This is difficult.  I do believe an education can help people further their career.  Learning specific curriculum and technical workings of how business works and how numbers can make a business successful, can be amazing and important. But all the education in the world is no match for actually making a business, running it undoing it on your own.  Hiring and meeting your employees.  Relating to them and empathizing with them and hearing their struggles and adapting to what they want to better your business is something that has to be learned through experience.

In my opinion, as a scientist or engineer, it does not take an MBA or a degree/certificate to having success for business. However, I do believe that it does help when obtaining and keeping a business. I think that the skills and credential that come with having an MBA is very important. Connections can be made anywhere especially during your undergraduate career and therefore you do not need a graduate degree to make those connections. Also, as a scientist or engineer, if you have the right financial background, you can hire a team of people to help you start up your business and keep it running. This week in class we learned about hiring CEOs and COOs and other people to keep a business going and I do believe this is a smart decision if you have the right budgeting to do so. It is important to weigh out what is important to you and your business and see if the degree is worth it or not!

The benefits of an MBA are obvious. The education and the connections are extremely valuable. However, there is not such thing as required. A MBA is not required to start a business, and one can perform their own research and educate themselves. The internet, free online videos, seminars and other forms of education have made it easy for people to attain the same level knowledge as if they were at a university. This is not to say that someone with no business knowledge would be successful at an entrepreneurial endeavor because a MBA is not required. There needs to be an understanding of business principles, whether than comes self education and experience or from a MBA. As for engineers taking on a MBA, there needs to be wisdom in when and why. For an engineer working in an established company after the undergraduate graduation, pursuing a MBA right as a "masters" right after undergrad seems unwise. In my opinion, this makes the engineer overqualified. For example, an engineer who is still in engineer I or II positions, who has a MBA, is overqualified for a manager or supervisor position, because of the lack of experience. I believe in pursing a MBA, the person needs to have some sort of experience working at a company, in order to justify and apply the education taken from a MBA. 

Hi knd26.
First off, I wanted to say that I liked the curiosity that you brought with this post as it made me wonder the same thing. I feel as if the term business could mean so many things and it matters what industry you are going into. From what I have been told MBA's are super useful in building connections. For example, people you meet in MBA school could be your future investors or vice versa. However, I do not think that it is mandatory. Most of the people in my family are successful business owners without any schooling at all, so they are prime examples that it is not necessary. The people they met along their journey were the reason they invested in future projects which ended up being the ultimate reason for their success. 

That’s a great question, I’ve thought about this too. The success of starting a business as an engineer or scientist does not require an MBA but it depends on individual circumstances and business nature. Engineers and scientists already have solid problem-solving skills and technical expertise which they can use to develop innovative products and technologies.

The MBA and business certification programs provide students with necessary tools to connect their technical skills to business strategic applications. The program delivers organizational structure training for finance and marketing and management functions which engineering students typically do not receive. Business school students can leverage their networking and mentorship connections to discover potential investors and co-founders and advisors.

The current resources including online courses and startup communities and incubators enable people to learn business operations independently. The most important qualities for success include curiosity and determination along with the ability to learn about pitching ideas and financial management and leadership skills.

You raise an excellent point, which many technically qualified people encounter while pursuing entrepreneurship. I believe that engineers and scientists may start successful firms without an MBA, especially if they are prepared to devote the necessary time to learning important business principles such as finance, marketing, and operations. Many entrepreneurs learn through experience, mentoring, or focused short courses rather than completing a complete degree. However, an MBA or business-focused school may give significant benefits outside the classroom. Structured learning, exposure to case studies, and, probably most crucially, a network of peers, instructors, and graduates may lead to opportunities with investors, advisers, and possible partners. Those connections can make a significant difference in terms of securing funding and establishing credibility with stakeholders who may be wary of a technically driven startup's business operations. In my opinion, the ideal strategy is determined by your goals and previous experience. If you already have extensive industry knowledge and are proactive in learning business fundamentals, you may not require an MBA. However, if you want to improve your management skills, gain mentorship, and build relationships in the business community, pursuing that education may be a worthwhile investment.

There are plenty of engineers who have started a business without an MBA degree. I believe the best way to learn about how a business works is through working at one. Pursuing an MBA is a good way to learn practically, but unless you work in a business, you won’t get the real-world experience. That degree might give you more credibility, but it’s not guaranteed that you’ll know everything about starting a business and the work that goes into starting one. Reading business books and talking to CEOs of companies is just as sufficient to learn about business as an MBA. 

This is an excellent and pertinent conversation, in my opinion, particularly for scientists and engineers who may like to pursue entrepreneurship. Personally, I believe that while an MBA or business degree can certainly provide a strong foundation in finance, marketing, and management, it isn’t absolutely necessary to start a successful business. With sufficient self-study, guidance, and experience, many scientists and engineers possess analytical minds and problem-solving abilities that may be applied to business difficulties. But I can see how an MBA could help you grasp important business concepts more quickly and provide you with access to a useful professional network. Do you believe that for someone who is currently employed full-time in a technical field, the networking and mentorship opportunities offered by business school could offset the time and expense commitment? At the same time, I think credibility plays a big role when seeking investors or partners. Potential investors may be more confident in your abilities to handle finances, strategy, and growth if you have an MBA, particularly if you have a highly technical background. However, if you show that you have a thorough understanding of the product or market, years of practical engineering or scientific experience may also help you gain the trust of investors. It is an intriguing query: do investors prefer a founder with a formal business degree or one with demonstrated technical proficiency combined with tenacity and flexibility? In the end, I think it comes down to how eager a person is to learn and ask for help. Today, there are a plethora of options available to educate in business essentials without a degree, including online courses, mentors, incubators, and accelerators. However, the networking and structure that an MBA offers can be hard to duplicate on your own. If you were going to launch your own business, would you rely on mentorship and experiential learning to get the necessary business expertise, or would you pursue formal education for the added credibility and connections?

I like this topic because I am actually planning on getting my MBA from NJIT right after my undergrad. As part of the BS/MS program, I had the freedom to choose which master's degree I wanted and I chose MBA because I knew it would help me network and obtain the leadership and strategic skills I need for the real world. I agree with everyone that you do not need an MBA to start your own business and with my MBA, I was thinking more of the finance/marketing route, and that's the good thing about an MBA is that you have the flexibility to choose what you want to do with it. I know a lot of people who went into BME and and pursued their MBA after undergrad, so it really depends on if you want to continue with engineering or work in corporate. You don't need to have an MBA to start your own business nor is it required to get an MBA in the first place.  

I believe an MBA is not required for an engineer to launch a profitable company. Experience and problem-solving are the main factors that determine success in my opinion, even though business education can provide useful management and financial abilities. The critical thinking and quick adaptation skills that engineers already possess are crucial for managing a company. I think that anyone who is willing to put in the effort may learn the business side without having to spend years in school thanks to the abundance of online tools and mentorship programs that are already available. I'd say credibility is more about performance than degrees. An MBA will never be as persuasive as a functional prototype, a strong business plan, and measurable outcomes when it comes to attracting investors; if they are willing to take the risk. Although I can totally see the perspective of investors not willing to financially assist simply because the engineer doesn't have a business degree.

This is an interesting topic and it is important to discuss. I do think further education can be beneficial but I do not think it is necessary in all situations. Further education is important when the thing you are doing your masters in our anything like that is what you want to apply in your career and you want to learn more about it. I think other things like making connections are important as well. An MBA can help in some aspects but not all so I do think you can succeed without further education like an MBA or anything after.

I believe an MBA or business related degree can be a major advantage for engineers who want to start a company or move into leadership roles. While technical expertise is essential, running a business involves an entirely different skill set of financial management, marketing, strategy, and communication that most engineering programs only touch on briefly. An MBA helps bridge that gap by teaching engineers how to think beyond design and innovation and focus on sustainability and profitability. It also provides a professional network that can open doors to investors, mentors, and partnerships, connections that are often just as valuable as the knowledge itself. Of course it is possible to succeed without a business degree through experience and self learning, but formal education can accelerate the process and help avoid costly mistakes. I also believe investors also tend to trust founders who show both technical and business competence, which can boost credibility when pitching a startup.

I have contemplated trying to acquire an MBA previously before I decided to focus on just what I am going for at the moment. I do believe that a business can be created without needing one; especially considering if the person or group took the time to learn the fundamentals of business operations, finance, and management whether on their own or through a mentor/boss. Engineering of any kind typically trains one to be a problem solver and that mindset can really help when trying to build a company. An MBA can help with acquiring important skillsets and networking, but that can be accomplished, I believe, outside of an academic program as well. One classic example could be a family business, although in the biomedical field it could be different, but a parent passing their knowledge, skills and experience to their children who would then want to go into the same business could be seen as a similar endeavor. If operating on your OWN though, I believe the MBA is absolutely beneficial to more people than working on their own and building their own baseline.

I would say that you do not necessarily need an MBA or a business-related degree to start a business, it could be something just learned purely from experience or just speaking with lots of different entrepreneurs who have their own small or larger businesses. Although every business is different, most of what is "required" to know to start a business can be learned from other sources other than educationally through an institution. I would definitely think that the connections you get out of going through a business degree would help significantly, especially if you go to a top-tier school for an MBA where there are connections into large companies or investors. Also, doing an MBA gives an engineer the basic and more advanced background of business, marketing, investments, management, etc. There are many benefits to doing an MBA but it is not necessarily something that you need to pursue when starting a business. Personally, I do not think that an MBA is a significant factor in this (although maybe I am wrong). In today's world, especially now, everyone has a degree. You are competing with hundreds of thousands of other people who have degrees, and the degree has just become a small requirement or barrier out of many other factors. I believe that the connections you have and the amount of effort an individual person puts into their business defines whether they are suitable for starting and running a business. With or without a degree, an engineer can start a business if they put in the time, and although there is some credibility with an MBA, it is not significant enough to stop anyone or cause any big problems.