Should I do an MSc in Management at the LSE?

I have received an offer for the two-year MSc in Management at the LSE, and I am undecided whether or not to accept it.

Currently, I am studying towards an MSc at the LSE already, but in a non-vocational / non-quantitative field. Initially, I wanted to do a PhD, but I've changed my plans, so I started to explore some alternatives. Needless to say, I am delighted to have the option to do another MSc at the LSE. However, there are a few issues:

1) The degree is expensive. Tuition fees are about £18k per year. Factoring in cost of living etc the two years will cost me approximately £55k if not more. This is a lot of money, and I am not sure how to raise it. I might get a scholarship, which should lessen the burden, then there are CDLs (career development loans), but they are only up to £8k.
Where else could I get a loan from?

2) Is it worth it? The degree programme is excellent, there is no doubt about it, but I am unsure about the future payoffs. Some of my friends said that I should not worry at all about this as I could expect a high starting salary and also a fast career progression, whereas with my current degree my prospects might be more limited, especially outside the UK.

I would love to work in the US permanently. In this respect an MSc in Management with a few years of work experience is probably good enough for an US employer to support my visa application (there is a special category in the US for people who are either "priority workers" or "professionals with advanced degrees, and persons with exceptional ability". The UK has a similar scheme which allows, for instance, people with US MBAs from the 50 best b-schools to immigrate, btw.).

Hmm... I think I have answered this question already.

I will discuss my questions with one of our careers advisors, and also with some friends, but I would not mind getting some more input. So far everyone I've spoken to was enthusiastic and encouraged me to do this degree.

Reply 1

Noémie

do you need it? could you get a job, earn money, then return to do it at another point?

Reply 2

unknown demon

Do you need to do another masters? I'd have thought this would not be viewed positively in the sense that you have just demonstrated you can do the same level of work (masters level degree) twice.

However, this is the LSE, they do have excellent opportunities post graduation. However £55k is ALOT of money especially just to do another masters at the same place.

Ask yourself a few questions:

1. Is £55k worth it for ths masters?
2. Will it enhance your employment for the field you want to go into?
3. Could you actually give your all to another masters? (You may get bored after all)
4. Why do a 2nd masters?

These sort of issues spring to mind, there are probably more.

Good luck with your decision.

Guys,
thanks for your replies, even if they were slightly beside the point.

The question whether I "need" another degree is certainly peculiar. Obviously, I could get a job with my current degree, but my initial question was about career progression and mid- to long-term job prospects. BTW, working for a few years and doing the degree then is not an option because the MSc in Management is a pre-work experience degree.

To the second guy: yes, the degree would certainly enhance my employment prospects, there is no doubt about it. The other question you've raised are slightly irrelevant. The tuition fees would certainly be well spent, especially when considering that much lesser schools like Imperial's Tanaka Business School and some others charge £18k as well (which is a sum that is hard to justify given their reputation). IMO, a top of the line education is well worth spending money on. I just have to find a way to raise it.

Reply 5

tanny

so typical LSE students.......

Reply 6

Sinduja

hi king lear, fab id! i'm not sure if i can answer ur question but perhaps you could help me.. i'm in for the same degree..if ur up at lse what are u hearing about it, does it have as much future as is expected of an mba or a similar qualification? i'm wondering if i should go ahead with it, esp considering the return on investment.. in fact tell me everything that made u opt for it..

Reply 7

Sinduja

perhaps u should look at the job scene first.. if not another msc u still have the US b-schools offering super MBA's.. anyhow its nice to see how much u trust the lse brand, it would be a big step to go for another one of their postgrad qualifications.. terrific example to folks like me i must say :smile:

Reply 8

KingLeary

The issue with US-MBAs is that most require work experience, which I haven't. There are a few, like Stanford, where I could have applied, but I think to get the most out of an MBA you should have four or five years of experience.

(Please note that I have a background in the humanities, which, to some extent, limits the jobs I could apply to.)

Please send me a PM with your questions regarding the LSE or the MSc programme.

Reply 9

Hoista

Also, schools like Stanford are highly competitive... circa 8000 applications for the 350 seats. A lot come from bulge bracket banks and the top consultancies (M/B/B)

Furthermore, regarding US-Visas, the H1-B is quota'd, and its becoming increasingly difficult to get them. Do a quick search in businessweek and you will find that Indian companies such as Wipro and Infosys and grabbing most of them. I beleive 10% is set aside for professionally qualified people graduating with a masters. Most if them go to International students studying in an American School.

Reply 10

Sinduja

true..on the oher hand getting into LSE isn't too hard. i hav no clue about the comparitive difficulty in getting visas for US and uk, but i agree on the whole US is a much tougher option. hell, why would anyone want to go through the trouble of applyin to US when u can get into a school like Lse in uk, with lesser hassle..

Reply 11

Hoista

Well, it depends on what your career goals are.
Also in terms of MBA`s, a lot of the in demand companies only recruit at the elite schools. Tanaka (LSE`s MBA) is not in the elite class. It`s a tier 2 European school. LBS, INSEAD, IMD are the elite MBA`s in Europe.

Anyway, the discussion is focused on MSc`s and to be perfectly honest, from a personal point of view..I don`t see what extra benefit it brings to the table when recruiting someone at a managerial level, because the key factor at that sort of level is experience. Someone may know some theory about management, but unless they can demonstrate it in their work experience, they are only likely to get into a mangement training role rather than a management job. Dealing with people is different to dealing with algorithms and engineering techniques moreso because there isn`t a single technique that will work for everyone.

Reply 12

Sinduja

Tanaka is a different school, its imperial's b-school. lse's msc in management comes in second on the world ranking. all i know is that ppl with work-ex have as much clue about their future as fresh grads. jus because they spent some 5 odd years working in one industry only to make a transition into i-banking/consulting and i did not, doesn't exactly make them more focussed. i only hope i can explain this to my prospective employers. work ex can range from somethin seemingly trivial like an internship to stagnating on the same job for a few years. its a relative view. even if i spend some time on a management trainee role and then progress, it would be nothing in terms of time when u compare it with the years the work-ex guys spend pointlessly. dont tell me u need 3-4 yrs to learn how to deal with ur colleagues/boss. fresh grads would still get there quicker.

The only thing mba's have is a reputation built over some 5 decades. these msc's are new or atleast lse's 2 year programme is. It also has the same curriculum/internship/exchange structure as an mba, with perhaps a better reputation and contacts than many other european schools. This isn't an mba of course, but if LSE's track record is anything to go by, this course is definitely an alternative mba. I'd say give it a couple of years, after all the famed Indian Institutes of Mangement in my country offer the same course. their course is called a post grad. degree in mgmt, but its accepted as a signature mba in most places. And most of the guys on the course have 0 work ex.

I would still be happy with my mba-ish msc from lse, far less competition and equal scope. Thanks, but i'm not gonna make life harder than it already is! :smile:

Reply 13

Hoista

The question to ask, is how many of these people end up in management roles?
How many end up in non-management roles. The traditional MBA graduate ends up in IB and consultancy.... Analysing roles, they are not management roles.

Inside industry they are usually put into corporate finance roles, marketing of low-tech products. They are disconnected from the rest of the company because they do not have the experience to manage people and understand the culture. It gives you tools, but doesn't show you how to use them within the contraints of the real world.

Now I;m not saying MBA's or MSc's Management are bad, just that you need to see what they actually achieve. Highly paid people who are NOT managers but analysts at different levels of companies. For it to be management, it needs to be applied alongside on the job experience because every single companies culture is different, and there is no one size fits all.

Reply 14

Sinduja

Although what you say is a bit unsettling, its true that the analyst roles i might land in ib and consulting when i'm done with the msc. But I really cannot see how my situation could be anything better if I went for the MBA.

My background is not business-related. Even if I did have any amount of work ex in the IT industry and then obtained mba i would still be unfit for a non-analyst role in consultancy.

By hopping from one industry to the next I would require some warming-up before I can take on management roles. And no matter how much prowess I show i presume any decent employer would see through this immediately. Hence I would probably end up with work that merely requires application of tools, even if i had the mba. Perhaps after the warmup the mba might make the employer trust me enough to handover more responsibilities. But again this is a probability, based on factors like performance.

But I must confess that my lack of work-ex doesn't give me better insight into shifting roles within an organization. All I know is strategy consulting might be a tolerable profession. And i've been looking into various firms where I might intern. I'll try to take ur advice and get in as much practical work-ex as time permits. The rest is of course a terribly risky business.

Reply 15

Hoista

A good thing to try to get if you want to get into management (post MSc) is to find a management training programme inside a company which allows you to rotate roles. The key to your management development post MSc will be the managers you work for. They need to act like mentors and coach you. They also need to give you some work which you will find challenging and take you out of your comfort zone. Making mistakes is a key area of development, and a good manager will let you make mistakes as a learning experience and try to help you think up the solutions rather than providing them for you.

If you want to get into IB or consulting, then traditional management education is more geared towards this, and this will provide you with the tools to do this well.

Reply 16

KingLeary

Hoista,

your last two contributions to this thread were excellent.

It's true that you will in most cases end up in an analyst role. There is another aspect, though, which is something friends of mine have pointed out. One of my friends got his BSc from the MIT (on a full scholarship), afterwards he studied towards the JD at Columbia. However, law school was not a free ride, so he had to take up a loan to finance it. In the meantime, he graduated, and even though he would like to do something else, he is literally forced to work as a lawyer to be able to pay back his student loans. His advice to me was that the Management degree would be great, but that I should only do it if I would enjoy the kind of job I had to do afterwards. There is simply no way out -- if you are in significant debt you have to take up a job that makes enough money, even though you may not like the working hours it entails or, worse, the actual kind of job.

I would have to take up a loan as well to finance this degree, also I would have no choice but to start working as an analyst for a bank or something similar. I am not sure whether I would really enjoy it, though. If there is one thing I am passionate about then it is my current degree subject. Money itself was never enough to motivate me. (Also, the standard of living in London is, in my humble opinion, sub-standard. I had a better life as a student in my home country than the large majority of Londoners have. The idea of having to share a flat once you work full-time is completely ridiculous. Yet, it is apparently necessary to make ends meet in this city. I know people who make over £40k a year and share a flat, in which they have a room for £220 a week or so.)