He's dead on. MBA...means squat without real world experience. If you put in some years at a low to mid level, you get application experience. Then get MBA for management. Regardless if you're in Engineering or Marketing, MBA is obviously a business route, so experience is worth more than a piece of paper. Companies want to know that you've already screwed up and lost money for other companies or smaller screw ups and learned your lessons before they start trusting you with big responsibilities.

Project management in a R&D setting has more details than you could ever imagine. Everything that can go wrong...probably will and more experience on how to combat those fires and keep them from starting up in advance and managing them is key. You wouldn't believe even the most simplest consumer product has tons of issues going from concept to manufacturing to distribution.

Def, MBA is worth having for management in the future though! Trust me, I deal with 24YO MBA marketeers all the time....that piece of paper is nothing when they screw up projects due to inexperience.

 

[QUOTE=Popeye,Jan 31 2007, 07:10 PM] I once dated a girl named Judy who would pull a train

 

thanks a lot for the advice guys. i'm excited about my co-op this winter...hopefully it'll give me a better idea of real life application.

i've always planned on working after graduation and then going back to get a masters when i want to, but the guy i'm doing research for talked to me about going straight to grad school at OSU. he said that with my grades, and experience in the lab, there's a good chance that i'll have it paid for. hence...decisions decisions...i guess it doesn't hurt to apply. the only reason why i have an s2k is because of my scholarship at OSU, so...i like those

 

I didn't know we had so many d@mn engineers in the ohio group

 

I agree with Audi/S2K Fool if the initial intent was to get a MBA....MBA's typically mean very little without real world experience. A lot of top tier Business Schools use work experience esp. management experience in the real world as a key criteria into the evaluation process.

However I think the original question was around getting a Masters degree in EE. I don't necessarily think this is a bad idea. I don't think this will price you out of the market and will actually get a better lead in to more R&D and/or academic type roles compared to just a BS....no pun intended. Sometimes it's even more beneficial to do it in a combined program. Case/CWRU had a 5 year BS/MS program which made it more appealing to get one right after another if you had the desire.

I think a key reason to get it now rather than later....is it's so hard to go back once you're working. No one finds it appealing when making a consistent living to get up and quit to go back for a secondary degree. There's always the option of nights/weekends, but it's not that easy depending on one's schedule. Plus getting back into the school/studying thing is difficult after being out for a number of years.

 

S2KBDub: What company do you work for? I might be interested.

MpBradyS2K: I think I talked to you at the BW3's meet. I worked for Amtex in Lebanon, OH this past summer and we manufactured carpet for Japanese car companies. Toyota has around 60% of our business. I'm just curious if you've heard of our company... good or bad things. I think I might get an offer from them, but theres nothing wrong with looking around to other companies to see what they have to offer. I worked in the Kaizen department, doing continuous improvement type work.

But I graduate in December, so I guess its time for me to really decide what I want to be doing.

 

Yeah, after reading my post...its a little vague. I meant to say that get the MBA after a few years in the work. Its better for a promotion later than being outpriced from the beginning. Say an entry level EE would probably make (very general) 65K, then your promtion would be worth 15K with a MBA rather than being hired in as 70k then being stuck there for a longer period of time because you've hit the promotion ceiling until experience lets you into management.

 

Honda R&D is hiring. Hours can be long and the pay is not the highest in the industry, but job security is A++, benfits are good, and the people are (mostly) very good to work with. Link---> Honda R&D Jobs

I've been with Honda as an Engineer for 19 years, so either I am very easily satisfied or it's a pretty good company to work for.

 

I would love to get a job there!!
Near home, plus it's Honda!!
I think they are fond of Ohio State students also
Maybe next year after I graduate

 

is that being too generous? i thought EE's coming out of undergrad would be looking at 40 to 50 grand starting salary. obviously i could be wrong, since i haven't graduated yet, but those numbers are what my advisor threw out.