Pursuing higher education has always been one my personal goals to further develop myself and ensure that I’m equipped with skills and knowledge that will open the door for future career opportunities. During the past few years, acquiring a Master of Business Administration, MBA, degree has become a more important goal as I moved from professional engineering ladder to managerial ladder. My sole reasons for such endeavor are to develop an excellent portfolio of business knowledge and skills that needed for further career opportunities, and improve personal skills especially around communication and teamwork. Some one might argue whether the gained benefits from getting an MBA, outweigh the cost of acquiring such degree or not. This paper discusses in details my reasons for pursuing such endeavor and shed some light over the debate of gained benefits against cost of acquiring such degree.
Discussion
One of my personal reasons for acquiring MBA was to build managerial skills that will help me in my career. Although Master of Business Administration programs represent part of needed managers training and development activities, there has been criticism by several well known critics such as Mintzberg to whether such programs do indeed enhance management practices or not (Hay 2006, page 291). A study was conducted at a large U.K. university that is rated among the 15 top U.K. business schools and was aimed at identifying what managers are making from their MBA experience and how MBA learning may contribute to management practices (Hay 2006, page 293). The study was based on 35 intensive interviews with MBA graduates from the school. The study results do confirm the value added of managerial skills as most managers saw the MBA program to be highly beneficial in three board learning outcomes; broadened perspective, enhance sense of self and tools, techniques and theories (Hay 2006, page 293). Broadened perspectives was realized and acknowledge by all managers...