Should You Have An MBA?

2 Jun

Master of Business Administration

As a PhD candidate in a STEM field, I am a member of a highly specialized workforce.

This might sound impressive, but all it means is that non-STEM people find your jokes less funny. Pursuing a technical career often leads to people specializing as a way to stay competitive and you can see this in the range of specialties across industries and academic institutions.

My particular areas of specialization led to the formation of a company in 2020, which presented a whole new set of challenges on top of the dumpster fire. While I always prided myself on being a pragmatist compared to other academics, I was not prepared for the wide array of tasks that being a founder demands.

MBA: Networking Specialist

As a co-founder, I was very grateful to have a Master in Business Administration, so I can speak personally to the contents of Episode 2 of the Science of Work podcast, Does getting an MBA matter in today’s workforce?

In the episode, Tom Adams, President of the Quantic School of Business and Technology, conceptualizes the role of an MBA in the company to transition technical people into generalists. Where my preparedness for entrepreneurship fell flat, my co-founder was instrumental in making the non-technical parts of the startup work.

One of her skills I admired was her ability to leverage a professional network to help us accomplish our goals. I was shocked at how much opportunity is out there in entrepreneurship - if you know how to seek it.

Her education led her to network with a vast array of professionals, so that no matter what random task was before us, she always knew someone who would be willing to set up a coffee chat to give some advice. More often than not, these coffee chats would lead to further opportunities and the acceleration of my company development.

This capacity to leverage a vast professional network was listed as a key skill that MBA brings to the workforce, along with the ability to step back and see the bigger picture.

MBA: Seeing the Forest through the Trees

Technical professionals often pick their career path because they enjoy learning about the smallest of details and finessing their craft. Or their choice of employment requires them to pay attention to the details of their work.

Either way, a lot of people in the STEM field can have a tendency to see the trees and miss the forest, and I was no exception. My co-founder had the challenge of turning a stats and neuroscience nerd into someone able to see the bigger picture.

The generalist nature of MBA training allows them to better see the forest, which can be very effective when combined with us tree-preferring STEM folks. Did you know that there are strategic ways to do meetings that don’t drain the energy out of you? (If not, click here to learn how to fix that).

It was my MBA-trained co-founder that introduced me to concepts like SCRUM meetings and project management platforms beyond Google Drive to more effectively coordinate my team of people. Learning about these people management strategies has made me more thoughtful about my approach to my other leadership positions.

MBA: Builders of Agile Teams

Within the sciences, there is a culture of not overstating your claims and rounding down your certainty of ideas. This contrasts greatly with pitching, where the goal of communication is to convey how much you believe in your idea. The coaching necessary for me to effectively re-learn how to convey information speaks to Tom Adam’s comments about how an MBA can turn a specialist into a generalist.

Now, while I retain my capacity to execute my technical nerdy stuff through consulting services, I can also zoom out and switch to thinking about things at a different level and strategize appropriately.

In this blog, I selected but a few of my experiences about the value that a Master in Business Administration brings to a team. To learn more about the role of an MBA in the future workforce, check out Episode 2 of The Science of Work podcast.