Seeking Masters Degree, looking for advice

Hello all!

I graduated from WGU this summer (finished in 1 term) with a BS in IT. Prior to WGU I had a 2 year degree in CIS (computer information systems).

Frankly I am getting tired of help desk and really do not see my self moving up. Currently I am working as a help desk tech at a hospital.

I am gifted in the following skills: business, management, and finance.

My plan is to go on and get an MBA or a masters in IT business management.

Here are my questions:

A). Would you choose WGU for your masters and why? Would their masters programs be reputable? This is a big step for me and don't want to EVER do it again.

. If not WGU who and why?

C). Those who are in the WGU masters program: how do you find the course work? Is it harder? How long do you estimate your time of completion to be?

Find more posts tagged with

Comments

Valsacar

I'm not doing their MBA, but the MSISA. I'm happy with it, most of the work I don't find too hard but I've worked in the field for a while (see my cert list) so I might not be the best judge of that aspect. I'm in my 2nd term and expect to finish this term. My goal was one year, tried to do 6 months but work got in the way (that and Guinness... could have studied more but got to have my Guinness).

I went with them because of the flexibility, certs involved, and that was really it. Cost wasn't too big of a factor as my company offered to pay for up to 8 courses a year, and I have the GI Bill to cover the rest... obviously with WGU I didn't need to really use much in the way of education benefits.

With MBA there are two ways to look at it, if you want to work with a big company with old roots you'll want to go to a big name school to increase your odds. If that isn't a problem, then some of the smaller schools is fine.

N2IT

Raises hand

I am currently going through the MBA - Strategic Management program at WGU. This degree is not easy at all. I think I read it had a 16% graduation rate.

Either way the program itself is really geared towards manufacturing and I am in IT service management so there is some disconnect but overall it's a great program

HR, Org Mgmt have been extremely helpful courses. Decision analysis has been an overkill to say the least, it's very lean sigma and statistical. Either way I am excited to be approaching graduation. I'll have 4 courses including the capstone once I get the results of task 4 in decision analysis.

I can honestly say without real world experience I don't see much value in the MBA unless you are Thurston from Harvard and have a 4.0. You may want to jump into the MBA and become one of the who's who.

I spent close to 40 hours a week doing course work especially in decision analysis and supply chain.

shodown

MBA is not going to solve your problem. As others have mentioned you need some experience to back it up. You need to cert up and look for another job, or try to move into a team lead at your current positon, that will make the masters worth while.

What problems do you think a MBA/Masters will solve?

jfitzg

N2IT wrote: »

I can honestly say without real world experience I don't see much value in the MBA unless you are Thurston from Harvard and have a 4.0.

This. I would honestly try and see if you can move to a different department in the hospital before getting a masters degree. I have seen too many people slave through grad school thinking it will get them a better job and it hardly ever does. Dont get me wrong, you should definitely get your masters degree at some point in your career, I would just recommend building your experience level (and a few certs) first. Just my 2 cents and I very well could be wrong.

redline5th

Already in the process of moving.

Really a masters is dependent upon whether it is required. It would also be a plus if a corporation would pay for it, although that is a stretch.

What business style certs would you all recommend? This would help me to get my foot in the door.

redline5th

Masters is off in the future after I get my foot in the door.

I was in IT consulting for 2 years. Want to make the year mark with my current employer.

jfitzg

redline5th wrote: »

Already in the process of moving.

What business style certs would you all recommend? This would help me to get my foot in the door.

It really depends what path you want to go down to be honest. Want to get into service desk management? ITIL. Want to get into business continuity? there are many disaster recovery/business continuity certs out there. Want to get into security? Many certs out there for that as well. What interests you the most?

CISPhD

If you're looking for a graduate degree in business, I can give you a quick bit of advice that may save you a lot of time. If your business degree isn't from a top 30 school, you're wasting your time and money. The ROI for an undergraduate degree is nearly 3 to 1 over a ten year period. A graduate degree in the field of business, from anything less than a top 30 school has an effective negative ROI over 30 years. If you plan on taking that non-top 30 graduate degree a step further into the doctoral realm, that's a bit different, but you're looking at another 3 - 6 years on top of whatever amount of time it takes you to get your graduate degree.

Now, if you're looking at a technical, things get a bit easier for you. My MBA from a non-top 30 barely gets noticed, but my MISM gets plenty of attention. I work in IS and IT management, and I get probably 50 questions to 1 on my MISM:MBA. The MISM helped in landing me my existing role, and scored me a plethora of interviews at other large public and private firms.

If you're heart is set on a business based graduate degree, I'd suggest you save up, stop working for two years, and pursue a full time MBA at some place like DU or ASU. If that isn't doable, I'd say pass on it and either go for a technical graduate degree or get a solid cert foundation with a good bit of professional experience backing it up. Certifications such as the CISM, PMP, etc... are all management based certs that carry a lot of weight... and I dare say more weight than your possible non-gold standard MBA.

At the end of the day, I'd take a person with a CISM and PMP over someone with an MBA from a "no-name" university.

netsysllc

I spoke to the enrollment counselor for the MBA program at WGU yesterday and I am going to talk to somebody from the IT Masters department next week. From what she told me yesterday is that in the MBA program I could expect 5 papers per class at 5-20 pages per paper. with 3 classes a term I don't know that I can do that much writing, I am not a verbose writer and struggle with longer papers. At least if I do InfoSec Masters there will be some certs involved, however I think the MBA would be better in the long run. Decisions decisions........

Valsacar

Yeah, I'd say stuff like PMP, ITIL, CISM, CISSP-ISSMP (if you want to work with security side). MBA from a non-top school is good if you're trying to move up in a company you've already established yourself with and the piece of paper is the only thing holding you back. I know my company most of the jobs are BA/BS required, Masters preferred, 10-15 years experience (for those upper/management type positions).

MiikeB

netsysllc wrote: »

I spoke to the enrollment counselor for the MBA program at WGU yesterday and I am going to talk to somebody from the IT Masters department next week. From what she told me yesterday is that in the MBA program I could expect 5 papers per class at 5-20 pages per paper. with 3 classes a term I don't know that I can do that much writing, I am not a verbose writer and struggle with longer papers. At least if I do InfoSec Masters there will be some certs involved, however I think the MBA would be better in the long run. Decisions decisions........

I will be done with my third class for the WGU MBA by the end of next week and I just started Nov 1.

IMO if you just sit down and make an outline and read through the case studies it is not very hard. I have been knocking out 5-6 page papers every night.

My plan is to be complete in 6 months.

To the negative ROI comment with a degree from a non top 30 school...I can believe that when you look at the cost for the average graduate business degree being 40k+, however a degree from WGU, if completed in 12 months which is very very doable imo, the cost is $6k. In my opinion that will pay for itself when I get called in for one interview for a job I really wanted that I wouldn't have got called in for without my Masters.

I also work in government contracting and many positions have educational requirements that must be met, whether your degree is in art history or nuclear physics doesn't matter, just that you have something from an accredited school.

lunchbox67

MiikeB wrote: »

I also work in government contracting and many positions have educational requirements that must be met, whether your degree is in art history or nuclear physics doesn't matter, just that you have something from an accredited school.

100% correct.

I work for a huge logistics company and if you want to get hired, at minimum, you must have an Associates. If you want to get away from the ground floor you need a Bachelors. Upper management requires a Masters. And there are MANY here that go to WGU to meet those requirements.

After a few years here your next employer will not care where the degree was from, you will have the all important experience to back you up and that degree from where ever.

netsysllc

MiikeB I think that is great you can knock the papers out so quick. Unfortunately I am not that way with writing papers, not to mention I work 60-70 hours a week and try to spend some time my family as well. If I had and idea of what kind of papers I would be writing it would help.

MiikeB

netsysllc wrote: »

MiikeB I think that is great you can knock the papers out so quick. Unfortunately I am not that way with writing papers, not to mention I work 60-70 hours a week and try to spend some time my family as well. If I had and idea of what kind of papers I would be writing it would help.

Project Charters, Scopes, Analysis kind of papers.

I think you can make some good progress if you work out a system.

My personal approach with WGU is to submit a good rough draft of a paper, never expecting the very first submission to get approved in taskstream, then when I get the review back it will outline what they are looking for as far as additions/changes. Add in a few sentences here and there covering that stuff, submit again and pass.

KeithC

I will not be pursuing a master’s degree from WGU any time in the near or foresighted future. I am fine with WGU for a bachelor’s degree since it will allow me to move on from my current job. When I decide it is time for a master’s degree my criteria as of now will be

Name recognition
Be “in the field” for a while to know what focus to go towards
Have the funds to pay for it
Be a little older or further along in the profession
Hopefully have an employer that would pay for some or most of the degree

goldenlight

YOu have a Bachelor of Science and Assoicates degree. YOur good to go... Get Experience and Work on Certs.
I would only persue a MBA if my Employer paid for it. Even then I wouldn't go back unless I was doing Research that would change the world.

WiseWun

You have gotten all the CompTIA certs, try going for Cisco or Microsoft if you want to move up. I don't think Master's degree will help you as much right now but it doesn't hurt if you have the time and money.