
Skills and education (2007) - harunxxl
http://pmarchive.com/guide_to_career_planning_part2.html
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ralph84
The knowledge covered by an MBA can easily be picked up by reading a few
books. The value of an MBA is the connections from networking with your
classmates in a tier 1 program. A non-tier 1 MBA is worthless.

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harunxxl
Which books would you recommend?

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downrightmike
The Goal is really good from a manufacturing perspective. And The Phoenix
Project is good from a IT/devops perspective.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Goal_(novel)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Goal_\(novel\))
[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17255186-the-phoenix-
pro...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17255186-the-phoenix-project)

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baybal2
I don't think so. Out of all things taught there, the few useful things are:
accounting, business law, marketing just to learn the terminology, logistics,
and out of all "high finance repertoire" the only useful things are fx
transaction hedging, and trade finance. Well, and math as well if yours is not
on a university level already.

All critical thinking stuff, "strategy" well, for the most part, is simply
laughable. When people who dished out 6 digits for an elite degree challenge
that, they do so because for them admitting to that mean to admit that they
wasted that ton of money for that.

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harunxxl
what's your background?

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baybal2
Long story short: been into engineering from my early years, and by my late
teens firmly set my eyes on microelectronics, to the extend I managed to self
study it to the level of somebody on the second year of university program,
but insistent parents were hellbent on sending me studying "businessy things
rich people do" (or so they thought those do.) I somehow managed to get back
into technology after graduation and work in an engineering consulting now,
closer to the business side

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sys_64738
An MBA is a great addition to addition to a Computer Science degree. If you
don't have a Computer Science degree then get one of those first. The skills
you learn are that which are not talked about in both fields. In the business
world you have to understand the business person's motivations by speaking
their language. An MBA is a great way to round out and provide those skills
and understanding.

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HelenLondon
Learning is quite a reverent topic. I am an excellent student and it is
important for me that I have enough time for each item to master it. But
sometimes time is simply not enough ... Therefore, you have to write a daily
routine in order to somehow plan your time. I even bought a special pocket
notebook [https://onplanners.com/planners/best-academic-planners-
colle...](https://onplanners.com/planners/best-academic-planners-college-
students) for this. It is very convenient, you can record any information in
it, it does not take up much space. So who has problems with the allocation of
time, I advise you to write yourself daily routines)

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bocahrokok
Reading this article last year, and i have change my major from economics to
computer science eventhough my for the past 3 years i have been dropping
"hardscience" to more liberal arts studies. I am pretty much agree that
liberal art is "useless", full bunch of people debating something that not
really practally usefull and thats not my nature. Luckily i got accepted to
change my major, and much more enjoy to do that.

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harunxxl
So will you do an MBA later?

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bocahrokok
It already becomes my option. Though I am still open with any opportunity, i
am thinking about focusing more in cs problem, considering master in cs. I saw
right now, it is much more interesting and has higher leverage. But will see
that later.

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Rainymood
>A few months ago I went to Princeton University to see what the young people
who are going to be running our country in a few decades are like.

Talk about privilege ...

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harunxxl
What do you guys think? How did you guys learn the business skills to run,
scale and raise funds?

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j45
You never stop learning. If you stop learning, you're done. Mentorship
throughout out ones career is invaluable.

I am a fan of education, but on business, two thoughts -

1) Business is like swimming. One can study, talk, dsicuss, group project, all
we want about business, but it's standing beside the swimming pool.

Nothing teaches swimming other than diving in, and learning not to sink. No
swimming instructor will succeed if you can't learn to float, and then move.
The key learning in business comes from lessons (good and bad) from
experience.

2) The peeople teaching the skills may have no relevant or recent experience
in business. So you may be learning to practice the past. Today, if courses
take 2 years to develop, and 2 years to approve, the material is often out of
date by then anyways. This a real problem most insitutions are facing as other
groups are eating their lunch.

