Hi there
I'm a soon-to-be 36-year-old who's just moved into corporate PR (with an agency) after five years working in media. I'm considering doing a part-time or online MBA in order to gain a better understanding of the B2B aspect of my work and, of course, to better my career opportunities.
Even doing the course part-time would be a major commitment in terms of time and money, so I'd be really interested to hear anyone's advice on whether it's worthwhile for me at my age and in my industry.
Many thanks in advance

does it help you, if i add that i am a senior manager
aged 43 opted to o gto usa for full time mba. i have cleared my gre, toefl and want to switch my line totally.
also i am postgraduate in commerce from mumbai.
i have secured admission in three tier 2 university.and will join cleveland state university in fall 2010
cancer

Thanks for the reply, Cancer!

Hi,
well it seames that you all got some good experiance with MBA. So I need your help after reading the following:

am an Architect 44 y old, I had started the business with 7 Employ , and now I had reach to 100 Employ in a direct competition with the international companies. my company now considered to be one of the top company in it's Field in Egypt.
I had Gained experience in : Accounting , Management , sales and warehousing ,Teaser , Business Plan , P&L Sheet , ....
am preparing my self to meet with the multinational companies level.
I need to get an MBA from a world top business school , but I can't leave egypt, because of my company.

Can you advice me ?
Tks

Dear you can go for part time MBA.
Top MBA colleges in India offering Part-time MBA course:
? IIM, Bangalore
? XIM, Bhubaneswar
? Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT)
? IIM, Indore
? XLRI Jamshedpur
? IIM, Calcutta
? Symbiosis Institute of International Business
? Institute for Financial Management and Research Chennai
? ICFAI Business School Hyderabad

Hey Umang!
Since you are into PR then I would suggest you to do an MBA in Mass Comm. or PR. But since you want to pursue a management course then in that case IIM and XIMB keep coming up with executive programs. Currently, applications for Post Graduate Certificate in Business Management by XIMB are available. And this would even suit your working schedule coz the classes would be on Saturdays(evening) and Sundays(afternoon) in major cities of India.
I hope this helps you :-)

Do not think you are too old. Everyone has a right to learn. In fact, you can choose part-time MBA if you want. For example, University of Exeter Business School has a part-time MBA.

Hmmm.. I'm not sure the original poster is here anymore. But there are part-time programs almost everywhere, and the good ones are tailor-made for this situation: working people who are looking to either change industry or get ahead in the industry they're in.

My suspicion - and I'm not sure this is true or not - is that the age group will be slightly higher in a part-time program.

Executive programs are usually for people with support from their current employer.

You are right. There are a lot of business schools which offer part-time MBA programmes. One of these tailor-made for this situtaion is Emlyon Buisness School. The average age for the MBA programme at Emlyon Business School is actually 32. 36 is not that old, to be honest with you. You can have a look at these data on different business schools.

Hmmm.. I'm not sure the original poster is here anymore. But there are part-time programs almost everywhere, and the good ones are tailor-made for this situation: working people who are looking to either change industry or get ahead in the industry they're in.

My suspicion - and I'm not sure this is true or not - is that the age group will be slightly higher in a part-time program.

Executive programs are usually for people with support from their current employer.

Actually, I found another university called Open University which has an average age of 37. I am sure the original poster should feel very happy about this.

Hmmm.. I'm not sure the original poster is here anymore. But there are part-time programs almost everywhere, and the good ones are tailor-made for this situation: working people who are looking to either change industry or get ahead in the industry they're in.

My suspicion - and I'm not sure this is true or not - is that the age group will be slightly higher in a part-time program.

Executive programs are usually for people with support from their current employer.

I am still here, xlz. Thank you for the encouraging words. I'm now 90% sure I'm going to start a full-time MBA next year in the UK, and the various research I've done tends to bear out what you say.
However, I don't suppose anyone has any words on the usefulness of an MBA in the PR/comms field, do they?

I dont think you can ever be to old. I am a single father, 35 years old and im almost done with my mba. I decided to go online since it was more flexible with my schedule. My choice was NU http://onlinemba.neu.edu/ because its highly rated and my job is covering 80% so that always helps. BUT you are never old enough!

I can assure you, you are not too old at all. In fact, we have very recently conducted a comparative analysis of different MBA formats in the US and Europe: we averaged a number of factors (such as tuition, duration, age, work experience etc) across top schools in the US and EU. We did the analysis for: full-time MBAs, executive MBAs, part-time MBAs and distance-learning MBAs.

The average age for distance-learning MBAs in the US (for most recent entering students) was 31. However, in Europe enrolling students were 35 years old on average. And remember, that is only an average. In most schools, the age range spans from late-twenties to over forty. Hope this helps you.
Good luck.

Thank you very much, accreditedmba. What you said bears out what I've been hearing elsewhere, too.