问金融硕士和MBA之间的权衡

keithyang926

大家好！本人在CD里只算个新人，因为托福的关系才知道这个网站。这几天也浏览了坛里一些关于职业定位的帖子，但对自己的情况感觉梳理作用不够，所以还想请教下各位求点意见。

我的背景算是非常普通，工科出生，本科，28岁，有过4年的工作经验（但其间有比较长的career gap，头疼~），分别是1年IT+3年数据分析，现在想往金融领域转。学校属于211，958，GPA大概在84左右，T110, GMAT6月考。工作的两个公司第一个是外资IT前500，第二是某外资银行。因为第二个工作在银行，所以多多少少接触到金融方面的知识，于是有了往此领域更进一步的想法。本来打算是申请美国研究生院的金融项目，比如金融工程之类的，但有朋友建议MBA的时效会好一些。因为自己接触CD也不多，金融方面视野可能较为局限，所以现在在金融硕士和MBA之间权衡不出结果，特地发帖咨询。不知道这里有没有如我这样打算换行业转金融的？通过申硕或读MBA哪一个更有可能实现职业切换？我本身倾向于做风险管理相关的，现实几率有多大？现在已处于离职状态，前段时间刚把T考了，正在复习GMAT。同时琢磨是否需要考金融或会计证来增加砝码（虽然赶不上13的申请）。

还有个额外的问题，如果是读硕，中介让我把GRE考了，因为说许多学校都是把金融工程之类的专业挂靠在数学系下面。但就我自己了解像UC Berkely不也放在商科下么？GRE有必要么？

谢谢各位！

JonFrank

Hey there, happy to share some thoughts here
Should you go for a Finance PhD or MBA? Well first of all, I would say why do your friends tell you to do an MBA? Because it’s better for you or because it’s “more famous”. It’s ridiculous to do an MBA just because someone tells you! You have to know what the program is about and want that. If your passion is Biology or Chemistry, it would be silly to do an MBA just because you could geta  more prestigious job as a manager! ?

Sooo, let’s start from this point: What do you want? What are you good at? What do you love? Do you want to spend time doing original research, doing what it probably mathematically heavy work? Do you like academia? Would you prefer to have an advisory role, and be a professor and board member? Then this is the sort of thing you can expect from a PhD.

Now, an MBA is also a perfect degree to move into finance with, to get your first job at an Investment Bank, and you will learn al lot about finance. But a lot of the program will also be about leadership and management. And one of the main goals of all MBA programs is to prepare its students for such roles. Also at an MBA program you will likely meet a more diverse range of people, and not simply people in Finance, but people in Tech, Health, Real Estate, etc.

Finally regarding your question about the GRE – for which exams the schools accept or don’t, you have to look at each school’s regulations to see what exam they accept.

Finally, since you are at a moment of deciding, I would suggest a lot of deep research about the various finance PhD’s and the MBA programs before you make your decision. Don’t simply listen to what people tell you, but find out yourself!

Jon Frank
Founder PrecisionEssay

gsmpkuer

建议还是选mba吧，现在华尔街金融硕士都已经饱和了！

eugenio

3楼牛

danieljsun

Hey there, happy to share some thoughts here
Should you go for a Finance PhD or MBA? Well first of all, I would say why do your friends tell you to do an MBA? Because it’s better for you or because it’s “more famous”. It’s ridiculous to do an MBA just because someone tells you! You have to know what the program is about and want that. If your passion is Biology or Chemistry, it would be silly to do an MBA just because you could geta  more prestigious job as a manager! ?

Sooo, let’s start from this point: What do you want? What are you good at? What do you love? Do you want to spend time doing original research, doing what it probably mathematically heavy work? Do you like academia? Would you prefer to have an advisory role, and be a professor and board member? Then this is the sort of thing you can expect from a PhD.

Now, an MBA is also a perfect degree to move into finance with, to get your first job at an Investment Bank, and you will learn al lot about finance. But a lot of the program will also be about leadership and management. And one of the main goals of all MBA programs is to prepare its students for such roles. Also at an MBA program you will likely meet a more diverse range of people, and not simply people in Finance, but people in Tech, Health, Real Estate, etc.

Finally regarding your question about the GRE – for which exams the schools accept or don’t, you have to look at each school’s regulations to see what exam they accept.

Finally, since you are at a moment of deciding, I would suggest a lot of deep research about the various finance PhD’s and the MBA programs before you make your decision. Don’t simply listen to what people tell you, but find out yourself!

Jon Frank
Founder PrecisionEssay

-- by 会员 JonFrank (2012/5/14 15:30:10)

Come on, Frank. LZ is asking "a finance MASTER or MBA", not PhD.

pizi

建议MBA。

金融硕士出来基本上做技术工作的多，而且很多学校、公司都是招应届毕业生。好的金融MBA相对来说路稍微宽点，例如PE什么的就更偏向有工作经验的金融MBA。

djcong

if you target risk management, definitely go for finance masters. don't know any people with mba ended up in risk management.

dl0222

不论就职涯发展或学校申请
雇主、招委都会有一样的疑惑
就是lz工科本科去哪儿了
第一个工作才作一年有什么发现而想转职？
又怎么会转往金融业这么八竿子打不着的行业
当然量化分析是可转换职能，可以算跳得相当漂亮
然而除了金融业，还有太多领域可以选择
Lz还有考虑过哪些，而思路为何

会这样问的原因，是因为不论雇主或招委都会存疑
会不会学了财务风管
哪天会不会又大风一吹，走往营销还是地产还是保险去了
And what happened during your career gap?

可以先去找个书店，稍微研究一下财务风管在做什么
再上一些学校网站，看看MBA在做什么
然后思考一下这些转职的动机
因为还有一种可能性lz或许还没想过
就是很有可能真正有兴趣的领域，也许早就具备知识与技能
根本不需要念书也不一定

keithyang926

Hi Frank, thanks for ur typing up there.
Well, I sure would not shift major decisions simply based on others' words alone. Nonetheless, my friend did point out an alternative to achieve a desired career switch.

Back to the basic question, what do I want or love? Definitely not a life replete with endless research papers or mathematical formulars. I quite enjoy the process of coordinating and cooperating among people, based on which I guess the answer would be MBA then for a career rather than MSF/MFE.

Accordingly, next, I probably would look at MBA programs offered by different universities to see if I can and like to fit anyone of them.

Thanks!

keithyang926

dl0222，谢谢你的回答。你说的问题确实是我该认真思考的，我也一直知晓职业上状态的转换会造成很多麻烦，但因为个人的原因无法避免。儿我也很无奈的说，高考时候没想过自己喜欢什么，只知道考哪个学校有面子，什么专业出来容易找工作，到了大学尽管不喜欢，也强迫完成了本科，找工作就没有找得与专业相关，但也偏不了太远。所以只能一步步的切换。
整个的过程大概是：大学硬件（通信专业）-> 第一份工作 软件（商业智能）-> 第二份工作 数据分析（银行风险管理）-> 打算金融方向的MBA。
这样一个迂回的路线不是我计划的，当然也不是想要的，但确实惟一现实的。从我目前找工作的心得讲，读一个金融领域的学位基本上是势在必行的。