MBA's & Engineers--Why does Engineering take a Backseat to Marketing

[benbo]

I have an MS in IS that I got from a business school, and it is basically the same as an MBA (they pretty much gave us a choice on which we wanted). I really liked it, and it is easy, and I was the top student. I was always in the middle in engineering school. But I don't use it at all. And I am no entrepreneur - I don't think they can really teach you that, although they can show you the nuts and bolts.

Are you sure you aren't an entrepreneur? Per my econ class, entrepreneurs are "organizers" that pull materials and manpower together to create products to be sold. That is exactly what engineers do.

Starting a business on top of that can be learned, but there are a lot of hoops that need to be gone through such as registering a business, getting tax ID, ect.....

In business school we took a class on entrepreneurship. We had to come up with a business and then do everything you would actually have to do to get it started - find a location, plan funding, do all the accounting, etc.

Then we had to "pitch" it to a panel of investors from the community. All of them were small buisness owners in our area. One owned a place called "Wahoo's Fish Taco's" which is pretty famous in So-Cal. If they didn't think it was at least a marginally viable plan you failed the course. I passed, but ..

I HATED it. I am fine getting a reasonable paycheck.

 

[Slugger926]

I have an MS in IS that I got from a business school, and it is basically the same as an MBA (they pretty much gave us a choice on which we wanted). I really liked it, and it is easy, and I was the top student. I was always in the middle in engineering school. But I don't use it at all. And I am no entrepreneur - I don't think they can really teach you that, although they can show you the nuts and bolts.

Are you sure you aren't an entrepreneur? Per my econ class, entrepreneurs are "organizers" that pull materials and manpower together to create products to be sold. That is exactly what engineers do.

Starting a business on top of that can be learned, but there are a lot of hoops that need to be gone through such as registering a business, getting tax ID, ect.....

In business school we took a class on entrepreneurship. We had to come up with a business and then do everything you would actually have to do to get it started - find a location, plan funding, do all the accounting, etc.

Then we had to "pitch" it to a panel of investors from the community. All of them were small buisness owners in our area. One owned a place called "Wahoo's Fish Taco's" which is pretty famous in So-Cal. If they didn't think it was at least a marginally viable plan you failed the course. I passed, but ..

I HATED it. I am fine getting a reasonable paycheck.

That is what we did in our class. Our small business would have had 30 employees, but cost 123 million to get going. Our venture capital guys disapeared when oil went from 150 a barrel to less than 50 that semester. Our A turned into a B as the oil went down too. I think it would be fun to do it again, and create jobs in the meantime.

 

[wilheldp_PE]

One reason I believe grad school is easier now is that I am more mature, and focused on taking care of business.

This is huge. I found my master's courses to be a LOT easier than undergrad because I was interested in the subject matter, and more focused on the work at hand. I had about a 2.9 GPA in undergrad, and breezed to a 4.0 in grad school.

 

[Dleg]

I passed, but ..
I HATED it. I am fine getting a reasonable paycheck.

I'm with you there. If "entrepreneur" meant coming up with something cool and developing it into a product, then I could easily see myself as an "entrepreneur". But it's those damn nuts and bolts that just bore the crap out of me.

 

[RIP - VTEnviro]

Just got back from my organizational theory class...wheee!

 

[PE-ness]

I passed, but ..
I HATED it. I am fine getting a reasonable paycheck.

I'm with you there. If "entrepreneur" meant coming up with something cool and developing it into a product, then I could easily see myself as an "entrepreneur". But it's those damn nuts and bolts that just bore the crap out of me.

I can confirm that the nuts are very boring, indeed. The bolt is OK.