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Is there an MBA. graduate, doctorate crowd here on GAF?
- Thread starter Dr. Feel Good
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On sciences and engineering? Sure. MBA? Better hope your employer is footing the bill. Law or Medicine? Nope. Humanities? I have no idea.
RumblingRosco
Member
I've got until February 2nd =) All for slacking now, too, since the summer job is lined up. I'm going to try and travel a bit before school starts again.
Life is pretty good right now.
Don't Laugh
Banned
a friend of mine is interested in going from a BS biology straight to a bio PhD. is that possible?
Sure, as long as he has good grades and lab experience as an undergrad, most programs prefer BS to Masters students actually
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
In the social sciences, PhD positions are given stipends+tuition wavers, sometimes attached to TA/RAship; standalone MAs, where they still exist, are generally not covered but people can apply for TA/RA positions to help defer.
Don't Laugh
Banned
her gpa is probably a 3.5 (she only made As and Bs as an udnergrad) and i'm unsure about lab experience but she was required to conduct and present research under the guidance of a mentor and second reader
would she need to take an admittance test like the GRE for master's students? or just apply if her gpa meets the minimum? thanks again
RumblingRosco
Member
It is absolutely possible and often preferred. Professors like knowing they've got a student for 4+ years as opposed to only 2 years as it takes time to training a student to become a competent researcher.
Depends on the school. Most decent schools will require the GRE in my opinion, Masters or Ph.D.
On another topic, why are standalone MAs disappearing? Is this a recent trend?
iRAWRasaurus
Banned
Good luckWell flying off soon to do a medical school interview in Minneapolis on Friday. Wish med schools did phone or Skype interviews sometimesthat $$$.
Met with the technology and communications coverage groups as well as the M&A product group of my top IBank selection yesterday. Highly likely I will accept their offer.
I went in thinking I'd rank them 1) M&A 2) Tech 3) Comm
Came out thinking 1) Comm 2) M&A 3) Tech. I've cut tech from consideration.
M&A would have the prestige and I would learn a ton, but Comm would have the better people fit and it fit my industry interests the most. Also the Comm group does more of its own M&A work and doesn't assign as much to the M&A group, which means a lot of learning but terrible hours (even by banking standards). It also means I wouldn't get to do much of the Comm M&A work while in M&A. The bank's Comm group is seen as one of the best Comm groups on the street, but the bank's M&A group is seen as the best group at the bank.
M&A I would need to wait until May for sorting and I would be in a pool of 15 in which 5 would be selected. There is a chance I don't get it and end up with an undesirable group. Comm is only looking for people now, but I could get a spot.
M&A is better when thinking about next steps in career, but no idea how much better than Comm.
How do I go about figuring out which to choose?
I went in thinking I'd rank them 1) M&A 2) Tech 3) Comm
Came out thinking 1) Comm 2) M&A 3) Tech. I've cut tech from consideration.
M&A would have the prestige and I would learn a ton, but Comm would have the better people fit and it fit my industry interests the most. Also the Comm group does more of its own M&A work and doesn't assign as much to the M&A group, which means a lot of learning but terrible hours (even by banking standards). It also means I wouldn't get to do much of the Comm M&A work while in M&A. The bank's Comm group is seen as one of the best Comm groups on the street, but the bank's M&A group is seen as the best group at the bank.
M&A I would need to wait until May for sorting and I would be in a pool of 15 in which 5 would be selected. There is a chance I don't get it and end up with an undesirable group. Comm is only looking for people now, but I could get a spot.
M&A is better when thinking about next steps in career, but no idea how much better than Comm.
How do I go about figuring out which to choose?
terrisus
Member
Unfortunately, just having "A Master's degree" isn't anything special in most places anymore >.>
For clarity: Obviously plenty of Master's degrees are very special/worthwhile, depending on the degree.
But, simply being able to say "I have a Master's degree," not so much.
I'm a Pricing Analyst in the oil and gas field so it can be pretty competitive. I'm not looking for new jobs but I keep my eye on the market. Having an MBA is almost always listed as preferred on job listings I see. I'll take any leg up I can get against the competition lol.
terrisus
Member
Well, yeah, as I said, certain degrees are definitely special/worthwhile, especially depending on one's field.
But it used to be that saying "I have a Master's degree" was an impressive thing regardless of if it was in Education (mine), English. History, Communications, General Studies, GAF Browsing, or whatever else. And I would say that's definitely not the case anymore.
bigmit3737
Member
Thanks guys, its been a crazy process, I'm so happy its finally done. I'm finally going through my game backlog for like the past 3 years now.
Post-MBA IB associates:
http://www.ibankinginsider.com/on-the-job/investment-banking-salary-total-pay/
These numbers are a bit out-dated, the base has shifted upward so that the high reflects the median, and the bonus matches in a typical good year. Most leave after 2-4 years though. These amounts reflect bulge bracket. Elite boutiques pay more, small boutiques can vary widely but often pay less.
Did your friend come from Stern MBA or undergrad?
He did his undergrad at Sterns - not sure if he went back to get his masters.
I'm trying to get in contact with him as I haven't spoken to him in years.
I don't know if it's work culture, but last I heard he's being partying a lot and has gotten in the more hardcore drugs.
My sister got her MBA from Yale back in 2008 and has been doing IB since then. She works about 100 hr weeks as VP and her total compensation last year was around 450k. Just to give you an example.
A little over 6 years into her career, so on the cusp of being promoted to director most likely. That amount sounds fair, around the average. She also probably had her compensation impacted by working through the tough years of the recession. Was she at a bulge bracket or boutique? Cover an industry (e.g. healthcare) or a product (e.g. M&A)?
Is it impressive to have a PHD?
terrisus
Member
Well, I mean, at that point, it does depend somewhat on what one is doing, I'm sure.
I always joked around when I was working in retail and working on my PhD, that after finishing it, I would say to customers, "Hello, my name is Dr. terrisus! Welcome to Best Buy!"
Obviously retail is a bit of an extreme example, but I would think it come up as a negative unless one were in a specifically related field (which, of course, is the point).
Even in the more general case though, I know there has been talk lately about "too many" people getting PhDs, and them being "more common" and such (which I would've been the perfect example of someone just spending a whole bunch of time in school and ending up with a PhD).
But, yeah, unless one is going into a field where it's really disproportionate (like, say, retail sales at the lower levels >.>), I would imagine there's still a decent amount of "impress" in it, even without getting into the details of what it was in. But that may just be me.
So, I'm taking 2 courses this semester as a listener at my University, along with statistics courses/specializations/professional certificates online at Coursera and Duke. I thought I was ready for this load of work, the online courses have been very easy for me and I consider(ed) myself to have enough mathematical maturity to take on semi-advanced topics with relative ease. I was so confident on myself that I was seriously considering in doing an online Masters in Statistics as a side project from my PhD research on Theoretical Computer Sciences (maths lite 
). The only thing that stopped me was the recent surge on the dollar exchange rate, so i opted for professional certificates instead on the field.
But now, one of the courses has hit me with a hard doses of reality: Stochastic Processes I, which started with a brief introduction to Martingales and Brownian Motion. I'm not new to the concepts used, I have studied concepts like Borel measurable sets, Lebesgue, Hilbert and Hausdorff spaces, Radon–Nikodym derivatives, etc. before. But the way the professor expects us to dominate them is blowing me away atm and I'm certainly having trouble following the lectures, and we only had three lectures so far! A blow to my self-stem certainly, which I had to build up reconstruct recently .
Anyone had to go through a similar situation?
). The only thing that stopped me was the recent surge on the dollar exchange rate, so i opted for professional certificates instead on the field.But now, one of the courses has hit me with a hard doses of reality: Stochastic Processes I, which started with a brief introduction to Martingales and Brownian Motion. I'm not new to the concepts used, I have studied concepts like Borel measurable sets, Lebesgue, Hilbert and Hausdorff spaces, Radon–Nikodym derivatives, etc. before. But the way the professor expects us to dominate them is blowing me away atm and I'm certainly having trouble following the lectures, and we only had three lectures so far! A blow to my self-stem certainly, which I had to build up reconstruct recently
.Anyone had to go through a similar situation?
terrisus
Member
Pedagogy, educational theories, child development, special education requirements, various courses more tuned to subject like children's literature or teaching mathematics
, just kind of a hodgepodge really, capped off with student teaching, and an "action research project" in the classroom.
(which was actually an academic challenge for some of them >.>)
It really was a breeze, frankly >.>
Congrats to her, that's pretty big. She will have a lot more responsibility for bringing in new business now. She also probably crossed the 500k threshold, and a lot more of her pay will be based on business brought in.
Is she thinking about exit opps now that year end bonuses and promotions have happened? What is she considering, if so?
EmpressInYellow
Banned
I'm finishing my MFA in animation. All that's left is the thesis (paper + film), with the film being overwhelmingly the harder of the two.
terrisus
Member
JeTmAn81
Member
Take my wife, please.
terrisus
Member
JeTmAn81
Member
And how true it is >.>
Oh, right. A joke.
anyone here know masters in management? for the uninitiated, it's pretty much just MBA-lite, for those who want to go straight from undergrad to masters ordon't have the experience/money for an MBA.in certain European countries it's subsidized so you can pretty much do one for free.
anyway, I'm going for a CEMS course, which is basically an organization that awards an extra degree on top of a normal masters in management. you need to have some proficiency in 3 languages to apply, which technically i didn't have when i got interested, only had Chinese and English. and i had to pass a Chinese test as well. managed to do that easily enough, then just crammed Spanish for 2 months to get to the required level - which was fairly basic, A2 on the CEFR framework, but still stressed me out a bit. passed that in the end, then got the certificate about 2 days before the application deadline.
now i wait 2 weeks to find out if all that effort was even worth it.
anyway, I'm going for a CEMS course, which is basically an organization that awards an extra degree on top of a normal masters in management. you need to have some proficiency in 3 languages to apply, which technically i didn't have when i got interested, only had Chinese and English. and i had to pass a Chinese test as well. managed to do that easily enough, then just crammed Spanish for 2 months to get to the required level - which was fairly basic, A2 on the CEFR framework, but still stressed me out a bit. passed that in the end, then got the certificate about 2 days before the application deadline.
now i wait 2 weeks to find out if all that effort was even worth it.
witchedwiz
Member
Uhm, consider me a skeptic..
I don't really place any value in mba done as fresh graduate.. After you build some real world experience, sure.. But as a fresh graduate, you should go through the usual swim-or-sink drill for a few years..
Imho
I don't really place any value in mba done as fresh graduate.. After you build some real world experience, sure.. But as a fresh graduate, you should go through the usual swim-or-sink drill for a few years..
Imho
Uhm, consider me a skeptic..
I don't really place any value in mba done as fresh graduate.. After you build some real world experience, sure.. But as a fresh graduate, you should go through the usual swim-or-sink drill for a few years..
Imho
I would generally agree with you. Business schools expect you to reflect on prior work experiences during your program. They ask you to bring your own experience to the classroom to share with other students. At elite programs, you will have a very tough time getting in (significantly lower acceptance rates than the already very low ones normal candidates face). Without that experience, you are likely to be well behind your peers, and admissions committees understand that.
A few extremely talented people can be accepted to programs, but the experience is wasted on them. There is a Stanford grad in my program (one of about 3 who were allowed to join straight out of undergrad into the MBA program) who is exceptionally talented but did not do well during the recruiting process. Recruiters seeking MBAs are seeking people with around 3 to 6 years of work experience. Had this Stanford grad done something else for 3 years and then come to business school, she could have chosen any investment bank she wanted to work at. Instead, she had to settle with one at the bottom of the bulge bracket. Is she better off by saving years but ending up with a lower tier employer? I'm not sure. My initial inclination is no, but I guess time will tell.
irfaanator
Banned
guess I haven't posted in this thread, but I just started my PhD in biomedical engineering. yay 4 more years of school lol
LightOfTruth
Member
Hey I'm applying for a PhD in biomed! How is it looking? I should be hearing back from a few schools myself...
Anyways, I was hoping to get some advice, and I think this thread could help. A few days ago I had a phone interview with someone from a school I applied to. I think it went OK (not great), but there was one question I may have messed up. The question was something along the lines of "A PhD in engineering or applied math can be a completely miserable experience for 6 years of your life. Why would you want to go through with that?"
How would some of you answer this question? I talked about how much I liked learning, and mentioned that if I wasn't challenged, I'd be bored. I also talked about why I really enjoy the field I've chosen. But I don't know. I feel like I messed that one up.
Bay Maximus
Banned
Any MBAs going to the inter-MBA mixer in early April?
Leaning towards it for a rare networking opportunity with other top MBA programs.
Leaning towards it for a rare networking opportunity with other top MBA programs.
So, I just got back home today from my first conference. It was a pretty awesome experience, there were researchers from all around the world with lots of interesting presentations. I spent about half the time thinking "damn, I wish I worked on something that cool".
I also presented a paper based on my final year undergraduate project (I was only of of two guys to present a paper like that, everyone else was at least doing a PhD). The wait before the presentation was pretty nerve wracking but it ended up going pretty well as soon as I started speaking.
I know you're supposed to use opportunities like this to network as much as possible, but I had lots of trouble doing so. I got about 3 contacts but out of 100 attendees that's pretty bad I guess. It's pretty hard to discuss people's research when you don't really have good background knowledge in their area.
Somehow I ended up getting a prize for best paper though, which really surprised me. I'm not complaining (I'm really happy about it) but I'm at a bit of a loss as to why it was selected, since I thought beforehand that most other papers I've read were better/had more research significance.
I also presented a paper based on my final year undergraduate project (I was only of of two guys to present a paper like that, everyone else was at least doing a PhD). The wait before the presentation was pretty nerve wracking but it ended up going pretty well as soon as I started speaking.
I know you're supposed to use opportunities like this to network as much as possible, but I had lots of trouble doing so. I got about 3 contacts but out of 100 attendees that's pretty bad I guess. It's pretty hard to discuss people's research when you don't really have good background knowledge in their area.
Somehow I ended up getting a prize for best paper though, which really surprised me. I'm not complaining (I'm really happy about it) but I'm at a bit of a loss as to why it was selected, since I thought beforehand that most other papers I've read were better/had more research significance.
Bay Maximus
Banned
Congrats! Great program that's well respected for its quant focus.
Any other schools you're waiting to hear from?
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