I started MBA, early in my career, as soon as I realized that I didn’t want to code for the rest of my life . All three companies I worked for had tuition reimburse programs that I took advantage off, although I was working so hard at Visicorp as a SW engineer that I dropped my classes.
Pros
It helped me get my job. I wanted to transition from engineering to marketing and my hiring boss told me being enrolled in MBA class showed I was serious about moving into marketing. However, my EE CS degree and the fact that I could not only spell C but write code in it was far more important in hiring me.
Getting my MBA made me a better investor. I learned a lot about how to read a corporate financials, and the finance courses, help me understand futures, options, and even a bit about professional money management.
If I had switched companies I think it would have been helpful in getting a promotion. The #2 guy at Intel did congratulate me when I finished my MBA, but I don’t think it had any impact on promotions or raises for me.
Cons
Being a part-time night student was much different and hell of a lot less fun, then being a full-time undergrad. I made perhaps three friends, and attended two events on campus. Now if I was actively looking to join another company, the networking opportunities might have been more beneficial. But since some of the students are full-time and gone in two year and some take 4, 6 or 8 year, I didn’t get any sense of class unity.
At least 1/2 the courses were utterly useless. Take organizational behavior, the subject of how to structure an organization is moderately interesting intellectually. But what the schools were teaching was already out of date, especially in Silicon Valley. It is not important for companies under 100 employees, and really only useful for CEO of an organization of 1,000+ employees. Honestly nobody really cares what a middle manager thinks about should each business unit have it is own lawyers, who report the general manager or should all lawyer report to the corporate general counsel The information management course was so silly and obsolete (Mainframe computers in the late 1980s in the heart of Silicon Valley), that I basically boycotted it. .
I learned a way more about business from my co-workers, bosses, and simply mentors, and reading bio of business leaders than I did from the college professors.
I should also say that most of my co-workers got their MBAs, from Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, or an Ivy League. Both Harvard and Stanford programs seemed significantly more interesting, and obviously more prestigious, than Santa Clara University. I’d jump at chance to get an MBA at either school.
All told it took me 6 years taking 0-2 courses/semester to complete my degree with the various companies paying for virtually everything, it was worth the effort. I don’t think I would say the same thing if I had to pay more than 25% of the cost much less, quitting work for two years.
The MSBA sounds moderately interesting and seems like a good fit for you.
