MBA Checkbox
management, software development
I’ve been debating on whether I should pursue an MBA at this point in my career. I’ve even gone so far as to attend an informational session at the local UC. I’d like to eventually take on the challenges and headaches of being a CIO/CTO, and obviously there is some value to having an MBA.
Some quick research pulls up the following:
About 25 percent of the members of The Working Council for CIOs have MBAs.
So apparently it’s not critical for my future statistically. Still there is the lure of academia, possibly working with a great professor on interesting research, fellow students allowing for some great networking, and forcing myself to branch out on the business side.
Still there’s a lot of other factors such as:
- My wife just finished 3 years of law school and it’s nice to have two incomes again.
- We already have school loans to pay.
- We have two small children who need a lot of attention.
- I already have one advanced degree.
The convincing factor to put it off into the future is that I’m already a software development manager and I love my job even with the headaches. So if I was a developer and I wanted to move ahead it might be a lot more compelling to take on the debt. I still need to branch out more on the business side, but I did several stints in professional services so I’ve seen quite a few industries and worked on projects in them. I’ve also done pretty much every IT role including architect, PM, business analyst, QA lead, and sysadmin.
And anyway I feel a little old for it. All my friends who’ve gotten MBAs did it a few years back generally without kids and sometimes without significant others.
Ed Gibbs @ December 10, 2005
Hi Ed,
I completed a Masters in IT in 1998 at age 47 and really enjoyed the challenge and the opportunity to do some in depth work in some fields that I had not been exposed to.
I feel that you need not rush as you have plenty of time and it sounds like a good time to recover the finances a little. In my experience, advanced degrees are of interest to an employer but far less so than your abilities proven by your experience.
I certainly recommend some business related studies as invaluable. I included basic accounting, economics, law and marketing as electives in my diploma way back in the mid 70s. The accounting unit has been invaluable ever since and using the knowledge in my development and analysis roles has repaid my time expenditure may times over.
In addition, I found that I was studying for my masters when my sons were in senior high school or university and they performed very well and worked hard on their studies. I like to think that I set a good role model for them to follow on. On the other hand, our friends classify the whole family as a bunch of over achievers, so perhaps it would not have mattered
what I did.
I encourage you to do the study but kids need to spend time with their parents so that they pick up the same values. If both parents are working then their time with the kids will be limited and very very important.
Regards
Roy