Why is an MBA Degree Different from Other Graduate Degrees?

It's expensive, it's time consuming, you have to interrupt your life in order to make room for it, and at the end of the day it’s simply another qualification - or is it? Well, to assess this properly its necessary to look at both the MBA degree program itself and the effects it has on your career after you have gained your MBA degree.

MBA Degree Program

An MBA degree program is constructed very differently from any other master's degree. It usually consists of several courses, each of them concerned with a management function of some description, and taught at about bachelor's degree level.

There is then at least one course per year that is the integration project, designed to bring all the subject areas together in one exercise, or project, and giving students the chance to run a close-to-life simulation of a pressurized business environment that they are likely to encounter in their future careers.

Integration is the part of the MBA degree program that elevates it to the graduate level, as students have to demonstrate they have understood the need to work at a higher level than single function courses - that they can analyze knowledge and the environment, and eventually synthesizing their own solutions.

After the MBA Program?

Once you have your MBA degree, what effect will it have on your career. To some extent this is in your hands, but having learned new skills, techniques, and ways of solving problems, you are not likely to lose them again. Of course, this is likely to be reflected in salary and promotion - after all, this may be why you earned an MBA degree in the first place.