Is The MBA Useless Or More Than Useless?

wow, you are such an ignorant douche. let me know, actually, let everyone on this forum know when you have invented your own world changing product or service. good luck.

No economics is worthless for other reasons. Everyone knows that economists are never accountable for their flawed predictions, which are constantly wrong and based on flawed models.



So stating something that Admiral Rickover and others have said is being a prick? Nobody in real business thinks an MBA is worth it. Does Gates have one? Did Jobs? Did Edison? The people who get an MBA think it's worth it - the rest of the world laughs behind their backs.



MBA is the opposite of professional qualification. It is the gateway to nothing. You dont need one to be a CEO, F500 CEOs dont have one and wouldn't touch one. Medicine, Law, Engineering, Dentistry are professional qualifications - because these are true professions. Management is not a profession at all, there is no right and wrong, and management science is pseudo science. I would reject a HBS MBA, it's a liberal arts degree for postgrads and I wouldn't touch it or waste my time. Id rather be in business learning the skills, networking and making money, building a business and reading books or hiring consultants with hard knowledge like lawyers as need be. Zuckerberg didn't even want to finish his degree at Harvard. Read more about why people say MBA is worthless.

If you want to click buy, then by all means do that. The rest of the world will be using their money to make more money and get experience in business while you give it to a university.

One thing is for sure - I won't be inventing any world changing product or service by getting an MBA.

Did you actually read any of the links to articles in Forbes, NY Times, etc posted in my post? You sound like the kind of perfect MBA candidate who doesn't want to hear anything about the real world out there.

Get your MBA, go for it. The rest of us will have a quiet laugh behind your back.

I was under the impression that MBA candidates tended to have 'real world' experience?

Back in the 80s they did. Now anyone can get an MBA. They will let a 23 year old with no experience except an undergraduate degree enroll.

For the experienced managers, it offers nothing but another epaulette on their uniform that only the weak willed would respect. Think of the type of person who needs that. Gaddaffi types who want to preen and show their faux medals. The managers will continue to be decent managers in spite of their MBA, if they were good before, theyll be good later, and the MBA wont have a lot to do with that.

If you want another epaulette - go for it.

Read that Forbes article I linked to - it's a good read even for an MBA wannabe like you.

There are certain positions which need postgrad qualifications actually, and MBAs are recognised.

I'm not really sure about the use of an MBA, but I would certainly say they hold quite a lot of cultural/social capital.

...search for the McGill Law School 'coffee house' and how performances within such spaces shapes students into lawyers. Similar logic in terms of performativity shaping/training the body to what goes on in business school.

What exactly is it you do for a living then?

None of the true professions require an MBA. No other occupation requires an MBA. Even a forklift driver must have a certification, but the MBA is not a pre-requisite to any job. You could manage a F500 without one. If you can find an occupation where an MBA is required by government or the industry body regulating such an occupation, then let us know. Most F500 CEOs wouldn't bother getting one and don't have one and don't actually need one. A lot of students like them because they believe they are prestigious so they get one and tell the world how important they and their degree are.


With you perhaps, but you feel the need to use bold to make a point. The MBA is almost universally derided now as a joke of a degree. See the FedEx commercial, general articles in Business Week, Forbes etc Read this.



That McGill law school is completely different to any business degree. Law school, like med, dentistry, engineering is a pre-requisite to professional admission and train students in hard knowledge and is genuinely difficult. Business school, with the exception of accounting, could be learned by anyone with a Kindle and is the pre-requisite for entry into no profession, and no occupation either. Business school is probably as worthless as a liberal arts degree.



Selling MBA and business courses to unsuspecting fools looking for faux prestige. They don't know any better, it's a real racket.

You don't seem to have got what I meant. I'll try again.

I said require a postgraduate qualification, nothing to do with the MBA, just a generic postgrad qualification. I can think of someone who recently used an MBA as a relevant postgrad in a clinical director role for a Dental position, that's all.

Second, social capital is nothing to do with my perception of the degree. Social/cultural capital is more to do with the performances and social learning which takes place in a given space. An MBA at a top school is a good place to learn how to perform, to create a certain type of body. It is that capital which I would say they hold. Although one may also correctly argue that you can get that capital from business roles also, which is perfectly valid.

No the McGill Law coffee house reference I used was not irrelevant. Please read it if you are going to critique. It talks about how social space and interaction are important in the learning experience of becoming a corporate lawyer. Knowing how to socialise, who to network with, how to act etc.

Dude, I read everything you wrote and understood your argument. You can learn all of that in the workplace and with a Kindle account. Read what CEOs want, they want people who know how to work in a real life environment, in a business, not people stupid enough to pay 50k-200k for a 2 year holiday. There is practically no hard knowledge in an MBA, save for some basic accounting that most first year accounting students learn as a matter of course. The soft knowledge is something you can learn from books, because management theory is pure snakeoil. The other soft knowledge you either have because you acquired it growing up, going to the right schools, and mixing with the right people during your teens, or because you got it in the workplace in a real life environment rather than bugging out and just spending time "workshopping" with other inadequates drawn to business school.

The McGill law school is irrelevant, because law is a profession. It requires real ability and hard knowledge - or you simply dont get in or dont finish, and you will be mentored and tutored by people who have actually done something in the real world ie practiced law in a tough, professional environment. Like medicine, dentistry, vet science etc, it's a tough degree worthy of anyone with the right professionalism and ability. Ask any first year practicing lawyer, who already knows how to socialize, behave, act, and they will laugh at the idea that you can train someone into this who doesn't have it, as almost all of them got this by age 17 from going to the right schools and having values within the home. Perhaps in your broken society you don't have this, but the rest of the English speaking world does.

Business "science" on the other hand, is pure snake-oil in comparison, and the people drawn to business school go there "to make money" and do not have nearly the same level of difficulty either of entry or graduation or then discipline in real life. Management science, marketing, etc there is no right and wrong, no accountability like there is with law and medicine.

Dude, if my grandmother could sign a loan application, 99% of business schools in your country would take her and graduate her. Wake the heck up and realize that the boom ending in 08 is over, and MBA grads who were working a BB firms are on the street and their jobs will not return. During this period, universities jumped on the MBA bandwagon, citing stats that their grads were earning huge sums. First, I know people without MBAs who are making more and laugh behind the back of any MBA proud enough to say that they have an MBA they see on Wall Street. Second, the MBA turns an already great manager into an already great manager, and a mediocre manager as an insufferable "I have an MBA" mediocre manager with two years less experience than anyone else.

If you wanna click buy and get an MBA, go ahead. If you want to worship MBA grads, go ahead. Good luck competing with all the "MBA Consultants" out there who are laughed at mercilessly behind their backs with their Kindle knowledge and "university library/workshopping experience".

Read the article before you comment. You really aren't getting this. It is an article talking to lawyers. I accept your point about the MBA being spurious to some, but my point is that you can't possibly discount it as entirely useless universally. Read the McGill article please, it's about a drinking event. Nothing to do with teaching or what the degree is, rather it is about social space within an institution. It is about exclusive membership to a specific social event. It's a micro geographical example, if you don't want to read the paper, don't pretend you know what it argues...

I read it. Theres nothing exclusive about it, and nothing of interest. Read my response above. I said that most lawyers, first year lawyers, would laugh their asses off at the prospect of a masters degree or training to network, or somehow being invited to an "exclusive event". The very definition of doing well or getting in and finishing a law degree is exclusivity, and they generally learn these skills and network either during their undergrad, which is a useful degree. So they have a coffee house and rub shoulders with practicing lawyers? Great. They do that in class too with people already working for firms - and with no stinking MBA to do it - all part of their terminal professional degree training where they actually - wait for it - learn something useful for entry to a real profession. Most of the people I know who went to LS already had networks because there were 5-10 guys from their year at their prep school in their law class, and another 50-100 guys they had played football against in a prep school league competition. So this kind of "exclusive event" is nonsense, there are already layers of exclusivity that start at a young age and develop in class when people open their mouths and their peers listen and think "he's a smart fellow". It has nothing to do with an MBA, whether for networking or content - because an MBA offers neither to any great degree that a Kindle / Amazon account and a good prep school already don't.

MBA - not so useful. Out of the F500, only a handful of CEOS have one, and actually, would have been CEOS whether they got an MBA or not. But please, click buy and make me rich. I could sell a million of these MBAs to the ignorant status seeking masses who want faux prestige.

Law, medicine, dentistry and the networking that happens with these professions while the students are still at college is a totally different kettle of fish to an MBA. The former lead to membership of true professions with definable and discernible skills, ethics, proficiency and community, the other leads to a universally derided joke degree full of snake oil theories that have little relevance in the real work and that was part of the largest bubble in history which ended a few years ago. Sure, some people like CEOs have MBAs, but most are there in spite of their MBAs and most MBAs, including tens of thousands of former bankers are lining up for welfare checks.

Get an MBA, put it on your business card and CV, and be laughed at mercilessly except by other MBAs who enrolled for a sense of faux prestige. Get experience in a job, earn money, earn respect from real world experience.

What do you make of this?

I read it. Theres nothing exclusive about it, and nothing of interest. Read my response above. I said that most lawyers, first year lawyers, would laugh their asses off at the prospect of a masters degree or training to network, or somehow being invited to an "exclusive event". The very definition of doing well or getting in and finishing a law degree is exclusivity, and they generally learn these skills and network either during their undergrad, which is a useful degree. So they have a coffee house and rub shoulders with practicing lawyers? Great. They do that in class too with people already working for firms - and with no stinking MBA to do it - all part of their terminal professional degree training where they actually - wait for it - learn something useful for entry to a real profession. Most of the people I know who went to LS already had networks because there were 5-10 guys from their year at their prep school in their law class, and another 50-100 guys they had played football against in a prep school league competition. So this kind of "exclusive event" is nonsense, there are already layers of exclusivity that start at a young age and develop in class when people open their mouths and their peers listen and think "he's a smart fellow". It has nothing to do with an MBA, whether for networking or content - because an MBA offers neither to any great degree that a Kindle / Amazon account and a good prep school already don't.

MBA - not so useful. Out of the F500, only a handful of CEOS have one, and actually, would have been CEOS whether they got an MBA or not. But please, click buy and make me rich. I could sell a million of these MBAs to the ignorant status seeking masses who want faux prestige.