What Are The Highest Paid MBA Salaries in San Diego?
If you’re looking to take in the California sun but avoid the fast-paced and high-priced centers of Silicon Valley or Los Angeles, heading southward to San Diego may be the perfect place for an up-and-coming business professional. Recently named the eighth best big city to live in the U.S., based on livability, education, health, and a strong local economy, San Diego is increasingly becoming the perfect spot for business students looking to advance their education and start a career. Not only is San Diego the perfect spot for those breaking into well-established fields within business, but it has also been ranked by Forbes as the best city to start a new business in the U.S. Demonstrating heavy concentrations in areas that predict high growth combined with adaptability to new business methods and tech make San Diego the perfect place for young entrepreneurs to put their education to work.
Of course, a city can really only top the list for business students if it can offer quality educations and high-value degrees. In a state with a notoriously high cost of living, students thinking about pursuing a degree in San Diego will want to be sure their investment is worth it.
Thankfully, San Diego offers a number of quality business schools with graduates that are able to quickly turn their degree into a high salary and promising career. Let’s take a closer look at the business schools with the highest post-graduate salaries for MBAs in San Diego.
Rady School of Management – UC San Diego
According to the Rady School of Management at UC San Diego Class of 2017 Employment Report for full-time MBA graduates, the overall salary average for MBA students was $84,335, with a majority of graduates finding jobs in San Diego’s ever-emerging technology industry. Tech-based companies actively hiring recent Rady MBAs include Amazon, HP, IBM, and San Diego’s own Qualcomm Technologies, Inc, among others.
Not only are the post-MBA salaries high for Rady graduates, but so is the likelihood that graduates will secure a job. About 82 percent of graduates had secured a job within just three months of graduating, and 10 percent started their very own company—reflective of San Diego’s entrepreneurial environment.
University of San Diego School of Business Administration
The average salary for graduates from The University of San Diego School of Business Administration is $72,363, with a true range of salaries anywhere from $50,000 to $100,000 per year. Within just three months after graduation from the School of Business, 83 percent of MBA students would find employment, covering a wide range of industries from technology (40 percent) to consulting (20 percent) and consumer products (20 percent). Top companies such as Amazon, Deloitte, Intel, and Hewlett Packard have hired USD MBA graduates.
Fowler College of Business Administration – SDSU
The Fowler College of Business at San Diego State University also boasts some of the highest MBA salaries in San Diego. More than two-thirds of graduates from the full-time MBA program at Fowler would find jobs or promotions within three months after earning their MBA, with an average salary of $61,467. Graduates were spread through a number of industries and professional functions, the most significant percentage working in business development/sales and within the Technology/IT/Information Systems fields. Following graduation, Fowler students found jobs with some of the country’s top brands, such as The Gap Inc., GEICO, HSBC Group, and PepsiCo Inc.
For prospective MBA students looking to get paid out west, you can check out our overview of the highest paid MBA salaries in Los Angeles and San Francisco as well.
Harvard Explores How Independent Bookstores Have Stuck Around in the Amazon Era
Amazon may slowly be turning the small consumer business world into a Mad Max-ian wasteland, but brick-and-mortar bookstores are still somehow enduring, writes Harvard Business School.
Ryan Raffaelli, an Organizational Behavior professor at HBS and field researcher whose work is inspired by stories of “technology reemergence,” including the recent reinvention of the Swiss watch industry, has prepared a new abstract due for publication in 2018, “Reframing Collective Identity in Response to Multiple Technological Discontinuities: The Novel Resurgence of Independent Bookstores.”
Raffaeli examined how, after a nearly two-decade-long plummet, independent bookstores staged an unprecedented comeback between 2009 and 2015 after “Amazon forced Borders out of business in 2011.” This was also due in no small part to the efforts of the American Booksellers Association (ABA), which facilitated “partnerships between bookstores and other local businesses and strengthened the collective identity of indie bookstores by helping its members share best practices, such as how to use social media to promote special events.”
Raffaeli explains, “This has been an especially fascinating industry to study because indie booksellers provide us with a story of hope.”
Over 200 bookstore owners, publishers, and authors across 13 states were surveyed and the results were consolidated into the “3 C’s of independent bookselling’s resurgence community, curation, and convening.”
Community: “Bookstore owners across the nation promoted the idea of consumers supporting their local communities by shopping at neighborhood businesses [and] stressing a strong connection to local community values.”
Curation: “Independent booksellers began to focus on curating inventory that allowed them to provide a more personal and specialized customer experience.”
Convening: “Independent bookstores have become intellectual centers for convening customers with likeminded interests—offering lectures, book signings, game nights, children’s story times, young adult reading groups, even birthday parties.”
“The theoretical and managerial lessons we can learn from independent bookstores have implications for a wide array of traditional brick-and-mortar businesses facing technological change.”
Tech Grads Surge in New Northwestern Kellogg Employment Report
The Kellogg School of Management released new employment data and statistics from the Class of 2017. According to the school, 94 percent of Kellogg’s full-time MBA Class of 2017 received an offer within three months of graduation.
“Kellogg leaders take a multidisciplinary approach to solving complex business challenges,” said Matt Merrick, Associate Dean of MBA Operations. “The versatile skills they hone at Kellogg enable them to make an immediate impact across all types of organizations.”
MBAs were hired by a wide variety of companies across all disciplines and industries, shapes and sizes. Some of the top companies hiring Kellogg students include McKinsey & Company, The Boston Consulting Group, Amazon, Bain & Company, and Microsoft.
Employment data shows that the most popular industries were consulting (33 percent), technology (25 percent), finance (13 percent) and CPG (12 percent). The Kellogg Career Management Center helped students establish relationships with more than 50 technology companies in order to help secure these employment opportunities. Overall, the Career Management Center works with employers to create custom recruiting strategies, forging deep relationships with employers of all sizes, from all industries and regions.
According to our sister site Clear Admit, the 25 percent of Kellogg grads that landed jobs in the technology industry was a school record.
Jeanette Brown writes:
“Amazon hired 32 Kellogg grads, making it the third largest recruiter in 2017, behind only McKinsey and Boston Consulting Group (BCG). But Amazon was far from the only tech firm to hire at the school. ‘It’s not only the big employers like Amazon, Apple, Google—but the small companies as well, the ones that hire just one to two MBAs,’ explains Liza Kirkpatrick, Senior Director of the full-time MBA program at Kellogg’s Career Management Center. ‘We had over 50 unique tech employers that hired our students this past year, which demonstrates that we really have that depth.’ Kirkpatrick further noted that the types of jobs for which tech firms are hiring Kellogg grads is widely varied, including product management, sales, marketing, business operations, supply chain, product development, and others.”
Kirkpatrick notes that the surge in tech jobs stems from a concerted effort from the business school, which was also reflected in the number of technology industry internships for the Class of 2018.
“‘We started developing relationships in the tech space many years ago,’ acknowledges Kirkpatrick. ‘It has taken a while for firms to recognize that when an MBA comes on board, it really adds value.’ But they certainly have, which can also be seen reflected in the number of tech firms that now take on summer interns. ‘They have really organized themselves to bring on an MBA class as interns as a result,’ Kirkpatrick adds. The most recent employment report reveals that 26 percent of the Class of 2018 interned at technology firms.”
In a press release from the school, Jodi Washington, a Program Manager for the Networking and Security Transformation team, said, “Kellogg’s curriculum builds leaders who are strong analytical thinkers and are confident collaborating across organizations. The Kellogg graduates we hire jump in on day one, but also continue to mature at Cisco.”
2017 statistics/photo courtesy of Northwestern Kellogg.
The statistics show that the number of Kellogg MBAs to accept job offers on the West Coast has also increased (31.4 percent) from last year, a direct correlation to uptick in tech hires. Meanwhile, 30 percent of 2017 MBAs stayed in the Midwest and 33 percent accepted jobs on the East Coast.
You can read more on Kellogg’s latest employment stats and the Clear Admit interview with Kellogg Senior Director of Career Management Liza Kirkpatrick here.
Notre Dame Mendoza Team Takes Top Prize in Annual International Case Competition
A team of Notre Dame Mendoza School of Business MBA students won first place and a cash prize of $5,000 in the 22nd Annual International Case Competition (ICC). The competition was held earlier this month at Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business and was organized by Tepper’s Operations Management Club.
The competition provides student teams experience in organizing and prioritizing issues, applying decision-making skills, working in teams, and developing innovative solutions—all under the pressure of competition, according to the Operations Management Club. The competition unfolds over two rounds—a 20-minute presentation followed by a 10-minute Q&A session in the first round, and a 30-minute presentation to the judges in the finals.
The Mendoza team was made up of Christopher Kunnen (’18), Austin Gilbertson (’19), and Zachary Kozak (’18). They beat out 10 teams from top universities across the country, including MIT Sloan School of Management and Carnegie Mellon University Tepper School of Business.
“Overall, case competitions are a great experiential component to the MBA experience,” Kozak said. “The competitions combine both real-world problem solving and simulating the time-constraint project management challenges that we as professionals will experience in the future.”
Mendoza’s MBA winners, from left to right: Zachary Kozak, Christopher Kunnen, and Austin Gilbertson/Photo courtesy of the Mendoza College of Business
The Notre Dame MBA team won thanks to their ability to identify the key issues in the case and its development of data-driven insights and recommendations that went beyond expectations.
“We employed a key take-away from one of our favorite professors, Dan Connors, who teaches the course Lessons from Turnaround Situations in the fall term,” Kozak said. “Dan, a former Bain consultant, conveyed to us early on to follow the strategy of ‘Listen, Deliver and then Add’ for any business problem. We replicated this approach when analyzing the problem and then building our presentation.”
ICC also connects leading operations talent with multinational sponsor companies for networking and recruiting opportunities, including Eaton, Amazon, and Emerson.
Georgetown McDonough MBA Career Center Releases 2017 Employment Stats
No surprise: Georgetown MBAs are making bank!
According to the most recent employment report from the Georgetown University McDonough School of Business, the average starting salary for graduates was $112,501, which is a 4 percent increase from the previous year.
“Every year, we deepen our commitment to applying a personalized approach to our students’ job searches, and every year, the results exceed our expectations,” Doreen Amorosa, associate dean and managing director of the MBA Career Center, said. “From the expanded and customized approaches to the job search in the MBA Career Center to curricular offerings like our Executive Challenge, our MBA students are prepared to excel in their careers.”
Additionally, the report stated that the average signing bonus of recent McDonough graduates were $28,516, a 13 percent increase from last year. Job offers accepted within three months of graduation also rose from 90 to 92 percent.
The report provide some addition, equally interesting information. For example, the top four industries of choice for Georgetown McDonough MBAs are financial services (33 percent), consulting (28 percent), technology (13 percent), and non-profit/social impact sector (7 percent).
MBA graduates in the consulting industry are the highest earners among recent McDonough alums, pulling in over $124,000 annually, followed closely by those employed in the healthcare industry, which earned nearly $121,000 per year. In all, McDonough MBA grads included in the report earned lucrative positions at well-known companies, like Amazon, Bank of America, Barclays, Citi Group, Credit Suisse, Deloitte, EY, Google, PwC, and Verizon.
As far as internship data goes, 99 percent of first-year students secured an internship, with 85 percent of those paid positions. The average monthly compensation for internships was $6,501. Perhaps most impressive was that 81 percent of these internships were facilitated by the MBA Career Center, which is up 13 percent from 2016.
The Georgetown McDonough MBA Career Center is home to student organizations, Career Days and Treks, and on and off-campus networking events. The center partners with McDonough School of Business alumni to connect the future business leaders of America with today’s movers and shakers.
“We have invested in numerous strategic initiatives in recent years, including customizable search technologies, alumni mentoring tools, and offerings designed to individualize each student’s career outcomes,” Amorosa added in the press release. “Those, combined with our staff of certified career coaches and career curriculum that begins the summer before students arrive on campus, we equip our students with the strategies and experiences to be successful in their search.”
Finding The Right Online MBA For You
With so many amazing online MBA programs available throughout the country—and without location making the decision for you—it can seem nearly impossible to choose which Online MBA degree program is right for you.
With the increasingly available option to customize your degree in a particular area of emphasis—just as most full-time MBA programs offer—students can gain a competitive edge in their field without ever having to leave their house. In addition, the kind of specialization offerings at each program may help students narrow down the perfect Online MBA for them. Whether your looking to gain industry expertise in accounting or entrepreneurship and anything in between, understanding the areas of emphasis and structure of each degree can be a big help when confronted with such a vast number of impressive programs to choose from.
We take a look at most in demand concentrations available at each of the schools in MetroMBA’s new Online metro, finding what sets each program apart and may make it the perfect degree for you.
Fox School of Business – Temple University
At Temple University’s Fox School of Business, accounting is seen as much more than just calculating numbers—at Fox, it’s “the language of business.” It’s also the most popular area of concentration for students pursuing their MBA online.
The Department of Accounting at Fox focuses on an intense study of the field of accounting, providing students with several opportunities to gain “real-world” experience in the discipline. This sort of experience provides a competitive edge no matter what career path accounting students choose to pursue, which both include and go beyond public accounting.
In addition to students who choose to concentrate in accounting, the Online MBA at Fox is already strongly rooted in the accounting discipline, with all students being responsible for taking an accounting course as a key part of the degree and its curriculum.
Hough Graduate School of Business – University of Florida
If you are looking for a flexible degree that can expand your entrepreneurship knowledge, the Hough Graduate School of Business’ Online MBA may be the perfect degree for you. One of the four options in which students can focus their degree, Entrepreneurship skills are a core part of the Hough School’s curriculum.
Students looking for a more immersive or even global entrepreneurship experience can also take the courses for their concentration within just one week on campus in Gainesville, or taken during a one week international study trip. Of course, students who don’t have the ability to take a week off for this purpose may choose to pursue their Entrepreneurship electives online, as with the rest of the core courses of the degree.
Kelley School of Business – Indiana University
Students looking to focus their MBA in finance will find themselves in good company at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business. Studying the discipline with the same highly ranked faculty who teach in the full-time MBA program, online students have the chance to round out their degree with electives that particularly focus on the financial applications of their MBA degree.
One reason the study of finance is so popular for online MBA students at Indiana University may be the opportunity to pursue a dual degree, combining their MBA with an online MA in subjects like Finance, Strategic Management, and Business Analytics, among other options. Such an interdisciplinary degree with a strong finance background will give Kelley graduates a competitive edge as they enter the workforce.
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Kenan-Flagler Business School – University of North Carolina
The Online MBA@UNC provides students with a world-class MBA curriculum that allows students to specialize their degree within one of eight special areas. In high demand at UNC is the Management Consulting degree, which prepares students for positions as business consultants.
Even though online programs don’t typically scream “hands on,”the MBA@UNC is build this way, providing consulting students with ample experiential learning and guided practice to gain the necessary leadership and client management skills for success in the consulting field.
Tepper School of Business – Carnegie Mellon University
The Tepper School of Business, ranked as the second best Online MBA by the U.S. News & World Report, is a top MBA for students interested in specializing in Business Analytics.
Students at Tepper have the chance to set their MBA within a particular track, and with the decision to focus on Business Analytics students will be provided with the necessary skills to transform massive amounts of data into usable and analyses to improve the worlds of both business and technology. Graduates from the Business Analytics track at Tepper have accepted jobs from such companies as Amazon, Microsoft, IBM, McKinsey, and more.
W.P. Carey School of Business – Arizona State University
Students looking to specialize their MBA in Supply Chain Management/Logistics may find the perfect degree at Arizona State University’s W.P. Carey School of Business. With so many of the degree’s core courses centered around logistics- such as ‘Decisions, Market Structure and Games’ or ‘Operations and Supply Management’—MBA students can use their electives to even further customize their degree with courses like ‘Supply Chain Cost/Design Issue, ‘Suppler Management and Negotiations,’ among others.
