I (29 years old) am planning my career, any advice?
 

hello friends,

i am a 29 year old singaporean guy who is looking for some advice.

basically i was always a top student in singapore, graduating top 10% annually from age 7 till 16. from 16-23, i wasted my time, enrolling into njc then dropping out (parents' divorce, young, didn't want to study, etc).

in NS, i completed a distance learning university of bradford degree in business with first class honours. for the first two years, i didn't bother to study much, just aiming to pass. the last year was honours year, so i studied hard and got a first. the marks for the first 2 years were quite bad. i still feel sad looking at those results on my transcripts today.

i have been working as a management accountant (earning 3-4k plus) for the past few years.

i recently took the gre and scored 160/160, good enough to enter some ivy league universities. basically, my point is, i am intellectually capable of passing the course if i do the work.

1. i have applied for a business masters in nus/ntu. i hope to work as an business analyst in a bank/company after finishing that masters. is this an okay career plan?

2. if nus/ntu doesn't accept me, i plan to head to monash malaysia to do my masters in business or mphil in business and work as an business analyst in singapore.

i can't afford to study in the uk/aus/etc even though i probably can be admitted.

long term career is to be an analyst. backup plan is to, well, go back to being a management accountant like now.

is this feasible?

I don't deny that you are probably smart.

What you need now is to get it certified from a good school. The local unis are fine.

I think an MBA is better than a masters though, and it might be something you want to consider. Work your butt off and do it well, and doors will open.

MBA is good if you want to focus on purely business related. however i felt it will be quite challenging for you to even enter because i just looked at the criteria, they were infact encourging people who are in management level already and every year quite a lot of people fighting for the slots, mainly sponser by their company. Another issue is they highly chance need a reputable uni cert.

and it is very costly. 62K i think..

While I understand the intent of stating your academic capabilities is not to boast, I am at the same time perturbed that you are still proudly saying such things as evidence that you are smart. You are a 29 year old with quite some years of work experience already; you should theoretically by now have figured out that what you have stated doesn’t matter. In fact chances are the vast majority of people who have exceeded you career wise are not as exam smart as you.

You might have started off with a weak hand in terms of academics having gotten your degree with an unknown lower ranked university, but the work smart people who started out with the same qualifications as you have probably moved way ahead career wise. Career progression is more often determined by work capabilities, office political skills, professional networking and business acumen.

I am not saying all these as a put down, but reading your narrative it gives me a feeling that you seem to think you are a smart guy meant for greater heights who is just let down because of having a non-local degree. Of course the natural conclusion for you is that getting a Masters from a local university is the antidote to solve the current career lethargy. I strongly suspect the reason of your lack of career growth is not that simple. As such, I doubt getting good masters (even if you can) is really going to be a game changer.

On to your 2 options: Getting a business masters or MBA in NUS/NTU might be possible, but after spending a bomb would you really be doing any better than you are now, i.e. drawing 3-4k as a junior associate? I doubt so. NUS/NTU MBA is relatively easy to get as long as you can pay. Students there tend to be mainly PRC and Indians or company sponsored locals (a lot from public sector) who are relatively early in their career and holding positions that are very junior in nature. The more prestigious eMBA or masters may be more useful, but you will not qualify due to lack of academic qualification, work experience and seniority.

I think chances are if you get a msters, you will still end up in some junior analyst or other back office role in a bank that pays around what you are getting now. Of course you can argue it better equips you to get promoted, but I’ve always felt that promotions are much dependent on other real factors than academics. Higher academics make a key difference in highly technical/engineering roles, but have limited value-add in general business analytic in a support department.

As for getting a masters in Monash Malaysia, I strongly advise against that. It isn’t going to put weight into your CV and that’s just throwing good money down the drain. You already have a private bachelor’s certificate, getting another private masters from Malaysia will still rank you behind a local university bachelor grad.

Strangely, there are quite a significant number people who are intelligent, but did not manage to excel well in the career aspects. When I compare myself to all my ex-classmates who graduated with 1st class honors, many of them did not do as well as we all expected them to do (when we graduated). I am not sure if it is largely due to the Singapore educational system or the working environment.

One of my friends is a very intelligent girl, got a scholarship to study in NUS in mathematics followed by Masters. Unfortunately, she is not a very confident person, in spite of her intelligence. At 33, she is doing reasonably well (earning $7K/month), but when she compared herself to her classmates who didn't get any scholarship, she felt that many of them did better than her. She kinda feel that she has wasted so much time studying.

Personally, I came from polytechnic and took a part time degree. None of them have good results (all Bs & Cs), because I was spending more time "living" my life more than studying. Yet, at the same time, I am doing significantly better than my peers, career wise.

It is not clear how ambitious you are, but, in my opinion, MBA is really meant for networking. It is not meant to spend a significant amount of time/money to get a piece of paper. If you are too young, an MBA might not add too much value or move your career in a significant level. I have a friend who did a MBA from Insead (not cheap) when he was much younger. Now, in his 40s, he is working as a PMO and living in a HDB. There is nothing wrong with living in a HDB, but in my view, if you spend 6-figures to get a MBA, you should have uplift your career a lot more significantly. On paper, his educational profile is extremely impressive, with all the top grades. But in real life, his job is not as impressive.

Up to now, I only hold a degree from RMIT, and I would only go for a MBA, if I want to move to a C-class level position. Otherwise, I don't think I would waste my money / time to study for a MBA. I have managed to be reasonably successful (earning $300K/annum) without having a prestigious degree. You would also realized that there are a lot of successful individuals or individuals earning reasonably good money, do not always have the best education/prestigious education. Grades are completely unimportant and irrelevant, once you are on the right track.

If you are ambitious, instead of spending money on a MBA, why don't you look for enrichment courses to improve your social skills, presentation skills, networking or practical aspects that will help you to deal with senior management in your organization? All career paths eventually leads towards being a senior management or C-class position in a large organizations. Having the knowledge, will only ensure that you get a job. Having the skills, will help improve your chances to move to the next level.

dun understand ts intentions. 3-4k is consider not bad for a pte uni at 29 yo, just work hard and slowly move up. why still wanna waste $$$ on mba? the banks are not interested in hiring a 30+ yo guy to fill up a grad level analyst even if u have mba.

MBA is relevant if you intend to work at Google, Yahoo, FB all these. during my job seeking, i experience them preferring an MBA for their management post (simply a manager position). I do agree with someone on top that say it wont really matters if it is on a business route as it will play a much more significant meaning if you were to go to a highly technical/engineering/ technology company.

I happen to catch this part of the thread. You are an interesting person and I would like to know more.

A RMIT graduate at a C-level position earning 300k ... that's amazing! Those from prestigious schools only reach VP. And it even gets rarer to go from 200k to 300k. I hope you can share, what line, what company? Base on my known, I would guess:

- Maybe started at a fund, worked your way up to Portfolio Manager had a good call in the markets. 200k base with 100k bonus.
- I can't see MNC banks front office role. I doubt I spotted a RMIT grad there.
- Running your own business but you said you're C-level so you're probably working in a place bigger than a SME.

I'm interested how you got where you are now.

He didn't say he is holding a c-level position. he say he would go to MBA IF he intend to go c-level position. i guess is 300k annum (if real) is his own business.