MA Econ OR software development?

What's your undergrad?

Psych & Econ

I apologize upfront, I'm not here to provide an answer; I'm here to push the conversation because I too am interested in furthering, and adding onto, my skill sets and how that might direct my career.

It might help to know what your background is in and what your relevant work experience is, as far as what you have liked.

I have a math background and have worked for 10 years in Analytics, ranging from Marketing to financial forecasting, with a lot of model building and strategic organization in between. My day-to-day work always includes heavy database work, SQL/Hadoop etc, along with presentation and statistical softwares.

This has put me in a position, career-wise, to either head more in the strategic & business direction or down a more technical data organization type role.

So any advice or experience on how any econ or business strategy courses/degrees vs software development or computer engineering type courses/degrees would be much appreciated.

"So any advice or experience on how any econ or business strategy courses/degrees vs software development or computer engineering type courses/degrees would be much appreciated."

Not sure I understand the question?

I have an MA in Econ among three other advanced degrees, so here are my thoughts.

You should NOT apply for a master's program in Econ since you'll almost always be expected to pay your own way. Instead, if you want an MA in Econ, apply to PhD programs where you'll get full funding for tuition and living expenses and then drop out (this is what I did, although I originally was intending to do the PhD, but dropping out was something I was contemplating ahead of time too). Your best career options coming out with that degree would probably be something like economic consulting, or possibly some roles in finance/banking (I did the latter and then the former). Having a programming background can be a huge plus for economic consulting jobs, which can pay pretty well (six figures at a fairly junior level if you're at the right firm). Work can be pretty interesting and isn't as stressful as something like investment banking. I can't really speak to software/web development career options.

lip service wrote:

"So any advice or experience on how any econ or business strategy courses/degrees vs software development or computer engineering type courses/degrees would be much appreciated."

Not sure I understand the question?

I apologize - I was more posing the question to the larger group again and got distracted and didn't finish my sentence. It was supposed to somewhat mimic your question: What are other people's experience and advice on an econ advanced degree vs a software/computer engineer advanced degree and what type of career direction it took them in.

Thanks that is a good point. Perhaps I can self study using some more data analytics leaning programming languages (like python etc) while taking some econ coursework to get my feet wet and establish a clear path.