Get Your M.B.A. Part Time

Chapter One: The ABC's of the M.B.A. Over the past few decades, the Master of Business Administration -- otherwise known as the M.B.A. -- has become the most visible and popular of graduate degrees. With it comes a certain amount of clout and prestige that is unparalleled. More than 90,000 M.B.A. degrees are awarded annually in the United States alone, and the numbers of programs and graduates are proliferating all around the world. In both the business press and more popular media, the behavior and career prospects of M.B.A.'s are repeatedly described, analyzed, and stereotyped. The global selection process for admission to the M.B.A. programs has developed a life of its own, producing hundreds of thousands of GMAT examinations every year, numerous guides and publications, a worldwide recruiting network of admissions forums, and sophisticated ranking systems designed to provide information to prospective consumers of M.B.A. education.Yet all this media hype has also produced negative publicity. As far back as 1980, a cover story inTime,"The Golden Ticket," described in unflattering terms "what M.B.A.'s have done to us." This theme continued throughout the decade of the 1980s, when soaring Wall Street salaries, greed, and M.B.A.'s became synonymous. In the '90s, M.B.A.'s -- with their command of quantitative financial analysis and the latest management theories -- were often held responsible for corporate downsizing, shifting of manufacturing overseas, and other scary aspects of 1990s capitalism. The most recent threat to the M.B.A. came on the heels of the "dot-com" craze, as more and more B-school candidates turned to Internet companies, with their promise of fast fortunes and generous stock options, in lieu of the traditional -- and more time-intensive -- education route.So what does this all mean for you, someone who's considering whether or not an M.B.A. is worth the time, effort, and money it will require?It's necessary to cut through the marketing and media hype to understand a few things about the multifaceted, evolving phenomenon we call M.B.A. education. The fact is that the M.B.A. remains a very good investment for most business careers. For some careers -- for example, investment banking or management consulting -- it is virtually a prerequisite. Business schools strive to meet the practical needs of business leaders, and it is certainly still the case that those who wish to attain the highest positions in the world of business would do well to get their M.B.A.'s.The obvious fact about M.B.A. programs is that -- like anything else worthwhile -- one gets out of them what one puts into them. Usually the enthusiasm and dedication of the student will be more important to his or her eventual success than the "reputation" or "ranking" of any one program.What's in a Name?All graduate management degrees are not necessarily termed M.B.A.; some might be referred to as Master of Business Studies (M.B.S.) or Graduate Business Administration (G.B.A.), to name a couple. Just because the degree is not called "M.B.A." does not necessarily mean it's not what you are looking for. The M.B.A. is a professional degree intended for those who want to pursue a degree in business, management, and administration in order to succeed at an executive level. The M.B.A. compresses all the skills needed to succeed in business, and it permits you to do so in a short period of time. It represents the knowledge and the skills an employee may obtain over the course of many years if he or she is fortunate enough to have interdisciplinary exposure (i.e., accounting, finance, management, information systems, etc.). The degree is pervasive amongst all industries spanning the medical, governmental, academic, and financial worlds. Since its inception, there has been no standard uniformity to the degree -- there are many different types of M.B.A. programs, which vary in length, curriculum, andKaplan Educational Center Staff is the author of 'Get Your M.B.A. Part Time ', published 2004 under ISBN 9780743241045 and ISBN 0743241045.