As an undergraduate economics major investigating the MBA as an option, al
this is very interesting to me. I only ask that you provide citation if
available, so I can do further research. In a related question, what is
the opinion of list members of programs like international commerce at
mason or
international political economy at fordham? My goals are simple, I want to
work in development and I want to make vast fortunes, are these programs
at all conducive to that?
On Mon, 2 Oct 2000, michael gilson de lemos wrote:
> In my experience, outside of specialized consultants, many consulting firms
> hire preferentially philosophy/history majors with knowledge of languages
> and supervisory experience. Sales and community experience is helpful. MBAs
> are for scutwork, as they say, and you're supposed to pick up engineering
> background unless you are a specialist.
>
> Persons with knowledge of opera who enjoy country music are considered way
> ahead of the pack as business and economic analysts, whatever the
> background. Most other requirements are there to satisfy government
> mandates, dazzle customers or mislead those who do not have the background
> and are trying to get hired. There are even standards based on hobbies an
> interests that are used for hiring, as these tend to be quite revealing when
> all other factors are constant.
>
> Alexander Proudfoot, for many years the top implementation consulting firm,
> hired top persons exclusively based on their ability to apply the philosophy
> of Gracian, Sun-Tzu, various Samurai thinkers and Lao-tse to business
> situations in interesting ways, Aristotle's Physics was required reading
> for top persons. Top marks to anyone on the list who figures out why all
> this must be so.
>
> The NYT is 70 years behind the curve and why are academics assuming they
> understand that it has any understanding of how consultants act?
>
> For many years a major firm used a device called a consensor on those with
> academic training or government backgrounds. This device was like the
> electronic voting devices on TV that averaged responses. They were asked a
> set of questions on how to solve a problem. Those that did not follow the
> pack were hired, especially if they knew opera.
>
> Many consulting firms, however, exist that do not follow such standards as
> they are in the business of justifying decisions already taken. For them
> MBA's and other degrees are a signaling device and are so called quite
> openly, also "union cards."
>
> Best Regards,
> MG
> Sent: Saturday, September 30, 2000 10:15 PM
> Subject: The M.B.A. - why bother?
>
>
> >
> > Business schools have been criticized for being pure credentialing
> > agencies. The New York Time ran an article today about how consulting
> > firms are hiring non-MBA's. usually people with graduate degrees
> > in any field. In house studies show that MBA do just as well
> > as non-MBAs.
> >
> > The article is:
> >
> > http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/01/business/01MBAS.html
> >
> > Question 1: What took firms so long to realize this? Did they just
> > depend on the MBA as an easy signal (smart, business oriented) until
> > the stream of MBA's started to get diverted to the internet start ups?
> >
> > Question 2: In a competitive market for labor, what value does the
> > MBA degree have? The NYT article reports that non-MBA pick up what they
> > need in a few weeks. Is there any value added?
> >
> > -fabio
> >
>
>
