Fast Track program, now re-branded Blended Learning. I was 45 when I started, and it was a 21 month program. Every 4-6 weeks, we would have a face-to-face weekend with class all day Friday and all day Saturday. In the meantime, we had assignments every week via Blackboard. The longest break was 2 weeks for Christmas. It was a very intense program -- I almost tried to take time off mid-way through due to in addition to doing this program, I had a full-time job as a marketing director which had me on the road a lot and I was co-parenting a toddler. I'm glad I stuck it out though because 2 weeks after I graduated, Lehman Brothers collapsed.

I got two main benefits from this program. First, although I had a lot of diverse business experience, when I changed companies, I found that I was pigeon-holed into my functional role -- I wanted the MBA credential to help counteract that. Second, I got a lot of experience with financial analysis and Excel which was a gap in my education.

However, my company paid for everything and I got time off for the Friday of the F2F sessions. I don't think I would have gone if I had to pay for this myself -- I don't think I would have recouped my investment. I definitely would not have been able to recoup the investment of paying for a full-time program.
posted by elmay at 10:52 AM on March 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

For the most part eMBAs and pMBAs not real MBAs -- they have less, and less rigorous, coursework. They are absolutely NOT for career changes whether now or maybe-in-case-you-need-one. They can offer you a good networking opportunity if you are the kind of person people want to network with (naturally popular, already in a powerful job, attractive woman, etc.), but if you aren't that type, not much networking.

Part-time MBAs usually are real MBAs. Same classes, same credit hours. And whether night or weekend they usually have and are calibrated to older, more diverse students. They aren't as good at immediate career change as full time because not oriented to internships but the quality of internship that a state school MBA that isn't in the half dozen or so state school MBAs in the country isn't great anyway, and and a 47 year old isn't going to do well in the internship hunt at Harvard or Stanford.
posted by MattD at 5:46 PM on March 25, 2016

One of the older people here. 15y ago did a Marketing Certificate through a major university (am in high-tech, and was transitioning from a technical role into a marketing one). Evenings and weekends over the course of a few years.

Had weighed the cost/benefit of an Executive MBA program, and decided against it. Never looked back nor regretted the decision.

I discovered John Kaufman's website and book several years ago, and agree with his premise - you really could learn all the content from an MBA program through disciplined study - he has a list of some 99 books arranged by category at Personal MBA as well as book that you may want to check out as well.

I do sympathize with the impulse to 'go back to school to prepare for the 21st century', but do you really think a program like that would the the only (and best) way to go about this kind of change?
posted by scooterdog at 4:04 AM on March 26, 2016 [1 favorite]