He's got a point, and I studied at a top business school.
The points he makes are mostly valid. Not sure if he mentioned this one, though:
The existence of business schools gives society the unjustified idea that there are positions for which business graduates are better suited than most other people.
To compare, medical schools do the same but it is justified.
I wouldn't have surgery performed on me by someone who hadn't been to medical school, but I would be indifferent to hiring a manager who hadn't gone to business school. (One interesting line of thought I did learn at business school was that in the Germanic world, they are less likely to accept the Anglo-Saxon view that management is a separate skill to working. So they get more people stepping up from the ranks.)
So why do I think this? When I studied the business school, it was just very weak intellectually. Kinda like watching documentaries all day; interesting, makes you think you understand something, but ultimately superficial. Reading about Betamax vs VHS is the same; you think you're gaining insight as you do it, but there's nothing really deep in there. There's not really a method or organising principle to decision making, other than "try to think about it in an organized way, keeping in mind relevant precedents" (like SWOT). Basically just common sense as a degree.
That's mostly the strategy part I'm addressing there, which is probably the piece most people associate with business school.
The other parts are also better taught by other departments. Finance can get very interesting when it comes to derivatives and investment strategies, but you're never going to learn this without having a strong applied math background. Organization behaviour and Human Resource Management, there are scientific departments that reach into the same space. Again, there's a big gap between what we can learn about human psychology and how you should use that information practically.
Worst of all is the philosophical angle. So many times I thought to myself "how do you actually know this" with very little answer.
If you want to learn how to solve business problems, there is a course that is uniquely suited for this. Software Engineering. You look at business problems, look at what resources you have available, see how other people solved them (hashmap, quicksort), and cook up your own solution using the same tools that professionals use (git, IDEs, terminals).
>>> Finance can get very interesting when it comes to derivatives and investment strategies, but you're never going to learn this without having a strong applied math background.
A colleague of mine is breezing through an MBA program right now. He's a very bright engineer. Another friend, a nuclear engineer, got an MBA several years ago.
They both told me that the finance classes were hard for their classmates because they don't understand calculus, so the features of the models they are studying are a complete surprise to them, and can only be internalized by memorization.
My friend described the statistics class as being a series of lessons in p-hacking.
"So why do I think this? When I studied the business school, it was just very weak intellectually. Kinda like watching documentaries all day; interesting, makes you think you understand something, but ultimately superficial. Reading about Betamax vs VHS is the same; you think you're gaining insight as you do it, but there's nothing really deep in there. There's not really a method or organising principle to decision making, other than "try to think about it in an organized way, keeping in mind relevant precedents" (like SWOT). Basically just common sense as a degree."
That's one thing I have heard from several people who have STEM degrees and also an MBA. They all say that once you got into business school it was by far the easiest degree they got.
> If you want to learn how to solve business problems, there is a course that is uniquely suited for this. Software Engineering.
I wouldn't say software engineering is necessarily uniquely suited to this. Any 'practice based' study will offer useful tools (mental & physical) that are applicable to business: product design, architecture, urban planning etc.
Anything that offers a few frameworks for analysis, hypothesis and prototyping really.
To be fair, though, there is a world of difference between business school and medical school. The latter is a combination of academically rigorous coursework where grades matter and de-facto apprenticeship in actual hospital environments, usually culminating in a specialization with additional training. If business school was at that same level, it would deserve a lot more respect.
As a German, I would like to answer but I don't understand what you mean...? What is a "technican"? What is a "professional"? What "ceiling" are you talking about? And what EU rule?
Anyway, notwithstanding that I don't know what you are asking, the parent is pretty much right.
60,000 students without "Abitur", the traditional path, if you have job experience of "several years" (don't know what that means) you can still study.
The points he makes are mostly valid. Not sure if he mentioned this one, though:
The existence of business schools gives society the unjustified idea that there are positions for which business graduates are better suited than most other people.
To compare, medical schools do the same but it is justified.
I wouldn't have surgery performed on me by someone who hadn't been to medical school, but I would be indifferent to hiring a manager who hadn't gone to business school. (One interesting line of thought I did learn at business school was that in the Germanic world, they are less likely to accept the Anglo-Saxon view that management is a separate skill to working. So they get more people stepping up from the ranks.)
So why do I think this? When I studied the business school, it was just very weak intellectually. Kinda like watching documentaries all day; interesting, makes you think you understand something, but ultimately superficial. Reading about Betamax vs VHS is the same; you think you're gaining insight as you do it, but there's nothing really deep in there. There's not really a method or organising principle to decision making, other than "try to think about it in an organized way, keeping in mind relevant precedents" (like SWOT). Basically just common sense as a degree.
That's mostly the strategy part I'm addressing there, which is probably the piece most people associate with business school.
The other parts are also better taught by other departments. Finance can get very interesting when it comes to derivatives and investment strategies, but you're never going to learn this without having a strong applied math background. Organization behaviour and Human Resource Management, there are scientific departments that reach into the same space. Again, there's a big gap between what we can learn about human psychology and how you should use that information practically.
Worst of all is the philosophical angle. So many times I thought to myself "how do you actually know this" with very little answer.
If you want to learn how to solve business problems, there is a course that is uniquely suited for this. Software Engineering. You look at business problems, look at what resources you have available, see how other people solved them (hashmap, quicksort), and cook up your own solution using the same tools that professionals use (git, IDEs, terminals).