MBA or MS: Which One to Pursue as a CS Grad?

Like many other CS grads, I used to have this confusion whether to pursue an MBA or an MS after completing my bachelor’s in Computer Science. At first, I thought of pursuing an MBA since everything is business and as a tech professional, I should have ample understanding of how businesses function. On the other side, I also thought it would be beneficial to pursue an MS in CS with a focus on my preferred topic.

So what did I choose?

After a lot of thinking, I decided to go for the MS degree. In the following segments, I’ll describe my thought processes behind coming up with this decision.

Why MS?

Here are the reasons why:

1. As per whatever I have understood, for a tech professional to have an UNDERSTANDING of the business world, an MBA isn’t required; that would probably be an overkill. One can learn the ins and outs of businesses while working; it’s more like spontaneous learning- you don’t study it academically, rather you accumulate and fathom everything subconsciously.

2. Since I am working as a Project Engineer at my current company, and have plans to gradually move towards a software development role, it’s better for me to know software engineering principles, concepts of system design, advanced concepts of databases, etc. To be honest, these can be learned without a master’s degree, but learning them through a master’s degree where you’ll have the opportunity to implement them in real-time with pet projects, definitely has its own advantages.

3. And finally, you might get in touch with faculties who are conducting research on interesting topics. I did a web development project in the final year of my bachelor’s, but I don’t have a publication as of now (2024). So it would be a good opportunity to do some publications with qualified researchers who would guide you through the entire process.

Why not an MBA?

Let me also talk about the reasons behind not choosing to pursue an MBA:

1. Not being from a business studies background, an MBA is gonna take me a comparatively bigger body of studies to deal with, which is obviously not a bad thing so to speak. But not being able to majorly co-relate my studies with my present job is something I don’t deem productive.

2. To get a software engineering/development role and higher in the tech hierarchy, nobody needs an MBA degree, sometimes an MS is required but mostly it’s not. So I don’t see a convincing reason to go for an MBA as a CS grad.

Do I regret it?

I am just about to start my MS, so it would be way too early to say whether I regret it or not. Let me start tolerating it first, dealing with the unimaginable difficulties of managing my job, and postgraduate studies along with being a family man (I recently got married). The path is going to be hard, but I am highly optimistic about it being fruitful. Let’s see, what the upcoming days have to offer me!

Conclusion

We all have our reasons behind the decisions we make. Not everyone thinks alike, so there will be differences of opinion. If you happen to be one of those struggling with what I just talked about, you better try understanding your situations and future goals and decide what suits you the best. Consider my thoughts as a way of decision-making for you, at the end it’s your life, so it should be your and only your call. All the best!