European MBA for non traditional career path

alexWJ

1 2

Posted Oct 25, 2019 15:23

Hi community! I've been reading through some of these discussions with great interest as I find my path to an MBA.

I am an American and I am in the early stages of thinking about doing an MBA in Europe. I have worked in marketing roles in tech companies for the past 5 years and want to transition to the next step. In my case this would be doing an MBA with the aim of getting my own business off the ground.

I am quite focused on Europe because A) I would like a change of scenery and B) there seem to be more business schools there focused on entrepreneurial aspects, and tuition wise the MBAs don't cost quite as much as over here.

I have shortlisted these schools:

IE Business School
ESADE
London Business School
Oxford
HEC Paris
ESMT Berlin

I'm gravitating towards LBS at the moment but IE is also high on the list after talking to some graduates of the program who launched businesses in Madrid.

Can anybody offer me any advice on the above schools and also the viability of doing an MBA for my goal. Thank you in advance!

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Duncan

14.013 15.475

Posted Oct 26, 2019 13:08

I think there are a few things to weight up. What sort of external funding will you need? How certain is your business model? Who are your customers. An MBA seems more like a route into general management and working for start up owned by someone else. For your own business, think about the resources you will struggle to access and consider the best routes. Language is also a factor. If you really want to own your own business, then bootstrapping will be easier from a campus setting with low cost talent... Lyon, Lancaster, Tallinn, etc. Look at the Manchester M.Ent. and the EM Lyon degrees.

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Inactive User

2.941 1.801

Posted Oct 29, 2019 18:21

EM Lyon is a great suggestion. Cambridge and LBS as well, may be worth looking at.

I would say that while you're right, this isn't a 'traditional' career path, it's becoming more popular. When you're researching programs, make sure you look into the associated offerings each one has: what kind of accelerators are hosted, what kinds of connections there are with appropriate people like VCs, etc. I would say that for this kind of career path, those kinds of resources will be even more important than program curriculum.

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alexWJ

1 2

Posted Oct 31, 2019 18:48

Gentlemen, thanks for your thoughts. I will take all into consideration as I think about all of this.

I have not heard much about EM Lyon, but it looks very interesting.

I am quite certain I want to do an MBA at this point. I suppose it's reassuring to have a degree I can count on for other career avenues besides just entrepreneurship. Although that's my primary focus right now, maybe this will change in 5 years down the road.

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