This might be a ridiculous question but I tend to ask all of my ridiculous question on the net so I won't make a fool of myself in person :silly: Is it wise to get a Project Management degree without any experience what so ever? I know that to be PMI certified you have to have something close to two years experience? But can one get a job without the PMI certification or fresh out of college with a project management degree? The adviser I talked to at the university said they accepted some english majors not to long ago looking for a career change. I figured either these programs are cash cows for the universities or that getting a project management degree is practical enough for a career change. Any thoughts? I looked into project management and thought it would make for a fascinating career change.
Getting a job without the certification can be done if you have experience. Getting a job without experience is much, much tougher. I personally do not have a degree in PM (though I am working on one with an emphasis in it) but I do have experience and the certification. Getting that initial job was kind of tough and truthfully I landed in PM work almost by accident. I was working as a manager and was given a project to do. After that I was given another, then a few more and before you know it the years rolled by and I was "experienced". That said, I don’t know of many people looking to hire PMs with the Associate certification from PMI…generally the PMP is called for specifically but your mileage may vary. Also it can depend upon what industry you want to manage projects in? Do you have any other relevant experience in that industry? For example if you work in IT, specifically in application development, I might suggest skipping the PMP for now and getting certified in something agile, like SCRUM as this is the new “hot” thing now and organizations seem to be clamoring for CSMs. There’s more than one way of breaking into the field. I kind of like the idea of a PM degree if you are sure that is the field you want to work in. It's more focused than a general business degree but then again it also lacks the versatility of a traditional business degree.
In my several decade experience in the aerospace industry I have only met one person pursuing a PM degree. I have worked with many PMs on major programs (I have been a PM or PE on minor programs) and they all had an engineering degree with some having a masters degree such as ME or MBA. But their PM skills were acquired on the job and supplemented by internal courses on subjects like ethics and C/SCSC.
