LOVE TO STUDY?
FURTHER EDUCATION AFTER DEGREE
You’ve graduated with a degree. You’ve been working for a couple of years. Your job requires you to take a master’s degree. Or perhaps you just want to pursue further education for no other reason than the love for studies. This article shares some common pathways for further education.
MBA
Masters of Business Administration, or MBA, is a pathway working adults tend to pursue for their master’s degree.
‘Neil Farukhi, a materials and process engineer at Geospatial Systems said he got his MBA not because it would have any direct impact on extra money or career progression (although he agreed that would have been a bonus) but because he wanted to understand his business orientated bosses better’. – EE Times.
Some jobs require master’s degree before they even consider putting employees in management positions. This is common in the engineering field. Some engineers may have had their pay and position stagnated after several years. An MBA can equip one with business and management knowledge required to be promoted into management.
However, this past perception may not necessarily hold true. There are many young managers in multi-national companies holding management positions without an MBA or master’s degree. Hence you should view the MBA as primarily for your own improvement, gaining better insights into how your company operates, its business strategies so on and so forth. Talk to management and try to get your company to fund your master’s programme.
JD
A JD, or Juris Doctor, is a law degree. It teaches law subjects to students interested in becoming a lawyer. With a JD, one can be called to the bar and practice law. JD is offered to graduates with a first degree. Your first degree can be from a variety of fields. However, this may differ from university to university; check with your university of interest whether your first degree meets the pre-requisites for JD.
MPA
Masters of Public Administration, MPA is another master’s degree. Our local Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy offers this course.
‘The one-year full-time Master in Public Administration (MPA) programmed prepares students for senior management roles in the public sector. It provides an intensive, interdisciplinary course of study for professionals who wish to work on increasingly complex issues shaping national, regional and global policies and projects’ – Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.
Graduates will be equipped with knowledge and skills on governance, public policy making and politics. Graduates of MPA usually can find employment in public service, ministries, academia and business and financial sectors.