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Rising Star
Mentor
SQ - What are y’all buying to play ER?
Share your preferences fishes... 😉
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Chief
Slow action is no action.
Rising Star
Mentor
SQ - What are y’all buying to play ER?
Share your preferences fishes... 😉
Chief
Slow action is no action.
These are the biggest challenges I see:
1. Young kids struggling to find work, deferring life for a year, having a MBA from a mediocre/non competitive program at 24 and pricing themselves out of the market.
2. Mediocre schools using this as another revenue stream to pay for bloated administration roles without providing value.
3. Antiquated companies requiring advanced degrees to earn senior leadership roles. This locks mostly poorer minority groups out of the c-suite unless they get appointed to a D&I role (don’t even get me started on that as a minority myself).
Chief
Hadn’t thought about point number 3 before, thank you for pointing it out.
Chief
A masters degree to work in an ad agency?
I received a masters when I went back to school to build my portfolio. VCU
Chief
I think some are, some are not. depends on the content, program, cost.
Mine is from a top tier engineering school - fully paid for by teaching assistantships. It definitely gives me more clout on my resume and taught me skills I needed earlier in my career. I’m not sure I would have paid the $100K book rate.
If it’s a degree that furthers science and research, I think they are worth it cause they are needed but even then that is only for people that want to be in that field as a career. Anything else I feel like it’s just a more in depth/detailed version of a bachelor’s.
A marketing and advertising masters will be a waste. By the time you finish the degree, at least half the material will be out of date in terms of how fast the industry operates.
I think there are a small number of situations where an MBA makes sense: changing careers, company pays for it, in-house role requires for advancement. Otherwise, it’s a hefty investment that likely won’t yield a worthwhile ROI for those on the agency track.
Different take: I got an MA in liberal arts and it got me my first job in strategy with hardly any experience. It’s been hugely helpful for my writing, research, and overall being interested in the world skills.
It’s paid for itself multiple times over, as soon as I figured out a career path that would value it.
I think some of the value comes from when you got yours and how much you paid. There benefit of advanced education is undeniable...but the cost it sells for in 2021?
I considered getting one just for the sake of it. When I asked my faculty advisor for advice, he told me don't do it unless the job I wanted required it b/c it's just a way for the university to make more money.
There are careers that require them, but the vast majority do not. It’s an escape hatch: not happy with current career prospects? Get a degree!
People need to stop and do a cost benefit analysis, but they rarely do.
Note: almost everyone in know has a masters of beyond, but in academic careers, medicine,
Consulting or law. I got one that wasn’t needed professionally, but the status of having it helps socially in my circle. And I got it very inexpensively (I negotiated a semester less based on experience so it was very inexpensive and took less than a calendar year.)
I was told a decade ago by the professor from undergrad that I trusted the most that MBA’s were becoming so ubiquitous that it wouldn’t be a differentiator anymore and I think that has come to fruition. I don’t think it would be bad to gain some additional knowledge and thinking, of course, but not at the cost of $50,000+, unless you want to go client side and need it to advance in a role. Or if your company is going to pay for all or most of it.
It depends on your goals. If you want to go C-suite some day, some roles require a Masters degree to qualify. If you want to do teaching at a University at some point, it can often be a requirement (unless you’re a professor of the practice). If you want to go work abroad in Europe through a highly skilled migrant visa, a Masters degree gives a bit of a tax break and helps sell the government on your unique value prop.
It’s not right for everyone, but if any of the above are things that you’d like to do in the future it’s worth considering. And not all Masters degrees break the bank, either, especially when combined with Federal Pell Grants or scholarships.
Ah yes you’re right. I meant to say that applying to FASFA for grants would help (that’s how I got through both undergrad and grad school)
The bulk of student loan debt is from grad programs. It seems like many enter into them without much thought and then want to declare a crisis when they have trouble paying back what they agreed to.
Rising Star
The only thing I’d need one for is if I wanted to teach at a college. Which I don’t.
To add something different, I rarely notice a difference in intelligence or ability to positively contribute between MBA and non-MBAs in the world of marketing.
I got one 4 years ago and it hasn’t seemed to help me move up to the next step in my career. It was paid for by my company.
I got my MBA and I don’t regret it at all. Did the part time program at a good in-state school in 2.5 years while working full time. I didn’t have any foregone years of salary or experience and graduated with manageable student loans that I would have had to take out anyway. I think like with anything else, you have to do a cost benefit analysis to determine if the juice is worth the squeeze. My (Asian) family reeeeeally pushed me to get a Ph.D, but once I explained the returns to the additional years of school on top of the foregone work experience and salary would likely end up negative compared to an MBA, that quieted them.
I’m getting my masters so I can get out of advertising
I earned my MFA and then went to work in advertising. It was either adworld, film, or publishing, and ads paid the best. I think the MFA helped hone my writing and research skills, and helped me approach writing as a day-in, day-out career, rather than a passion. However, my MFA was paid for with fellowships and teaching assistantships. If you can't get your grad degree paid for, it usually isn't worth it.