41–50 of 71 posts
IMO, studying business as an undergrad is pretty useless. Study something real (science or engineering), and if you want to learn about business later, go to business school (or start a company if you really want to learn about business).
There's an interesting book called "Managers Not MBAs", written by a professor of business, which talks about why the MBA system is pretty broken. IMO, studying business as an undergrad is pretty useless. Study something real (science or engineering), and if you want to learn about business later, go to business school (or start a company if you really want to learn about business).
My friend, you wouldn't last a day in the Amazonian jungle with a native tribe. (Anthropology, but thats not real.)
Study what you love first and foremost, even if thats business. Everything else will fall into place.
That said, she's now a successful analyst at Merrill, so she must have gotten something out of it.
Do programmers/engineers have an inferiority complex vs. Management/MBA types? I don't see many articles on HN bashing sales professions advising youngsters not to go to trade school . . .
If you're a smart, ambitious twentysomething, there are two obvious routes. You can get an MBA, work your way up the ladder via a series of safe but stressful jobs and maybe become a VP by the time you're forty. Or you can study engineering, found a startup with a friend, have a whale of a time and have a decent shot at becoming financially independent within a couple of years. If you're young and have nothing much to lose, it seems like a no-brainer to me.
Do programmers/engineers have an inferiority complex vs. Management/MBA types? I don't see many articles on HN bashing sales professions advising youngsters not to go to trade school . . .
Probably not. There have just been lots of bad MBAs in the last couple years that make clueless business decisions, and we've probably suffered under the hands of one at one time or another. Like asking to measure productivity in the number of lines of code. Sure, it might seem like it makes sense, but it'll soon be apparent it doesn't if you've tried to code at all, even just a little bit. Having a business sense is…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Probably not. There have just been lots of bad MBAs in the last couple years that make clueless business decisions, and we've probably suffered under the hands of one at one time or another. Like asking to measure productivity in the number of lines of code. Sure, it might seem like it makes sense, but it'll soon be apparent it doesn't if you've tried to code at all, even just a little bit. Having a business sense is…
I voted you up, but you made one mistake; it should have "MBAs in the last couple of decades that made clueless business decisions". I have been reading almost identical complaints about the lack of real value in the MBA since the early 1990s.
I've heard that was the case, but I never looked into what happened in the 90's. Thanks for the heads up.
I dated a finance major (in the undergrad business school) for two years when I was at Georgetown. My impression of her classes was the same - that they were training, not education, and intellectually void. That said, she's now a successful analyst at Merrill, so she must have gotten something out of it.
Do programmers/engineers have an inferiority complex vs. Management/MBA types? I don't see many articles on HN bashing sales professions advising youngsters not to go to trade school . . .
An undergraduate degree in this country teaches you how to become a worker bee. If you like being a worker bee, getting a decent(?) salary, taking 2 weeks and then later in life maybe 6 weeks vacation, by all means study business, marketing, etc. Otherwise, get educated. "Self education is, I firmly believe, the only kid of education there is." -Isaac Asimov If only we could have a few more people every year become f…
For a different point of view. Coming from an engineering background, I sat in on an entrepreneurship class at UChicago Booth and I was totally blown away. The angle was completely different. The previous class the students were all given the details about hypothetical ventures with some background on the market and they were asked to say whether they would invest or not invest should such a proposal cross their desk…
UChicago teaches business differently that basically every business school in the country, so take this anecdote with a grain of salt. The have a quantitative/scientific focus that many other schools lack. Your example shows this perfectly, as the professor presented real data to you instead of fictional data. On the whole, there is still a large problem with undergraduate degrees in business.