Specialized Master’s Degree: A fad or a trend to stay

Thanks to an array of specialized Master’s Programs offered by several Business Schools globally, average age across such campuses is dropping. In recent years there has been a constant rise in the number of applicants for Specialized Master’s Degrees, particularly the number of international students who are looking to make their profile more competitive.

The surge in applications is being driven by several factors. Many applicants are international students looking for a degree from an overseas b-school to makes their career profiles more competitive. Such degrees also attract younger student population with little or no work experience. Several degree programs are formulated in response to current market needs such as Masters in Entrepreneurship or Master in Data Science.

Specialized Program Types

The Appeal

The curriculum for such degrees is designed to impart focused training in areas that an MBA program may only touch upon. The specialized degree thus has an appeal for students who want to pursue a career in a technical or functional domain within a company rather than a management vertical. Specialized master’s programs are increasingly becoming popular amongst undergraduate students who are not able to find the right job opportunities and wish to continue their education for a fifth year. The degrees also deepen their technical skills in a particular area. A numbers of students are also pursuing these degrees in order to add business perspective to their technical skills. For instance, degrees such as Masters in Management or Supply Chain Management / Finance etc. receive a large number of applications from students with engineering backgrounds. Also most of the schools develop their own mix of specialised master’s program to meet the requirements of regional industries & local students.

USA is catching up

Specialized degrees are well established in Europe and the industry has created opportunities to absorb the graduates from these programs. However, in USA these programs are not popular and not easily understood by all pertinent stakeholders- students and industry. Most multinational corporations are well placed and do see what these degrees entail. However, midsized firms and small regional companies need to be educated on these degree options.

Quite a few employers are concerned that they might have to pay a remuneration that is equivalent to the one paid to an MBA degree holder. On the contrary since most of the students are fresh graduates with little to no experience this is not the case.

Also a sizeable number of potential student population is not totally aware of the options available at its disposal. Lately several articles on specialized Master’s degree have started showing up on relevant publications such as Bloomberg, Forbes, Wall Street Journal and GMAC which have increased the visibility of such programs.  As discussed by Forbes, most undergraduate students are not industry ready & lack pertinent skills. Such Master’s degrees make an attempt to fill the gap. Not only will the Master’s degree reduce the students’ time to proper corporate exposure but it will also cost them a fraction of the cost of an MBA degree.

Not a fad but enter with long term view

Roles in industry are getting specialized and industry needs people with specific skill set. Traditional degrees are too encumbered i.e. they cost too much and do not have a lean curriculum.

As the traditional management degrees reacted to industry need to fill management positions such as CFO, CMO, COO, CEO the newly developed specialized degrees are grooming right candidates to fill vacancies such as Chief Technology Officer, Chief Information Officer,  Supply Chain Manager, Chief Digital Officer, Business Analyst etc.

Schools offering such degrees must take a view that the training imparted is going t o be relevant for next 20 odd years in their career? Such degrees can best serve the needs of industry and students if they are training them to contribute effectively in the chosen field for long term.

— Deepak Lotia, Overseas Counselor at KnoWell Consultancy Pvt. Ltd.