onmywaytowealth wrote:
Thanks for this answer. I am among those who lost it. I liked programming but I lost vision on teh way. What can you advise? I still want to program but I feel I should just do PGD in project management coz at 29, I am not so sure if I will make it. On the other hand. What is your take on an IT professional taking MBA? Again, thanks for the reply, you enlightened us. Thanks
On loosing the vision, I think its part of career development. Sometimes it's a stage before you can nail what you really want to pursue. Some get it early some later, as long as you have the passion don't relent till you get there. In addition, the local industry/market seems to play a part too in the sense that you may not be getting as much exposure as you may need to grow or visualize the path.
Project management is a good skill to have since it is generic and the skills can be applied on diverse projects.
When it comes to MBAs and management programs, these topics are highly debatable with people expressing various schools of thought. In my opinion you need to check your motives when trying to move into that direction.
That does not mean its wrong to have ambition either. Can one achieve a sense of greatness, recognition, satisfaction and money without necessarily being in management? Yes you can. However if you are employed, this largely depends on your company and an available growth path for experts or professionals.
Caveat: Majority of the people in Kenya equate attaining an MBA to earning a lot of money, this is not necessarily true.
My view is that the MBA programs are actually overrated and nowadays to get into a decent school to pursue the program you need to part with a decent amount of money.
For any company to run and compete successfully it needs more experts and professionals than it needs managers. Training to be a manager does not cover up for one's lack of skill and depth of experience.
I can point a few examples of people who we can all agree have achieved remarkable success in their careers.
Former CEO of Safaricom was not an MBA grad, in fact he has one technical degree and a golden entrepreneurial heart. His passion to create new markets and products could not be gained in any B-School.
James Mwangi CEO of Equity, built a bank out of an almost philanthropic ideology. From what I have seen, he totally believes in home grown solutions with the citizens at heart.
Jimnah Mbaru former CEO of NSE. He was an investor from the days he was a university student. His MBA well complemented his passion.
Mike Lazaridis CEO and founder of the company RIM that creates and manufactures BlackBerry. Started the company while a student, to design embedded systems for various competitions.
The list is non exhaustive, bottom line is that we need to find our passion and pursue it.
In practical terms I know it's one thing to earn a living and another to pursue what you think you want to do -been there too or is still there :)
All the same, in this case, programming can be done at home if you have another day job, since as i explained you just need a PC/Laptop and download the SDKs which are typically well documented.