I have to say I have the same feelings unfortunately my CFA sidekick was brilliant, switched on and motivated to succeed. My MBA version thinks as he is now entitled and is next line for management despite being one of the poorer performing analysts. I was told of this once the arrangements were complete.
It’s early days in our relationship and I hope things can change for the better. The few folk I know who have MBAs seem to have the same traits but reading about others on this thread that have MBAs give me hope
2 Likes
I’m realising I’m a right thicko in comparison 
I got my masters at Sunderland 
3 Likes
I don’t have a masters, just a standard old BSc and level 6 professional quali. 
1 Like
MCIPS?
1 Like
I seem to be the least qualified person here.
1 Like
I’ve pretty much been studying all my life…and am currently doing a DSc at Cardiff Met…
Really interesting stuff, challenges my thinking, and am able to apply much of it to my work…
That said, it is bl00dy hard trying to fit it all in…
Go for it…
I dunno. I’ve got a C,D, and E @ A levels as my best qualification. Higher or lower?
1 Like
I can’t remember what my a-levels were, but I’m pretty sure they were higher than that, the uni would’ve wanted more anyway and they didn’t turn me away, there was at least one A, so I ain’t the least qualified, thank you.
2 Likes
Appreciate everyone’s thoughts on this. It really has reminded me about the various things I’ve thought about with regards to MBA’s over the years.
Over the weekend on my various runs I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m going to give it another year of consideration before committing. The questions that need answering before committing:
Does this subject interest me outside of my current work? Will it benefit me personally?
- not all subjects in a chosen course will be the most interesting but on the whole it has to be interesting
What do I think the benefits are going to be?
- let’s be honest, my salary has already taken a few jumps so I’m not going to see the considerable gain they market for an MBA.
The big one - who am I doing this for?
Interestingly, running this morning with the group run I remembered one of the guys is pretty senior in a local uni business school. So I just jumped straight in and asked him. His first response was “who’s funding it?” So I said it would be self-funded and he said “just sign up to OU!” The conversation went on to the fact that MBAs are for the early-30’s types that want the big salary jump like we’ve all discussed here (doesn’t always work of course!). It was interesting insight from “the inside”.
1 Like
Segue. When it comes to PhDs, there seems to be a lot of academia for it’s own sake i.e. people very much do them for themselves. A guy I graduated with ended up doing one on a subject completely useless to society at large (MSc on land based conditioning for surfing, and PhD was on Mountain Biking).
Maybe it’s an inverted snobbery, but when the product of all those years of study is fuck all use to humanity, I think it’s just a vanity project. Sure, if it’s behavioural science, medicine, ecology, earth sciences, engineering or whatever, that’s for the greater good…I totally get that 
2 Likes
Interesting thoughts. As well as PCR updates, CabOff mandated a 10% min scoring criteria for ‘Social Value’. Everything my office does, especially my team, has to have a ‘golden thread’ that demonstrates the public good. If you can’t consistently point to that in your business case and governance presentations, your case will fail.
It’s part of a set of mandatory criteria that comes under the heading of ‘Managing Public Money’. The Social Value mandate is on top of all this and is now further scrutinised when a contract needs Spend Control. (which means anything over £5m needs HMT approval and anything over £10m needs CabOff and HMT with a fully endorsed business case).
Social Value used be treated as an afterthought with basics questions like environmental treatment or local employment but it’s way more complex now.
Maybe the same questions should be asked of various courses where public funds are used?
1 Like
The PhD element is just showing you can apply your thinking in a scientific way etc. If you want to get into academia, then that’s your route to prove what you can do.
If you become a researcher though, that’s when the topic of your study is much more focussed. You’ll be expected to bid for grant money, which will be from various sources (public and private). The grants will have various conditions attached, which could be encouraging, say, research into battery capacity or diabetes treatment. To be a successful researcher, you need to be a very successful bid writer. The whole system, if you’re in a research intensive uni, is based on this. I won’t go into the boring detail, but league tables and citations and reputation and income etc etc.
So sure, you can do a PhD in your little pet project as long as it’s good enough to prove you can do the work if you want to stay in academia. Otherwise it’s just that. Another few years in uni working on a pet project.
2 Likes
that really depends on the research question and the methodology…and possibly any learning or outcomes…
You learn a lot of transferable skills in the process of doing a PhD, regardless of whether the specific topic is “useful” to the world at large
Dr r0bh
7 Likes
A few of my mates from my course ended up staying on to do PhDs. I suspect you probably get a higher proportion of undergrads going on to further studies at Cambridge than elsewhere, but that was 1994 and engineering jobs were very hard to come by. I think most of them were just delaying getting a proper job by 3 or 4 years. I was sponsored by Ford, but they canned their graduate recruitment programme for that year.
One of my rowing mates did a PhD in computer science at Imperial. IC has a very commercial focus on PhD research and the work that my mate and group of other grads was doing was wrapped into a company that they owned shares in as well as the college. They were on the verge of being bought out by Cisco for a 7 figure sum each when 9/11 happened and the value of their product plummeted overnight. He ended up being made redundant and his shares were virtually worthless. He ended up developing risk management systems for a big US bank for a while and now he’s teaching maths at one of the top independent schools.
7 Likes