Is it worth doing a £40K+ Masters?

Hi, I’m a final year bachelor student at a semi target. I currently have a front office role offer at an EB with a decent starting salary. I want to know whether there would be any benefit in doing a masters programme like a MFA if I’ve already managed to get a job offer out of undergrad. It also doesn’t look attractive as the costs for some of these programmes can reach upwards of £60k. 

Are there any benefits I could get in the long-run? Would it be wise to just get straight into work instead? When is it worth doing a masters? Pls lmk.

5 Comments
 

No.

The experience you'll get in the same year on the job is far more worthwhile on your CV to wasting money on a masters in this situation.

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Doing a MSc will not really help you gain many useful IB-related skills as it is often quite theoretic and covers finance in a broad sense from accounting to portfolio optimisation (which you will not need when working in IB). Most people do a MSc if they did not manage to get a job offer right out of undergrad (speaking about UK students here not Europeans). As you already managed to get a great offer I see little added value in pursuing a MSc. Additionally, you would incur huge opportunity costs as you would have to pay fees, would lose one year of salary and also be behind 1 year with regard to the corporate ladder. One year spent in the industry will help you much more as you will be taught highly relevant skills from a practical point of view. Of course if you would like to become an academic later on and dream of doing a PhD, you should do the MSc - but it did not sound like that is your plan anyways.

 

It really depends on the country. Many unis in mainland Europe do not distinguish between MSc and MPhil like British unis do for example. In those countries the MSc is the typical qualification you need to hold to be admitted to a PhD programme.

 

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