MBA Course work in US

A typical MBA course work in US is little different than the course work that is offered by Masters in science or engineering department. Of course it is completely depends on which school you are in and more importantly the professor teaching the course.

A regular masters course in science or engineering is catergorized by quizzes, tests, projects, lab assignments and working long hours in front of computer or circuit board or chemistry lab. while a regular MBA course is all about case studies. Most likely, a real world case study which is written by Harvard Business Review is taken and analyzed in the class. Few professors ask 4-5 students to form a team and ask them to present it to the class. The key to understand here is, there is no right or wrong answer. The approach is what is important and how well you defend your approach and answer itself.

Few MBA courses are mostly about group projects done within or outside the university. Exicting ones are done in corporate world. You get lot of information and learn more on problem solving approaches used and are successful.

In general, MBA courses seldom have tests, except may be, accounting and Finance courses. It is more about class attendance, class discussions, group presentation and individual presentation skills. Most of them are more about SWOT -- Strength Weakness Oppurtunites and Threats analysis of a business or case or problem in hand.

MBA in USA, When ?

Lot of people ask this question -- should I do a MBA, if so when ? In this article, I will try to give my opinion for this question.

Typically it is a good idea to have the following requirements to go to a good school in US:

1. GMAT test and a good score.
2. 3 years of full time experience in US.
3. Interest in any of specialisations in MBA as in the previous blog.

If you are already in US, working for a company, you can try to convince your company to pay for it. Typically, they will say you pay for your tuition and get it reimbursed after you get 'B' or better grade. I know one of my friends, he was in technolgy field for about 6 years, then he started getting involved in finance deparment. He finished his MBA through his company and he is the finance director there now.

If you are not in US, there are more steps that has to be taken -- like the visa process, choosing the universities, writing the Statement Of Purpose and so. For this, please refer to my good friend Raghu's blog: here.

In all this the caution is, when the economy is good, its relatively easy to get job and very good salary. But, when the economy is bad, like these days, ite really really tough to get a job in MBA than in technical field. You should be ready to face both the sides. In this economy, you need hard work, patience and better time management to land a job.

MBA Specialisations

There are lot of specializations in MBA and more keep coming every year. But, most of them can fit in the following broad categories:

1. Management

2. Economics

3. Accounting

4. Finance

5. Marketing

6. Information Systems

I think the main consideration should be what your interest is. You have to answer, I am willing to go into say, marketing and stick to it as your career, lifestyle and enjoy it ?

For anyone who has non-Business school background, I would strongly recommend taking all the introductory courses for all the above 6 categories in the first 2 semesters of MBA. This will help to gauage your own strengths and weakness. Then, you can start your specilazations from the third semester onwards.

The hot areas (ofcourse more pay) are Management Consulting (sub speciality in Management), Finance and Marketing. The more the specialization, more salary it is. At the same time, in the economy like this, its very hard to find specialized jobs. A few of the hot focused specializations include -- Entrepreneurship, International management and Marketing research.