Why do so many engineers go to business school?

Question

Seriously. At least a third of the folks I've met along the way to business school come from engineering backgrounds, which I never would've expected. Why do you think this is? Discuss.

89nk · Answer

I am an engineer. Been thinking about business school since my college years. My reason, engineers are usually bright individuals with a good amount of drive. Engineers obtain industry experience rather quickly, and want to move up the corporate ladder or switch industry's as a whole. MBA usually helps in every way.

I do not understand why you were surprised by this. Engineering degrees are difficult degrees, and combining a top MBA with an engineering degree from my view can be very powerful.

I do not understand why you were surprised by this. Engineering degrees are difficult degrees, and combining a top MBA with an engineering degree from my view can be very powerful.

spiridon · Answer

I am also surprised by this phenomenon since engineering and business types of personalities are not very similar.

Also, I have always thought that engineering has a good earning potential itself and why would someone go for an MBA instead of Masters in their respective field or something

billyjeans · Answer

I think engineers are ideal MBA candidates. Just because you don't see them in suits, doesn't mean their personality won't fit in with the business world. Many CEOs and executives from top companies comes from engineering background. There are also a lot of engineers/science/math majors made a fortune in the finance world.

Engineers usually have excellent quantitative skills, they are trained to develop problem solving skills. In today's world, many engineering decision are increasingly based on financial constraints. It's only natural for some of the engineers try to apply their skills in a different realm where they can excel.

Of course there are other incentives such as career advancement and increase in pay. Engineer's pay usually caps off at certain point, while executives can have pay days of millions of dollars in bonuses.

Anonymous · Answer

An engineer's career tends to plateau without official management experience. With a strong quantitative background, they often lack the business skills that their peers may have if they did not double in a business major or get in MBA. In my opinion it seems to be the perfect coupling of skill sets in order to achieve executive level positions and to break that plateau, or to extend their skillset in other functional areas in a company, for example strategic management or marketing in high-tech industries. And of course, there are always career switchers in the mix.

cherrymuckle · Answer

EMLYON student Olivier Petit decided that an MBA was the best career choice if he wanted to get a position of even greater responsibility. As an engineer he knew that he would become the manager of a department and then the manager of a subsidiary but, “These were not my dream positions. I wanted to be more involved in the strategy of the company…I wanted also to increase my international exposure by being a part of a class with different nationalities”. The MBA would provide a solid base in management and finance, I think this is a reason that many engineers go to business school - the idea that your career will reach a plateau and an MBA can take it to the next level. You can read more at BusinessBecause!

karablack037 · Answer

Might be they are fed up in their jobs and they need to know about business. After completion of their business education, i am sure they will turn their career from technology to business.

BM · Answer

I actually had time to perform my own personal investigation on this matter during my MSc degree. Comments from 89k and billyjeans basically provide the answer. Another issue worth pointing out is that - and I don't mean to generalize or stereotype here - many MBA students with an engineering background focus on finance. And this leads me to the point that I wish to emphasize: an engineer has very powerful quantitative skills, and when they compliment this with managerial abilities acquired from a good MBA program, this results in a strong and reliable problem solver. Financial institutions, as well as other businesses, pay a lot of money for such people.

yanbotha · Answer

As my perception the engineer degree is such a difficult and also a student with an intelligent brain can get the degree after doing hard work and also the engineers work is no an easy and it requires good business environment and facilities such the business school can provide. also it helps the engineer how to work in corporate field and all.

ssout · Answer

I'm an engineer and my take on matter is that after you reach a certain stage in your engineering career, it helps move up the ladder if you have some sort of business degree or experience for that matter.

bb · Answer

Because they are smart?

Or perhaps just a bunch of calculating devils?

ssout · Answer

Or maybe because they think they can make more money?

AbhiJ · Answer

Ntang, Spiridon.

Pose an opposite question: I see 30-40% economics and business graduate getting MBA.
Donot see why they want to study the same thing twice. More so because the content lacks theoretical depth.

ssout · Answer

They probably just want the title. Looks good (I guess) on the resume

Why do so many engineers go to business school?

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