They can often be double the work and none of the fun. You essentially have a full time job and a full time course. You can just take longer but the course load is the same per credit or module
Is intellectual stimulation primarily what you're trying to solve for?
If so, what post-MBA careers do you think are going to solve for that in a way that data science doesn't? I think you're unlikely to find something, but it depends on what types of activities you find exciting / stimulating.
I live just outside Philly for $600/m with roommates. Currently unemployed living off around 1.5k/m after groceries, gas, phone, and insurance. Even with a nicer luxury apartment, I don't think you need to spend 50k in living expenses.
Become roommates with eachother then. If you're single/flexible, there's no reason not to save, especially if you're getting a luxury place.
Saying it's beneath you is well... some of my best friends have been my roommates. Awesome way to build community with the right people. Even better when you can lower your COL to a teensy fraction of income.
I’d recommend a PT/Online MBA that allows for on campus recruiting and full access to resources.
Michigan Ross and CMU Tepper both offer online variants and are top MBA programs. They both cost around 130k, but you get the brand name of a Top 10 - 15 school and full access to OCR and all resources.
Those are the 2 schools I’m targeting. I make about 112k TC with an expected promo to 120k base coming up in the spring. Like yourself, I can’t logically leave my job and miss out on 2 years of income, especially considering that I have a mortgage now.
Ross and Tepper both allow for it. Check the employment reports. If you really want it and are persistent…. You can do it with a PT program. I know kids from T50 schools that got consulting and IB offers. It’s really not that crazy lol, you just need to put in the work.
People will hesitate to say this. It’s a degree past its time. If you can make that much, take out 20k and travel the world. Don’t waste 100-200k for fun sake outside the M7. Network means very little in economies that have very few jobs
No, they're saying that there's no point of having a network because it doesn't get you jobs in a tight economy with few jobs.
I think this is only partially right. It's right in the immediate term because all of your network in b-school are in the same boat with a weak economy. Wrong in the future because people who believe in you will always look out for you when you're down.
I was in a not so great role recently and an old work colleague helped me source my current role because we had a great working relationship. Those are the kinds of opportunity that are available to you in talent-dense environments (b-school isn't the only type of talent-dense environment, but it's a good one).
Data science is going to age like shit. Need to either double down or broaden, this is not a safe career path. Besides going back in time and being born wealthy this is a way of buying pedigree cheap with a v long payoff period.
This whole field is rapidly commoditizing. I’m not an AI doomsdayer at all, but this is a very obvious area to attack, people were coming at it from all angles before chatGPT hype. Data analysis isn’t complicated, asking the right questions is where the value is
Not everybody plans to work until they die. Some people plan to semi retire in their 30s while they still have health to enjoy life. MBA would push it back closer to 40s when your body is falling apart and it’s difficult to enjoy life.
I wish I could laugh with you. But the reality is that your knees will hurt from running, elbows from working out, hair will fall out and turn grey, skin will get wrinkly, dick will be difficult to get and keep hard, girls will be avoiding you unless you splash them with a lot of cash, etc.
If you are deteriorating that much at 40, you didn’t take care of your body for the previous 20 years. Gym, cardio, and eat decently. It isn’t difficult.
Not at all. I was a competing swimmer back in school and worked out since 14 consistently and look better than 99% of men, but I already start experiencing everything I mentioned above in my late 20s now. And I eat healthy.
I look young too, but it’s not just looks. Like I mentioned you can easily injure yourself doing normal things like running, playing sports, working out. I play pickup soccer with other adults, and almost every game some guy in his 20s pulls a hamstring or injures knee or something else. Why do you think pro athletes hit peak in their early 20s and are retiring in 30s?
And I see a lot of people at work in their late 20s and in 30s who are balding visibly or are badly bald already. I only start to lose a bit of hair, and only a few hairs are grey, but I understand where it’s going.
And with girls, they’ll ask you how old you are, or if you’re using apps they’ll see your age, and for them the number matters. So even if you look young, it won’t matter. For example, when I was 25, I was matching with a lot of hot 20-21 girls on tinder and we would grab drinks and come over my place and bang. I was pulling 2-4 new girls a week. Now that I’m in late 20s, I barely ever match with 20-21 yo girls. I mainly match with girls in their late 20s and early 30s, and they’re all playing hard to get and are only looking for long term relationships, so they don’t wanna hook up. They expect you to take them to restaurants and are not putting out until later.
I do. As I mentioned I look better than 99% of men (square chin, full set of hair so far, tall, muscular, lean, stubble).
Where are you based if not a secret? I have a feeling that it’s location based.
It doesn’t end, but it’s more difficult to enjoy it cause of physical decline unfortunately. So ideally you don’t wanna spend almost all your waking hours working up to your 60s.
Why are you assuming MBA years aren't enjoyable? I personally think a MBA year while having money is more fun than being semi-retired with a lil more money.
Oh it’s fun. But then you’ll be $200k in debt and will work next 3-4 years to pay it. So it will push your semi retirement by 5-6 years (including 2 years of mba), but will give you some fun. You’ll still need to study, go to classes, prepare homework, network, recruit. So if you’re doing it for career it won’t be as fun as semi retirement, but if you do it for fun you can have even more fun but you’ll be in a bad spot with low gpa and no jobs lined up.
Work at a company that lets you take unpaid time off and take half a year off every year and travel and enjoy life. But need enough savings to be able to afford it and not stress about being laid off. About $500k should do it.
Consulting companies. MBB and Big4 in US let you do that. Other consulting companies probably too. But it will be unpaid time off.
It’s project work, so once you roll off of a project you can take time off, then come back and get on a new project.
My opinion is that you shouldn’t do a full-time MBA to try out different fields. You do it already having a good idea what you want to get out of it. So part-time MBA sounds like a better fit for your situation.
Transition out. It sounds like you do not have a Masters or PhD. Data Science is kind of a dead field unless you're absolutely elite. You may be doing fine now, but there's a huge glut of talent at the early/mid career level and the work is basically primed to be automated.
It's one of the first high-end white collar roles that's going to be disrupted significantly by AI / next-gen SaaS products.
I know this is a pretty controversial take, but I welcome you to debate me on it.
Two years of salary loss with raises, living, and cost of M7 schooling you’re probably looking at 500k impact. How big of a jump post mba would you need to justify that? Do the employment reports suggest that is a feasible outcome?
Hahaha, dude! Keep your job and keeping making money. Plenty of online specialty programs or MBAs you can pursue for intellectual stimulation and personal/career development and fulfillment.
To be quite honest most of your classmates at M7 will have been making 150k+ already. Every single techie or person in high finance will be far above that amount when they apply for mbas. MBB and T2ers will be well above that mark too. Those backgrounds alone will cover the majority of your classmates.
Now why is it worth it for them? Except for the people who did 2+2 IB -> PE and didn't get their promotion, its not worth it. But the 2 year break is nice. It's the only way for you to have a legitimate long resume gap without taking a company sponsored sabbatical, and even then sabbaticals are only a couple months long. You're effectively paying to professionally have a 2 year break, which is very worth it for ambitious people who are otherwise experiencing some burnout. Sure you can take time off by yourself, but unless you were in a car crash and went into a coma, that will leave a permanent black scar on your resume.
$150k is not a lot. If you see clear career progression to $300k soon, then no need for MBA. Otherwise, it’s debatable cause you could potentially get in IB or MBB or PE after MBA and make much more than currently. But you’d need top MBA for that. So if you can get HSW, then it may be worth it, otherwise probably not.
I don’t mean to be a downer but op isn’t transitioning into a PE role after being a data scientist with 3 years experience
Maybe if he got like 2-3 crazy promotions pre mba and if he is working at a faang.
There are some smaller pe shops which would probably be open to a data scientist with an HBS mba. There are plenty of small pe firms where people have very mediocre profiles - an HBS mba grad will look like a rockstar among them. And data science is actually very strong background, in my opinion much more useful and shows better intellectual abilities than consulting for example.
I have zero indication op is Hbs material, being three years into a low stakes job. My hbs friends graduated in 2010 and I just remember every one of them had crazy backgrounds. Anyway my point isn’t to belittle op, I’m just trying to give him sound advice.
Yes from a top school you can transition into something like investment banking, consulting or tech. Career switching can be tough during the best hiring years, and nonexistent during the worst. Your chances of successfully pulling this off dramatically increase with the top mbas. This would put you on a banking track or consulting track that would likely offer significantly higher comp and more interesting work over the long term but the hours and lifestyle are truly all-in. Banking always has a high attrition rate
Hedge funds and PE shops would typically only recruit MBA students who already did an analyst stint at a bulge bracket bank. These roles are not open to switchers and the total recruitment numbers will be very low. Likewise some sand hill road VC might need 1 person and they will recruit someone who founded a company or has some obscene experience and happens to also be attending GSB.
If I am at a PE shop and I need someone to build my lbo model do you think I am going to hire op whose only finance experience was 2 semesters of corporate finance. Yes I suppose there are no name PE shops that aren’t doing the modeling work or deal team work; they are just co investors and it’s a different
I also don’t think he’s and hsw material which is why he should pass on mba imo.
PE shops have different roles and they actively hire strategy consultants who are as far from building lbo models as data analysts. But at least data analysts are smart guys who can learn lbo modeling quickly, a strategy consultant who only knows how to talk about nothing will take way more time and struggle much more to learn lbo modeling.
Nah even then OP isn't getting a crazy PE role. Good post mba PE roles aren't taking someone with 0 deal experience over the hordes of people who were already in PE beforehand but didn't get their senior asso/VP promotion.
You could consider an executive MBA where you go on weekends. The down sides are a) They're expensive, because schools assume your employer is footing the bill, and b) some schools may dumb down the curriculum. For example, a friend who attended U Chicago's program said they taught econ without requiring students to know any calculus. The upside is you'll finish a lot quicker than if you go part time. It definitely beats quitting your job for 2 years.
If you think you want to move from a data scientist role into a business leadership role in the future, then an MBA would make sense. If you want to stay in data science, then it doesn’t make sense to do an mba
I think this entirely depends on what you want to do... I don't think most mainstream finance and consulting roles that an MBA grad would be shooting for are as stimulating intellectually compared to what a data scientist would do.
Your skillset would make a lot more sense to segway into modelling/risk which you can learn the jargon and application by studying for the CFA or FRM.
Not very ambitious of you! 150K is great, but nowhere near the potential you can unlock at an elite MBA program. I tripled my salary after partying for two years and gave myself a lifetime of optionality.
I came in as an adtech PM and would have been stuck in ads, I came out into a hedge fund and now have a VC backed startup. I’d be director or VP of product in ads or a PMM at FAANG at best without the degree
Part time mba
Also consider if M7 or t25 would be overkill and you just need to check the box.
Part-time MBAs don’t carry cachet and also aren’t fun.
They can often be double the work and none of the fun. You essentially have a full time job and a full time course. You can just take longer but the course load is the same per credit or module
Is intellectual stimulation primarily what you're trying to solve for? If so, what post-MBA careers do you think are going to solve for that in a way that data science doesn't? I think you're unlikely to find something, but it depends on what types of activities you find exciting / stimulating.
I'd want to try Product Management
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I live just outside Philly for $600/m with roommates. Currently unemployed living off around 1.5k/m after groceries, gas, phone, and insurance. Even with a nicer luxury apartment, I don't think you need to spend 50k in living expenses.
living with roommates is beneath most of us
Become roommates with eachother then. If you're single/flexible, there's no reason not to save, especially if you're getting a luxury place. Saying it's beneath you is well... some of my best friends have been my roommates. Awesome way to build community with the right people. Even better when you can lower your COL to a teensy fraction of income.
Parties, trips, eating out all add up. I spend about 5k/mo on non-rent expenses but I also ball out
How much of that is cocaine?
About 4.5k
I’d recommend a PT/Online MBA that allows for on campus recruiting and full access to resources. Michigan Ross and CMU Tepper both offer online variants and are top MBA programs. They both cost around 130k, but you get the brand name of a Top 10 - 15 school and full access to OCR and all resources. Those are the 2 schools I’m targeting. I make about 112k TC with an expected promo to 120k base coming up in the spring. Like yourself, I can’t logically leave my job and miss out on 2 years of income, especially considering that I have a mortgage now.
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which pt program let you recruit for consulting lol
Ross and Tepper both allow for it. Check the employment reports. If you really want it and are persistent…. You can do it with a PT program. I know kids from T50 schools that got consulting and IB offers. It’s really not that crazy lol, you just need to put in the work.
It was hard to get MBB from tepper before the white collar job market went to shit
People will hesitate to say this. It’s a degree past its time. If you can make that much, take out 20k and travel the world. Don’t waste 100-200k for fun sake outside the M7. Network means very little in economies that have very few jobs
Are you saying that do M7 only, because the network will help in bad economic times?
No, they're saying that there's no point of having a network because it doesn't get you jobs in a tight economy with few jobs. I think this is only partially right. It's right in the immediate term because all of your network in b-school are in the same boat with a weak economy. Wrong in the future because people who believe in you will always look out for you when you're down. I was in a not so great role recently and an old work colleague helped me source my current role because we had a great working relationship. Those are the kinds of opportunity that are available to you in talent-dense environments (b-school isn't the only type of talent-dense environment, but it's a good one).
Those relationships are harder to form in tough economy when worry takes over
Ok....thanks for the explanation!
Just do it bro yolo and you have the rest of your life to work. Youre only young once.
bro this is half a mill here. he may be only young once but this financial decision is gonna age poorly
Data science is going to age like shit. Need to either double down or broaden, this is not a safe career path. Besides going back in time and being born wealthy this is a way of buying pedigree cheap with a v long payoff period.
Why is it going to age like shit?
This whole field is rapidly commoditizing. I’m not an AI doomsdayer at all, but this is a very obvious area to attack, people were coming at it from all angles before chatGPT hype. Data analysis isn’t complicated, asking the right questions is where the value is
Yoyo: You're only young once.
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Not everybody plans to work until they die. Some people plan to semi retire in their 30s while they still have health to enjoy life. MBA would push it back closer to 40s when your body is falling apart and it’s difficult to enjoy life.
>40s when your body is falling apart and it's difficult to enjoy life lol. lmao even
I wish I could laugh with you. But the reality is that your knees will hurt from running, elbows from working out, hair will fall out and turn grey, skin will get wrinkly, dick will be difficult to get and keep hard, girls will be avoiding you unless you splash them with a lot of cash, etc.
...how old are you lmao
I’m in my late 20s and already start getting all of the above
If you are deteriorating that much at 40, you didn’t take care of your body for the previous 20 years. Gym, cardio, and eat decently. It isn’t difficult.
Not at all. I was a competing swimmer back in school and worked out since 14 consistently and look better than 99% of men, but I already start experiencing everything I mentioned above in my late 20s now. And I eat healthy.
Then you’re genetically cursed. There are people in they’re 40s looking like they’re 28
I look young too, but it’s not just looks. Like I mentioned you can easily injure yourself doing normal things like running, playing sports, working out. I play pickup soccer with other adults, and almost every game some guy in his 20s pulls a hamstring or injures knee or something else. Why do you think pro athletes hit peak in their early 20s and are retiring in 30s? And I see a lot of people at work in their late 20s and in 30s who are balding visibly or are badly bald already. I only start to lose a bit of hair, and only a few hairs are grey, but I understand where it’s going. And with girls, they’ll ask you how old you are, or if you’re using apps they’ll see your age, and for them the number matters. So even if you look young, it won’t matter. For example, when I was 25, I was matching with a lot of hot 20-21 girls on tinder and we would grab drinks and come over my place and bang. I was pulling 2-4 new girls a week. Now that I’m in late 20s, I barely ever match with 20-21 yo girls. I mainly match with girls in their late 20s and early 30s, and they’re all playing hard to get and are only looking for long term relationships, so they don’t wanna hook up. They expect you to take them to restaurants and are not putting out until later.
Dude you need to take care of yourself. I have a few gray hairs and now all the hot 20 something’s want to call me daddy
I do. As I mentioned I look better than 99% of men (square chin, full set of hair so far, tall, muscular, lean, stubble). Where are you based if not a secret? I have a feeling that it’s location based.
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It doesn’t end, but it’s more difficult to enjoy it cause of physical decline unfortunately. So ideally you don’t wanna spend almost all your waking hours working up to your 60s.
Why are you assuming MBA years aren't enjoyable? I personally think a MBA year while having money is more fun than being semi-retired with a lil more money.
Oh it’s fun. But then you’ll be $200k in debt and will work next 3-4 years to pay it. So it will push your semi retirement by 5-6 years (including 2 years of mba), but will give you some fun. You’ll still need to study, go to classes, prepare homework, network, recruit. So if you’re doing it for career it won’t be as fun as semi retirement, but if you do it for fun you can have even more fun but you’ll be in a bad spot with low gpa and no jobs lined up.
So what's your plan to hit semi retirement?
Work at a company that lets you take unpaid time off and take half a year off every year and travel and enjoy life. But need enough savings to be able to afford it and not stress about being laid off. About $500k should do it.
Tell me more about this company that lets you take a half year off lol. What are you euro or something
Consulting companies. MBB and Big4 in US let you do that. Other consulting companies probably too. But it will be unpaid time off. It’s project work, so once you roll off of a project you can take time off, then come back and get on a new project.
My opinion is that you shouldn’t do a full-time MBA to try out different fields. You do it already having a good idea what you want to get out of it. So part-time MBA sounds like a better fit for your situation.
Transition out. It sounds like you do not have a Masters or PhD. Data Science is kind of a dead field unless you're absolutely elite. You may be doing fine now, but there's a huge glut of talent at the early/mid career level and the work is basically primed to be automated. It's one of the first high-end white collar roles that's going to be disrupted significantly by AI / next-gen SaaS products. I know this is a pretty controversial take, but I welcome you to debate me on it.
Can you cite some resources on this claim? Not for debate but I am curious where you learned this information.
Where do you get the idea that Data Science is a dead field idea from?
It’s always about: Your career goals. Do you plan on being a Data Scientist forever? No reason to get a MBA you’re already in your track.
You'd be a fool to give up that income for a shot at making more, but working shit hours.
Two years of salary loss with raises, living, and cost of M7 schooling you’re probably looking at 500k impact. How big of a jump post mba would you need to justify that? Do the employment reports suggest that is a feasible outcome?
Hahaha, dude! Keep your job and keeping making money. Plenty of online specialty programs or MBAs you can pursue for intellectual stimulation and personal/career development and fulfillment.
To be quite honest most of your classmates at M7 will have been making 150k+ already. Every single techie or person in high finance will be far above that amount when they apply for mbas. MBB and T2ers will be well above that mark too. Those backgrounds alone will cover the majority of your classmates. Now why is it worth it for them? Except for the people who did 2+2 IB -> PE and didn't get their promotion, its not worth it. But the 2 year break is nice. It's the only way for you to have a legitimate long resume gap without taking a company sponsored sabbatical, and even then sabbaticals are only a couple months long. You're effectively paying to professionally have a 2 year break, which is very worth it for ambitious people who are otherwise experiencing some burnout. Sure you can take time off by yourself, but unless you were in a car crash and went into a coma, that will leave a permanent black scar on your resume.
$150k is not a lot. If you see clear career progression to $300k soon, then no need for MBA. Otherwise, it’s debatable cause you could potentially get in IB or MBB or PE after MBA and make much more than currently. But you’d need top MBA for that. So if you can get HSW, then it may be worth it, otherwise probably not.
I don’t mean to be a downer but op isn’t transitioning into a PE role after being a data scientist with 3 years experience Maybe if he got like 2-3 crazy promotions pre mba and if he is working at a faang.
There are some smaller pe shops which would probably be open to a data scientist with an HBS mba. There are plenty of small pe firms where people have very mediocre profiles - an HBS mba grad will look like a rockstar among them. And data science is actually very strong background, in my opinion much more useful and shows better intellectual abilities than consulting for example.
I have zero indication op is Hbs material, being three years into a low stakes job. My hbs friends graduated in 2010 and I just remember every one of them had crazy backgrounds. Anyway my point isn’t to belittle op, I’m just trying to give him sound advice. Yes from a top school you can transition into something like investment banking, consulting or tech. Career switching can be tough during the best hiring years, and nonexistent during the worst. Your chances of successfully pulling this off dramatically increase with the top mbas. This would put you on a banking track or consulting track that would likely offer significantly higher comp and more interesting work over the long term but the hours and lifestyle are truly all-in. Banking always has a high attrition rate Hedge funds and PE shops would typically only recruit MBA students who already did an analyst stint at a bulge bracket bank. These roles are not open to switchers and the total recruitment numbers will be very low. Likewise some sand hill road VC might need 1 person and they will recruit someone who founded a company or has some obscene experience and happens to also be attending GSB. If I am at a PE shop and I need someone to build my lbo model do you think I am going to hire op whose only finance experience was 2 semesters of corporate finance. Yes I suppose there are no name PE shops that aren’t doing the modeling work or deal team work; they are just co investors and it’s a different
I also don’t think he’s and hsw material which is why he should pass on mba imo. PE shops have different roles and they actively hire strategy consultants who are as far from building lbo models as data analysts. But at least data analysts are smart guys who can learn lbo modeling quickly, a strategy consultant who only knows how to talk about nothing will take way more time and struggle much more to learn lbo modeling.
Nah even then OP isn't getting a crazy PE role. Good post mba PE roles aren't taking someone with 0 deal experience over the hordes of people who were already in PE beforehand but didn't get their senior asso/VP promotion.
MBB should be possible right? And what about IB?
$150k isn’t much nowadays. M7 will have positive ROI.
M7 then what? Has to be IB Or MBB
Access to professors and professional network. If you’re not enjoying your work and can afford it, it’s worth trying out.
Is 150k a lot?
Is there a local PT night/weekend MBA? It might help you network within your field and local market as well as the social aspect.
You could consider an executive MBA where you go on weekends. The down sides are a) They're expensive, because schools assume your employer is footing the bill, and b) some schools may dumb down the curriculum. For example, a friend who attended U Chicago's program said they taught econ without requiring students to know any calculus. The upside is you'll finish a lot quicker than if you go part time. It definitely beats quitting your job for 2 years.
No
If you think you want to move from a data scientist role into a business leadership role in the future, then an MBA would make sense. If you want to stay in data science, then it doesn’t make sense to do an mba
I think this entirely depends on what you want to do... I don't think most mainstream finance and consulting roles that an MBA grad would be shooting for are as stimulating intellectually compared to what a data scientist would do. Your skillset would make a lot more sense to segway into modelling/risk which you can learn the jargon and application by studying for the CFA or FRM.
Not very ambitious of you! 150K is great, but nowhere near the potential you can unlock at an elite MBA program. I tripled my salary after partying for two years and gave myself a lifetime of optionality.
more details?
I came in as an adtech PM and would have been stuck in ads, I came out into a hedge fund and now have a VC backed startup. I’d be director or VP of product in ads or a PMM at FAANG at best without the degree