Master's in data science or MBA?

Question from one of my connections in LinkedIn who has over 8 years of experience in BI in various roles.

Question

I am having a tough time these days in deciding about my future. Want to move ahead into leadership role for a data science team. Want to know if I should do a masters degree course in Data science or an MBA. Which will pave a better path for future 10-15 years of professional career. Can u please recommend something on this.???

My answer

My current view based on current market situation is as given below

I would definitely go with Master's degree in Data Science among the two options.

If there is a possibility to get to leadership roles in data science team without doing both I would also recommend that because you already have good work experience unlike freshers. i.e. instead of going for a full-time master's course, choose to learn data science and implement own projects or contribute to data science teams at work and then eventually move into data science team at the right level at that time.

In case you plan to do Master's course in data science, I would recommend to have a look at courses offered by universities in Germany. For example TUM offers Data Engineering and Analytics. The best part is that TUM is one of most reputed universities and yet they offer this course for almost free of cost. Compare that to an MBA where you have to pay around 40K EUR or so.

Have a look at these job descriptions of current openings, none of them ask for MBA but for either Msc or Phd in related fields or compensate with work experience.

https://corporate.xing.com/de/karriere/jobs/suche/details/jobs/1885/

https://www.bcorporation.net/community/jobs-board/youcaring-dot-com-llc-head-of-data-science-analytics

https://jobs.ebayinc.com/job/san-francisco/sr-data-science-manager/403/8154098

Note - Above job descriptions may not be available at a later point in time. It's available at the point of writing as on 2nd June 2018.

Comments

  1. Hemapriya8 July 2021 at 13:37

    Awesome article! You are providing us very valid information. This is worth reading. Keep sharing more such articles.
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    ReplyDelete

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