Education: MBA of Tech or Masters in IS?

Question

I recently worked at a start-up leading a small .NET dev team but the company went bust. I've been unemployed for the last six months and thinking of going back to school to help find me a job a year or two down the road.

After I get out of school, I'd like to work on the business side of software but am open to continue programming. Either way, I'd just like to continue working in software while maximizing income possibilities and having the most job opportunities.

What's more valuable for a geek looking to score a stable corporate gig? An MBA in Technology or and Masters of IS? The masters is cheaper and quicker.

Any thoughts would greatly be appreciated!

EDIT: Sorry if this isnt code-related enough. I don't know where else to ask a question like this. :(

Answer 1

Masters in Business Administration

What you should know about an MBA is that the degree itself is largely irrelevant. The real value of an MBA comes in the form of networking and the job opportunities you may get from going to a sufficiently good school (Harvard, Wharton, Kellogg, Yale, Chicago, Northwestern, UCLA, etc). If you're doing an MBA at a no-name university basically you're wasting your time.

The other thing you should know about an MBA is that they have the most value for people who are already on that career track. Don't think that an MBA will make you an executive or a manager if you're not already going that way.

Take a look at:

• Just Enough MBA to Be a Programmer (highly recommended)
• MBA for a Computer Science guy?;
• How important is an MBA in the Computer Industry?

You also have to consider that an MBA is becoming so common that it's value is rapidly diminishing. That even applies to the top schools but an MBA from one of the top 50 schools still has value.

In terms of knowledge, reading The Ten-Day MBA will get you most of what you actually need to know.

Masters in Information Systems

An MIS on the other hand is far more IT focused and seems aimed at someone who wishes to undertake an IT leadership position. Like any degree (MBA included) the individual curriculum varies from institution to institution but basically the goal is to give you a foundation in the business of software so you'll find both IT and non-IT people doing this kind of degree.

The career path for such a person would probably start out as a Business Analyst or similar. Or if you're an experienced developer, you'd go on to be a Team Leader, Lead Developer, Development Manager and so on.

I'd say this has more value to someone who doesn't have the IT background who wants to work as a Business Analyst or otherwise get into IT on the business side.

Experience

As in most fields and probably more so in IT, experience pretty much trumps everything else. So you've been off-work for six months. Any potential employer will be asking you what you've been doing in that time. That's a lot of time in which you could be:

• learning new skills;
• blogging or otherwise writing articles, etc;
• developing open source;
• creating your own Websites.

All of these will help you get a job and launching a Website will help you get in on the business side as you spend time figuring out how to market your Website, how to build a community (if its that kind), etc.

I don't mean to sound harsh (just honest) but every CV tells a story and if yours was 6-12 months doing nothing then it wouldn't look good. If you then get a job (in terms of looking at your CV thereafter) I guess that's fine. Going to school then makes it look like you were looking for an answer in education, which I guess you are.

Education only really helps you do something you're doing anyway. It's why very few programmers actually learnt to program in university/college. Most started as kids excluding the early pioneers of programmers who started in an age where computers were really rare.

Answer 2

I would go with the Masters. An MBA is a useful qualification only for someone who is in executive management. More often than not, companies will pay for managers to go study an MBA when they are on such a career path.

If you have been unemployed for 6 months, I suspect an MBA would be a complete waste of money and time for you and would be ultimately unuseful. A masters as you say is cheaper and quicker and will likely give you more skills that you can actually use to secure yourself some permanent work.

You can always begin an MBA once you are on the management path!

Good luck!

Answer 3

This depends heavily on your life goals. One of the toss-ups here is the difference between development and administration. Which do you prefer?

The MBA will give you a broader knowledge of business and what it can offer, likewise what you can offer it. It will give you better running when it comes to managers and business architects too, as your opinion will have a base. This can additionally help you with development, but not more so than the IS.

If your passion (and passion is used purposely) lies in the development and architecture of software, then the MBA will turn into a terrible block in your life. You will be completing it for the sake of its future benefit. Do not fall into this category, you will be quite reticent of starting this multi-year commitment (obligation if this happens).

The IS degree will get you far in the development side of things. You will have a much quicker path to certain careers, such as leading architect or even creative systems architect. Innovation will be in your hands, but you could always just manage what already exists. The beauty of IS is the fact that is has so many branches. MBA is simply business. You will be able to mold your career to what you are interested in, more so than your opportunity will be with the MBA.

At the end of the day it comes down to a few questions:

1. What is your passion?
2. What are your career goals?
3. Are you okay with moving further away from development?

It is a very personal decision to make. I would go for the Masters in IS personally, however my passion lies more so with developing systems to assist business, rather than assisting businesses directly.

Hope this helps you somewhat.

Answer 4

More valuable in terms of RoI in the long run : purely monetary terms is definitely an MBA from a good institute which has a good set of placements.

In the average growth pattern of a developer in a software firm, management skills are those that are looked for as one rises.

In terms of enjoyment+fun in designing software and moderate but slowly increasing monetary returns - doing a MS would be appropriate (if you really want to go for a degree that is...).

Answer 5

I think it depends on several things:

• The culture of the company. Some companies care about advanced degrees, some don't. If you demonstrate solid understanding, and can deliver working products that meet specifications, the degree might not matter.
• The nature of the work. If the business or technical domains are quite complex or require a solid underpinning in concepts, then the degree may serve you well.
• Your level of experience. If low, a degree might be a helpful stand-in for experience. If your experience is high, you may already have received enough advanced on-the-job problem solving that equates to what you would have learned in school.
• Your goals. An MBA may give you an opportunity to work in a broader range of roles. An MIS may give you a deeper understanding of the technology and a range of more IT-centric roles. No advanced degree may limit these choices, but perhaps the extra experience opens avenues in the corporate world in a different way.

These are but a few. As you can probably tell, I believe that MIS, MBA, or no advanced degree are all valid alternatives. To address your specific question between MIS and MBA: that too depends on the points above. It seems like your best bet is to analyze the type of company you are interested in and research a sampling of companies' cultures, requirements, business, etc. to make an informed decision. Maybe a fair number of companies in your area favor MBAs; maybe they favor MIS; maybe it doesn't matter. Contact HR departments and network with people in the industry. See if you can get a hold of salary surveys for companies in your area.

Regardless, it's good you are open to working; at the least it will fund your pursuit of a degree, and it will give you valuable experience which all companies consider valuable.

For what it's worth: Bill Gates didn't get a degree (well I think he's got an honorary now or something) and was successful. On the other hand, there are quite a few who must have a degree to work in a particular field.

(Yes, I waffled on this one, but I hope I've helped. Like software itself, life involves trade-offs and there's no black and white).

Answer 6

@cletus gives a good general overview of MS vs MBA. Programmers and other technical people have this notion that the various courses of education have specific fits for roles. I know many people with degrees in the humanities who are successful programmers. You have to ask yourself why are they in that role and not someone else? What attributes both technical and personal made someone choose them over someone else who has a computer science degree?

Since you are asking about a corporate job I would assume that this is a very relevant set of questions. Most corporate roles tend to be filled by people with a very rounded background with an emphasis on non-technical skills. The 'jack of all trades' tends to have an advantage over the specialist. Stable represents work on across ERP projects and websites, whilst unstable is the consultant/contractor brought into help with a specific project.

As your corporate career moves forward in this type of role it becomes more difficult to keep your coding skills in top shape unless you do a lot of work outside of office hours to keep them that way. From what I have seen there tends to be some room for coding when you start a job but a few years will pass and then you end up in more of a management role. There has to be specific projects or a very unusual culture to allow you to remain coding.

Given that that tends to be the patterns with corporate programming jobs you will find that either of these degree programmes will benefit you, as long as you are prepared to dive into non-technical areas. You will have to study marketing and finance as part of the MBA. There is a reasonable chance that you can also study these as part of the MIS. These are the core skills that are valuable to everyone, and the ones you should take.

Should you take an MBA? I would not do this at this stage. You have a career problem that you need to resolve and the cost and time involved may be a problem. Take the MIS and use that as a springboard into a new role.

Since you have been out of work for 6 months and a lot of job markets are down I think you need to do an analysis of a number of things. Where have you applied, and what have the new hires got that you don't? Use sites like Linkedin to get an idea of career histories. I'll bet you have the skills for a lot of roles but these may not be registering with others. If you don't have a mentor, try to find someone who can be critical but constructive. They may have observations of things that are causing you problems, but you are not picking up on. The best mentors are able to tackle personality-type issues in a careful way.

Answer 7

For my money I would say a few things:

1. Don't make such a major decision in your life by assigning a bouny of 550. Regardless of the answers here, sit down and think it over yourself.
2. In my opinion, a Masters in IT is better. I will talk about why:

I never attended university (as it's called here in Australia [melbourne]). So in my early days, it was hard (quite hard) to get a job. I have also been rejected for various jobs, way back in my career, directly because of not having a degree. I don't know if this is relevant in your town, but for corporate gigs here it is quite important. At my level now (senior dev) it doesn't matter so much. What's important is my history, which is extensive now. I've even been in interviews recently (i.e. the last few years) where people have assumed I've been to uni.

Personally, as somebody who interviews people, it makes no difference to me [degree or not], and to be perfectly honest, I would frown on a programmer who has an MBA. But I am probably a bit extreme in that case; so don't take it to heart.

I know for a fact I would've had a different career path had I had a degree early on.

I will also make a comment about open source: don't bother. My suggestion to you is to start your own projects, don't attempt to join others. I think you'll find it difficult to join, and annoying, and you will not get much done. Invent your own systems, work on them, and discuss them, (while you aren't applying for jobs :)

It's easy to say, though, that pure dedication will get you through a period like the recession you are facing in America (where I assume you are from). So I do think, despite all the cute tricks of publishing sites, being active, etc, the Masters will be benefical.

And here is another reason why it may be useful: Contacts. Under-rated, but a lot of getting jobs is who you know. Can't hurt to be out amongst people and have the potential to find a job that way; friend of a professor, etc.

So, in summary:

My opinion, is go for the Masters. But please, give it a lot of thought; I don't want to be influencing your future for 500 points :P

Answer 8

You are not going to get a fair analysis of an MBA versus a masters at a web site like this. I can't even try to balance it out; I'm working on a Masters (in Software Engineering) but I have a friend from my under-grad working on a MBA (in tech) at northwestern in Chicago.

I'm more technical/science focused so the Masters is better suited to someone like me whereas my friend is a bit more business (but is also an awesome programmer).

I have a theory and it basically falls in line with what Cletus said. My theory is that any advanced degree depends a lot more on what you put in to it than what the degree is actually in. Yes, the program will focus you and in most cases affect your direction but everyone gets a different thing out of a degree program because everyone puts something else in.

It's a matter of input vs. output. Remember Garbage-In/Garbage-out? I think the same thing applies to any degree seeker regardless of the degree.

This means that I'd challenge you to look at the two degrees, analyze what you want out of it and then enter the program and then focus on it and (of course) network.

Answer 9

I asked about this when I had lunch with one of my company executives a couple of months ago. The executive is the CIO of Sabre Holdings, so his insight into this area is pretty valuable.

He had made it to the CTO position for Travelocity before ever applying for graduate school. He was a technical guy and not a business guy. He earned his bachelor's degree in industrial engineering and entered the world of web as the first user interface technologist for Travelocity. Since he lived on the technology side of the house for him business seemed to be more about internal communication, listening, evaluation of emerging technologies, and asset management. His focus rising through the ranks was not so much about market share, sales victories, marketing, or repositioning external business objectives.

He had made it. He was an executive close to the very top. He likely did not really NEED further education. His perspective was simple. He was at a position where he had to make decisions and to listen. He knew technology and what he did not know his subordinate directors did know or would find out. He found that rising through the ranks he was a technology guy and being confined to that world WAS acceptable but is no longer acceptable. Because of his position he needed to be able to talk to and receive input from the business side of the house. He decided to go back to school to get an MBA to better prepare him to make more advanced decisions by becoming more involved with the business communications that crossed his domain.

His advise to me was this: If you enjoy technology then stay in technology. If you wish to become a leader of the business then focus on an education in business, because you have already achieved technology experience. If you have the necessary determination to advance you are the master of your own domain.

His answer was the simplest of wisdom. If you know what you would like to become then you have already made up your mind on the education path that is best for you. Don't compromise your long term objectives to satisfy some immediate compensation.

Answer 10

I would reiterate the statements above : "It Depends".

There are two ways that technology is used:

1. Technology can be the final product. Example: In a software company, you develop a software that the company sells. The software is inherently the core of the company.
2. Technology can facilitate the business. In a bank, the software runs the business, it is critical to the success of the business, yet it is NOT the final product. This applies to a most of the business out there: retail, health, insurance, etc...

Within large organizations, there are usually multiple career tracks

1. Technology - where you focus on implementing technology within the company. You focus on the software and hardware architecture. Internal development methodologies. Disaster Recovery, etc...
2. Business - You focus on business processes, business functions of the organization, and specifically how technology can improve those processes.

I've been working at financial institutions for the last 10 years, and one of the most important things that I've been telling my developers is "we are not here to develop software, we are here to solve a business problem, using software development" I've seen a lot of managers who are great, yet are not at all hands on. here's a question on Stack Overflow on exactly that: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/523035/how-much-development-should-a-development-manager-be-doing Most people agree, that being hands on is not that important for a manager.

• MBA teaches you how to work within a business.
• MIS teaches you how to run a technology.

You have to pick where you want to receive a degree to help you with getting and keeping a technology job. Or do you want a degree to help you get out of technology into management. Both a very valid choices.