Answer: The MBA is not an end in itself, but a means to an end.

It is a degree designed to give you the ability to develop your career to its fullest potential, at an accelerated pace. What will you get out of an MBA? Aside from a powerful life experience, the MBA degree should supply three main value propositions: Skills, Networks, and Brand. Skills These include the "hard skills" of economics, finance, marketing, operations, management, and accounting, as well as the "soft skills " of leadership, teamwork, ethics, and communication that are so critical for effective management. MBA students acquire these skills inside and outside the classroom. Since MBA programs attract people from very diverse industries and cultures, a program should be able to leverage these differences and translate them into learning opportunities. Networks An MBA degree program offers access to a network of MBA students, alumni, faculty, and business and community leaders. This network can be very useful when beginning a job search, developing a career path, building business relationships in your current career, or pursuing expertise outside your current field. For example, entrepreneurs need access to capital, business partners, vendors, and clients. Arts-related businesses need access to funding and strategic management in order to position themselves to be relevant in the marketplace. Global businesses need access to local business cultures as they expand their enterprises to new territories. Brand The MBA degree is a recognized brand that signifies management and leadership training. The particular school and type of MBA program you attend also have brand associations that can help open doors based on the school's reputation. The strength of a school's brand is based on the program's history, its ability to provide students with technical skills and opportunities for personal growth, and the reach of its alumni and industry network. A powerful brand can give you the flexibility to make changes throughout your career. therefore it is important to find the MBa program that fits you best. good sources of information include the annual list of MBa programs published by Business Week and Forbes magazine, and programs listed in the Official MBA Guide, a free public service. The MBA degree was originally created because engineers working for companies were promoted to managerial positions, and often they did not know how to manage, although they were good engineers. Companies needed managers who could understand what the engineers were saying, and managers without engineering degrees often did not understand the engineers and their needs. Business schools responded by creating the MBA degree. It is a general degree designed to train student to enter any area of management. Most MBA programs accept students with any undergraduate degree. The MBA is in contrast to the MS degree which trains students to reach higher levels of knowledge in their specialty so that they can serve as better staff and

researchers, with no intention of becoming high level managers. Most MBA programs prefer students with 2-3 years work experience after the first degree, but many accept students right out of college if they have good grades and a high GMAT score. Some MBA programs are designed specifically for new college graduates without work experience. MBAs with good grades and an engineering background are in high demand and they command good starting salaries. Why you should opt for MBA after engineering
Published: Monday, Jan 24, 2011, 18:15 IST | Updated: Monday, Jan 24, 2011, 18:16 IST By Shweta Apte | Place: Mumbai | Agency: DNA

An MBA after engineering is a much sought-after option for pursuing post-graduation. But what relevance does an MBA have to the highly technical skills of a professional engineer, and is there a need for engineers to pursue MBA? If you have an engineering degree, an MBA gives you more exposure to business-related topics you didn't come across in engineering studies. A select few do opt for specialisation in engineering but others want wider roles with higher packages and a broader spectrum which an engineering plus MBA offers. Learning how to solve different business problems and understanding marketing issues and management related issues are some key skills an MBA degree can teach you and help you to land senior management positions. Having already obtained a technical degree, an MBA completes your education in the wider areas of management that usually include subjects such as finance, marketing, human resource management, organisational behavior, and management strategy. This is also important because the role of the engineer is changing; within an industry, an engineer is likely to be a manager who has to implement new practices and new technology. Thus the engineer often becomes the primary manager of change within the modern organisation, which again requires specific skills and learning. If an engineer wants to stay strictly within the realms of engineering, it might not be as important to get an MBA but if you want to advance and climb up the ladder, an MBA would serve to be handy and useful. All MBA programs require the student to undertake a major project that is written up as a dissertation. This usually incorporates many of the modules taught in the course. Engineers can relate engineering aspects of a company with some or all of these taught modules. One example may be looking at the supply chain for particular products in the company, or a marketing strategy for the development and launch of a new product. The engineering MBA graduate is hence well-versed in management knowledge, skills and techniques, as well as their technical engineering abilities. Having an MBA gives them confidence to apply these skills to develop 'strategies for growth' of their employing companies, making them indispensable and sought after. In the future, they will be among those who set the rules and have conversations about what should and shouldn't be done in the way an organisation is structured and managed.