With experience becoming more valuable, is your MBA degree really worth it?

“An MBA doesn’t impress me. A GSD does. GSD = Gets Stuff Done.” —Christine Comaford-Lynch, serial entrepreneur and investor in over 200 companies

With student debt crushing people, it is important to know what aspirants are really receiving for the money they invest. To many, an MBA is still worth the money for assets like social skills, critical thinking, business tenets, and specialized knowledge that you gain from. But for those who are conflicted about going for the degree versus the road not taken, how do you foresee the outcome of your choice? Maybe you can’t, so we bring the purported outcomes to you.

Today, any credential is rather a blunt instrument because they reflect the assessment (and conception) of skills from technical educators who often teach by rule instead of emphasizing experience.

Hence, it is no surprise that some mavericks are quick to wave off the formal degree. Tesla CEO Elon Musk said, “colleges aren’t meant for learning but rather a place to have fun,” during a conversation at the satellite 2020 conference. Apple CEO Tim Cook said in 2019 that about half of Apple’s US employment last year included people without four-year degrees.

To gain some perspective, we spoke to Haritha Maheshkumar, a product manager at Amazon Inc., who said, “We’re a society obsessed with labels. That reflects to an extent in the corporate sector when companies demand Tier 1 MBAs for certain positions. While this isn’t an ideal state, it is a filter that assumes that everyone with an MBA possesses the skills, street smartness, and personality needed for the job. Perhaps it works out probabilistically, but companies forget we’re talking about human professionals who have their own diverse journeys and experiences that would make them suitable for the job, even without that MBA.”