MBA or other Master’s courses? Which is the right course for me?
View(s):“Should I do an MBA or any other Master’s degree?” Mr Dhanushka Kulathilaka one of the most sought after and respected Post Graduate Business Consultants in country today, attempts to unscramble and explain the main difference between the two courses.
This is a question in two parts. Firstly, what is it that you, a graduate want? Secondly, what skills do recruiters say they want, for the positions you are training for? Particularly since the economic downturn, corporates and business schools have been proactively concentrating on business education. Recruiters tell the top business schools what they expect from their future business leaders and the schools respond.
Business Schools meanwhile work hard to retain individuality and educational rigour. The debate raging around the MBA academic world right now is to what extent corporate governance and ethics should become a core feature of MBA and other business programmes.MBA
It’s important to understand the difference between MBA and other Master’s Programmes. MBAs are a post-experience qualification in general management, usually requiring three or more years of work experience, though four to eight years is most common. The best traditional MBA programs have students with an average of seven years while 1 year MBA courses are targeted at those with senior managerial work experience, usually ten or more years.
The vast majority of MBA courses stress the general nature of business education. An MBA graduate will emerge from his or her program knowing several core subjects including marketing, strategy, leadership, entrepreneurship, operations, human resources and so on. This gives them an overview of how businesses work from the top down, covering almost all aspects of the business.
An MBA “trains young professionals in general areas of management and emphasizes personal communication, leadership and management skills that cover all the areas. In the MBA you roughly do 25% class time in finance and accounting, for example, where as a Masters in Finance (MA) is 90% pure finance.”
The general nature of MBA courses, by definition, offers a very firm grounding in the other core skills whereas MSc in Finance or an MA in Finance won’t. An MBA is recruiter-driven: “The big banks want students at the cutting edge of financial skills, derivatives, financial engineering which are electives in an MBA but a core part of the MA. The assumption is that a graduate of MA in Finance, with less or no work experience, wouldn’t have done those kind of roles. A Masters in Finance is a degree featuring a lot of pure maths to equip graduates for corporate finance and investment banking jobs.”
Other Master’s Courses
Master’s courses are ‘pre-experience’, targeted at immediate graduates and those who do not necessarily have work experience.
Programs such as MSc in Management, MSc in Marketing, MA in Finance are typical examples of other Master’s programmes that are offered. These are designed to provide recent graduates with some differentiation in the labour market when they are not experienced enough or prepared for the MBA. “You’d tend to take the MBA later on and for one of three reasons, for career advancement, which is the dominant driver; to make a change in your career; or for learning more about entrepreneurialism.”
Mr. Kulathilaka also goes on to state that taking students with less than five to seven years work experience on an MBA is rare, while some of the best MBA programs even go to the extent of considering 3-4 years of senior managerial work experience.
Teaching styles
Course focus and teaching styles are essential differences between an MBA and any other Master’s course. Master’s courses, introduce graduates to general management but in a different way. Some cover the same material as parts of the MBA but are more didactic in manner with fewer case studies, with less debate and a different style of teaching that is more lecture-based.
MBA courses tend to focus on teamwork, lots of contribution in class, learning from peers and networking and communication skills. In this sense the facilitator is often a hands-off guide for students’ debates, guiding them towards problems rather than providing conclusions, allowing students to make mistakes and research thoroughly themselves.
Many graduates want to start focusing early. They may say that maths is your strong suit, and that they are not interested in marketing or HR, for example. The business world needs very strong accountants or HR or operations or people with other specializations, so a Masters in Finance, Accountancy, HR and so on are the best option for many. Of course this also allows the graduate to get straight into education again without necessarily having to go into a management position for a few years in preparation for an MBA.
Which pays more?
In salary terms, the MBA is perceived to have a slight edge, however the difference between an MBA and any other Master’s degree holder with four years’ postgraduate experience in a specialization remains small. For those who want to specialize, the MBA may be too general, and you may feel ready to start studying very soon. Likewise, if you want to differentiate yourself in management and aren’t ready for an MBA, Masters in Management courses are designed for you.
Having said that, the MBA is still rightfully considered a major business qualification, particularly, as Mr. Kulathilaka says, “When the MBA is from one of the big schools, reputation is important and people should do as much research as they can do to find the school that best suits them. One way they could see how big a school is by looking at its latest rankings”
The key thinking then is: what are your strengths, where do you want to go, career-wise, what style of course suits you best; and start to plan your career trajectory early.
- Dhanushka Kulathilaka
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