Why Go To Business School
Business school students decide to pursue their degrees for a variety of reasons but a common thread is a desire to invest in themselves to accelerate and elevate their careers.
Whether youre motivated to level up on your current career path, make a significant career change, or launch your career from the best possible position, investing in a graduate business degree offers tremendous value: it equips you with the in-demand skills, credibility, network support, and career opportunities necessary to have long-term success in an increasingly dynamic global economy.
I aspired to managing a department but knew that I lacked the knowledge and skills necessary to understanding business from a strategy management perspective, said Thuy Vu, a 2021 MSc in Business and Management graduate of the Stockholm School of Economics. So, I decided that it was time for me to earn a business masters degree abroad and learn alongside like-minded talents from all over the world.
The top three specific motivations business school candidates cite are to increase the job opportunities available to them , increase their salary potential , and develop their general business knowledge, skills, and abilities . A majority of candidates are also motivated to accelerate their career path , develop their leadership skills , gain professional credibility or credentials , and allow them to change career paths .
A Program Format With Tremendous Advantage
“I know myself, and I learn best when I’m in a classroom.”
Alyssa shied away from fully online programs when looking for colleges. She thought the one night per week class in most of her courses would balance her desire for face-to-face instruction with the convenience of online.
“I know myself, and I learn best when I’m in a classroom,” she says.
Adding class and schoolwork to her already busy schedule was challenging at first, but she quickly found a rhythm that works.
Her job was demanding it didnt exactly end at 5 oclock every day, and shed often bring work home with her. The fact that classes are held on the same night each week for the entire program helped with short-term time management and long-term planning.
I picked one evening and one day each weekend to do school work, Alyssa explains. Sunday was my homework day. I made sure I didnt do anything on Sundays until my work was done. Tuesday night I dedicated to online classwork.
Even with that adjustment and she did have to turn down a few makeup gigs she still had plenty of time to spend with friends, traveled often to see her nephews in North Carolina, and could keep up with her job, her business, and her favorite evening pasttime babysitting for her friends kids.
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Alyssa was able to balance her full-time job, schoolwork, and her side business as a professional makeup artist.
Alyssa Frederick
Do You Have A Strong Support System
Even if you are starting your business by yourself, entrepreneurship is not a solo feat. Portesy said it helps to rely on friends, family, business partners, franchisors or other entrepreneurs for support. Wyner also acknowledged that his entrepreneurial success couldn’t have happened without the support of his family and friends.
“Surround yourself with savvy, educated people,” Wyner said. “I was very lucky to have some strong mentors in my corner. Having experienced, wise people there to guide and support you is critical.”
If you don’t have a strong personal support system of friends and family, you can join groups in your local community or online that cater to small business owners. Networking with others who are on a similar journey to your own can be extremely helpful.
“Do your due diligence and connect with other small business owners who have succeeded and struggled,” Portesy said. “Learn about the challenges overcome, and welcome guidance and best practices.”
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Business Degrees Are Versatile
The business world is diverse and covers a broad range of fields and careers. Consequently, a business degree incorporates a variety of subjects such as accounting, business administration, business analysis, business computing, business ethics, business statistics, commercial law, developing markets and much more. Exposure to different disciplines can benefit students who arenât sure which career path to pursue, by helping them pick a specialty field.
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Who Goes To Business School
Theres no one type of business school student. Classrooms are more diverse than ever before, and schools offer a wide array of program options that can help you meet your individual goals and needs.
Leading business schools attract talented students from a diverse mix of academic, professional, and demographic backgrounds. Among applicants who took the GMAT exam the number one assessment in business school admissions citizenship spans nearly 200 countries, and only about a quarter studied business as undergraduates. In US MBA programs, the percentage of Hispanic enrolled students doubled over the last 10 years, and the representation of Black and multiracial students are trending up as well.
Leading business schools value diversity and build their classes with diversity in mind not only to make the pipeline of global business leadership more reflective of the societies it serves, but also to improve the overall learning experience of their programs.
All students, regardless of background, benefit from a classroom experience that exposes them to diverse perspectives, which stem from a diversity of backgrounds and experiences shared in class discussions. Through learning, working, and growing alongside a diverse cohort of classmates, MBA and business masters students emerge from their programs more thoughtful, empathetic, and informed about the world around them, and will bring that experience to bear in the leadership positions theyll occupy in the future.
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Is A Business Degree Worth It
You already started your business career and have gained invaluable experience on the job. You dont want to pause your career, but you also know that a bachelors degree can open doors to advancement, career change, or new jobs in thriving industries. So how do you do both? And does it really pay off in the long run?
Lets look at what a business degree really is, what it takes to earn it, why its beneficial for your career.
Employment And Income Opportunities
Statistics have historically indicated that college graduates have more job opportunities. According to a 2014 Pew Research report, millennials with a bachelors degree between the ages of 25 and 32 had an unemployment rate of 3.2% high school graduates of the same age experienced a rate almost 300% higher at 12.2%.
Also, college graduates earn more money over their careers than those with lesser educations. A report from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis suggests that the average college graduate not only maintains a higher annual income than the average high school graduate throughout the working careers, but the premium for education expands over a lifetime. For example, the present value of lifetime future earnings for a college graduate born in 1980 was $1.43 million at age 30 while the present value of future earnings for his high school counterpart was $941,000, a difference of almost $493,700. A comparison of the earnings of high school and college graduates born in 1970 and compared at age 30 indicated a difference in their future lifetime earnings present value of $390,000.
The increase of more than $100,000 in additional present value of lifetime earnings between those born in 1970 and 1980 in the past decade suggests that the premium for a college degree over a high school degree has widened. The report concludes that the lifetime benefits of a college education have never been so high.
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If A Degree Won’t Lead To Professional Success
College offers a lot of professional, personal, and intellectual benefits. Even if youre not sure what you want to do after college, a degree will afford you some flexibility. But you dont have to go to college in order to be successful – depending, of course, on what career options youre considering . Some people argue that you can be just as successful with self-directed learning as you can be with a college degree.
If you know you can graduate from high school and immediately start working towards your chosen career path, college might not be the best choice for you. Alternatively, if youre interested in a career that requires trade or vocational school, it might be smarter to apply to those programs instead of applying to a four-year program. This way, you can work toward building professional experience earlier rather than later.
Careers Worth Going Back To College For
The great thing about being an adult is that you’ve lived long enough not to plunge headfirst into a situation that is likely to bury you financially. Or at least you’re in the process of learning that lesson. Before you go any further, consider whether higher education is worth the cost of attending.
A Georgetown University study found that bachelor’s degree holders earn 84% more than those with a high school diploma over the course of their career. That said, if you’re over 40, you won’t have 40-50 years left to work and rake in that cash.
So, which careers are worth going back to college for? If you are staying in your current career, find out how much more money you can expect to make once you have a degree. If you are considering a new path, think about careers that will bring you both satisfaction and financial gain. Heres a sample of three that make the trip back to the classroom worth the effort:
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Investing In Your Career
As we mentioned earlier, careers in business overwhelmingly require a bachelors degree at a minimum. Higher education is still the most direct path to a good career. Then, when considering that tuition at Columbia Southern University is, on average, less than half the cost of our competitors, it becomes obvious that CSU offers a strong ROI.
Not only that, but textbooks are included with the price of tuition at CSU. Students can also bring down the cost of their education through financial aid, scholarships and plenty of other ways to save.
Is Going To College Still Worth It If You Drop Out
A new report says yes — but the answer’s often much more complicated.
Welcome the latest chapter of our ongoing epic, Is College Worth It? If you’ve tuned in for previous installments, by now you’ve learned that, for people who graduate with a bachelor’s degree, higher education is overwhelmingly a smart investment. But what about students who drop out? After all, less than 60 percent of Americans actually complete a B.A. within six years of starting. Do they reap a benefit?
Last week, the Hamilton Project at Brookings offered up an answer that might surprise some readers. In short: Yes, a few years of higher ed, even if a student never earns their degree, are better than none.
It’s not just that dropouts earn more than workers who halted their educations after high school or are a bit more likely to have a job . It’s that, once you factor in all the costs of going to school such as tuition and the years of foregone wages, attending and dropping out is still a profitable choice. As the graph below shows, the annual return on investment for even a bit of college is, on average, higher than the ROI for stocks, gold, Treasury bonds, or housing.
Then take college debt. As Education Sector reports, dropouts default on their student loans more than four times as often as graduates. Fewer dropouts borrow at all, but the numbers suggests that many end up flailing financially.
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Business Degree Salary And Job Outlook
According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics , the median annual wage for business and financial occupations as of May 2020 was $72,250, which is over $30,000 higher than the median annual wage across all occupations. Additionally, jobs in this sector are projected to grow about 8 percent between 2020 and 2030, as quickly as the average across all occupations .
The majority of occupations included in this categoryâincluding accountants, , and human resources specialists, to name a fewârequire a bachelorâs degree as the entry-level education, and getting a degree in business could position you to move into these career paths.
Do You Have A Good Reason For Starting A Business Without A Degree
This is perhaps the most important question: Is there a good enough reason for you to stay in college, or for you to drop out?
Matt Brown, co-founder and CEO of freelance management platform Bonsai, is also a volunteer advisor with the Thiel Fellowship mentor network. Thiel selects and grants funding to high-achieving students who could do more good in the world by not attending college, focusing on research and innovation instead.
“Everyone should think critically about the value of investing four years and an incredible amount of money into a university education,” Brown said. “Is there somewhere else where you can be learning faster, meeting more interesting people and working on projects you care about? Do you want to drop out because you have a burning need to create something and being in school blocks that, or are you dropping out because it seems cool and the Facebook guys did it?”
Dropping out of college without a good reason is just as silly as staying in school without one, Brown added. “Just think for yourself.”
Additional reporting by Sammi Caramela and Nicole Fallon. Some source interviews were conducted for a previous version of this article.
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How Much Money Can You Make With A Business Degree
One of the major factors that many people will use in determining if they should get a certain degree is how much money you can make in the field.
Below are some of the average salaries for various specialized business degrees.
Ultimately, the amount of money you can make with your business degree will vary widely based on many factors including your region, your level of seniority, the industry in which your business operates, and more.
It’s very possible to earn over 6 figures within 5-8 years of experience with a business degree.
Many business graduates can work their way up the corporate ladder to become a chief officer or vice president for their business function.
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What You Put In: The Costs Of College
If you’re thinking about pursuing a college degree, you’ll have to make some sacrifices. The following factors are what I consider to be investments in a post-secondary education. The extent to which these investments affect you depends on your own unique situation, so I’ll explain how to think critically about these issues in each section.
Overall, the major investments you would have to make in a college education are money, time, and effort. Let’s see exactly how these might affect whether college is a worthy investment.
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Meeting Convention And Event Planners
Event planners organize all aspects of events, requiring a high level of social skills, energy, and professionalism.
Event planners may run their own business , or work for an organization .
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Finally, an event planner may work for a hotel or convention center to promote their event spaces to clients and provide event coordination.
Is A Business Administration Degree Worth It
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College students considering a course of study may wonder, Is a business administration degree worth it? In fact, business administration is one of the most versatile majors for todays college students. It provides a foundation in core business, leadership, and operations management concepts that can lead to a variety of key roles in an organization. A business administration degree prepares students for careers in finance and accounting, operations management, human resources, marketing, or technology.
First, what is a business administration degree? Simply put, a business administration degree focuses on the day-to-day operations of how businesses work. It teaches strategic planning, anhttps://online.maryville.edu/alytical skills, critical decision-making, and entrepreneurship. As the program progresses, students often choose an area of emphasis, such as accounting or human resources, that suits their career aspirations.
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Is A Music Degree Worth It Pros And Cons
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If youre an aspiring musician then chances are youve considered a music degree at some point. Obtaining a degree in music is important for a variety of reasons no matter what are of music you want to work in. Degrees are expensive, however, and some may wonder if pursuing a music degree is the best course of action.
So, is a music degree worth it? Yes, a music degree is worth it for most aspiring musicians. Music degrees are essential for employment in the music industry as well as building well-rounded musicians. However, in some areas of music, a degree may not be necessary.
Before you go researching a ton of colleges and looking at audition requirements, its important to understand what a music degree can and cannot do for you. Having earned several music degrees myself, I know how complicated it can be to decide what route to take. To help aspiring musicians, Ive put together this helpful guide on music degrees. Ill share what employment opportunities exist, the benefits and disadvantages, and ultimately if you really need to pursue a degree or not.
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You Can Meet Many New People
Since you will have many different courses in college, you can also meet many new people over time.
In the long run, you can also make really good friends and you will stay connected with many of them over the course of many years or even for a lifetime.
Hence, if you are a person who loves to connect and to talk to other people, college can also give you a great opportunity to do so.
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