Hi, all. I am going to finish up my B.S. in Business Information Systems in October. I am a software engineer, and have been for about 15 years. As I continue to pursue my B.S., I see that there is a lot of information that I never learned that a B.S. in Business Administration would have given me. I am curious about learning these basic business concepts that my computing degree simply didn't provide. Things like accounting, finance, economics and such. The long and short of it is that it looks like I could study these topics and CLEP them in a reasonable period of time, and then apply the courses I do have and these CLEP exams to TESC for a BSBA degree. My other option is to pursue an MBA at a school that doesn't have these courses as a prerequisite, but rather incorporates them into the MBA learning. I'd like to get thoughts from the thoughtful people here as to the pros and cons of each.
In times past, MBA programs almost exclusively required either undergraduate business degrees or the completion of a set of pre-requisites. Now many MBA programs embrace people with non-business backgrounds, and many do not expect you to have the pre-requisite knowledge. I'd do an MBA, not a second bachelor's. No question about it.
spmoran, Bellevue University has a decent looking MBA program that has three business foundation courses that are part of the program. As a matter of fact I've seriously considered transferring to Bellevue University's MBA program to broaden my educational background.
I've looked at Bellevue's MBA from the day I first enrolled with them. It looks like a decent program, and yes, there are no real prereq's for me in this program. NCU's program looks OK too, as does University of Denver and a bunch of others. I guess I really need to decide whether I want to stay technical (and pursue, say, the Charles Sturt MSD) or move into management (and pursue, say, and MBA or something similar). But I don't WANNA choose. There are ups and downs to both arguments. In a sense it comes down to "Do I want to keep up with technology for the rest of my life?" vs. "Do I want to manage a bunch of programmers and I.T. who are as wily as I am?" Thanks for the feedback, though. As I see from the responses, and looking at the effort required for the BS, the MBA is more costly in terms of $$, but probably a lot more valuable too.
Then don't choose. Go for the something like the MS in e-commerce / MBA combo at UMUC If that is not technical enough for you, look at an MBA with an MIS concentration at . NCU or the MBA - Information Technology Management at TUI
One of the options that I've not yet eliminated is NCU's MBA in E-Commerce. It looks like an interesting program that might bridge the gap. My concerns are that it looks very light in the traditional business requirements. But since I don't have a BSBA or MBA, I may just not know what I'm talking about. WGU's MBA-IT also looks good, but I'd want to know way more about the assessment process before I would move in that direction. And of course, there is the Bellevue MBA - MIS, though I've found Bellevue to be very weak academically since I've been there. It is one thing for my rapidly earned BS degree to be mostly a review of what I know, but I want grad school to take more than 4-5 hours per week to get a A. Thanks to all who replied. You have been good guides.
spmoran, I know you've found the Bellevue IT degree pretty easy to roll through (we've spoken before). However, my guess is that the MBA would be sustantially more difficult. I am enrolled in the BSBA right now and find myself doing an average of 10 hours per week (getting A's). There's much reading required, group assignments, papers, etc. I'm sure the MBA would require as much, if not more, work to get an A. I have looked into the Bellevue MBA program myself. I will probably opt for a school closer to home, due to local name recognition, but the program at Bellevue would be my second choice. Good luck in whatever you decide.
