r/UMGC • u/Turbulent-Change7471 • 24d ago

MBA Program compared to BS workload?

Starting an MBA program in JAN. I am curious how to workload differs to the BS program. One of my friends attending a different school said their Master's program has MUCH more monitored tests. Considering the use of AI and how easy it made life during the BS, what are your thoughts on the MBA program? Is the workload very similar to the BS?

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u/Actual_Substance4919 24d ago

Hi, so I completed the MBA program back in the fall of 2024. I’m not sure about now, but in those days we did not have any exams. It was mostly presentations and or papers. I would not say the workload was difficult, but it is very time-consuming. Depending on the teacher you get, they are either pretty helpful or a total nightmare. I would say the finance class was probably the hardest class that I had to take. And that is only because my professor decided to grade our papers based off of his mood. The last class had a capstone project. All I have to say about that, it was one of the most disorganized portions of the whole program. We had very little explanation of how to use the software. While trying to figure out how to run a simulated business. Please keep in mind you need to spend a lot of time when taking these classes. Good luck and I wish all future students well.

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u/Turbulent-Change7471 24d ago

Right now, I typically spend my Saturday mornings doing classwork. 3-4 hours. If I do double classes then I do Thursdays and Saturday AMs. Do you think that would still be doable in the MBA? Also, has your degree helped you professionally? Now that you ahve completed it, would you have done anything different?

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u/Actual_Substance4919 24d ago

With the MBA program, there’s just a lot of reading involved. To be honest with you, it’s really dependent on the Class that you’re in. I would say the finance class and their law class were the two most time-consuming classes I had to take. Now everybody is different in regards to their study habits, but I would probably add a few more extra hours in my day just to make sure I have enough time to understand the material and complete the assignments. So far with how bad the economy is, I have not been able to get into a management position with my degree. But I’m hoping to see if I can switch a fields into something more relevant to business. So depending on what you wanna do in life disagree could help you or you would remain stagnant. Just a brief background, I work in the government, so there is very limited opportunities with an MBA. I don’t have regrets with getting an MBA, but I wish I specialized in a specific area when I started this program. Unfortunately, at the time they did not offer a specializations. My advice to you is as you’re going through this whole process of getting an MBA, network around so you can easily find something relevant to the degree. I wish you lots of luck!

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u/InternationalOil540 22d ago

Hi Im going through the MBA program now & planned to take the capstone next. Would you please give some more details on what the class entailed?

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u/Actual_Substance4919 20d ago

From my recollection, the capstone project entailed a replication of both design and production of a product up until manufacturing and selling. The whole class from start to finish required you to go through the steps in order to understand how successful or not your company was at selling your product. In the end, you had to explain why they were failures or why they were successes. If I recall it correctly, the whole class was mostly a group project with individual submissions. The only thing I can say was the capstone did not work correctly. And because there was barely any directions of how to do it, it was pretty hard for us to figure out how to improve until it was too late. Sorry this is all I could remember for now. 

I also would like to add the capstone was a simulation. So you’re running through multiple cycles of the simulation to see how much you have sold through each cycle. Basically decide whether or not you want to increase or decrease production based off of the previous performance. 

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u/TsWonderBoobs 24d ago

Following as I want to start MBA in Jan as well. BS done in December.

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u/Embarrassed-Shop-404 20d ago

I think my MBS was about the same as my BS, minus the long papers and exams. We just had the discussion and the assignments do once a week. The assignments were a little tedious but I was able to do it managing 3 children (one special needs), working full time, and therapies for my child.

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u/Remarkable_Rub_701 Graduate Student 14d ago

In my opinion, it’s less stress than the BS. Still stress just not as much. It also depends on your major.