Salaam errbody. The points below are about "what is." Lemme try to move to "what should be." To this end, to be completely honest, I think all of these degrees SUCK. In themselves, they're worthless; their importance is in how we end up using them. Will we use this or that degree for our personal gain or will we use it for allah's purpose, for the gain of our community? To respect automatically a person who has, say, a combined JD, MBA, and MD would be ludicrous. I'd rather give far more respect to an uneducated person if s/he's done, or aims to do, more for our community than this JD, MBA, MD.

That said, the point comes down to "which degree can be used to enhance our community most?" Do we need muslim MBAs to bring business, employment, etc into developing muslim regions? Do we need lawyers to structure transactions for these muslim businesspersons and to fight for minorities' benefits? Do we need doctors to help build medical infrastructure in the oh-so-many muslim regions that lack adequate medical care and supplies? We need it all. No degree is better than another. In fact, they're all bad because they provide an incentive to "make money and forget about everything else." Now the question is, what are we going to do in this world with these silly degrees--will we use them for allah's plans or will we stick them on a wall for our ego's pleasure?

Its frustrating to see most of the comments focusing on the immediate comparisons between the 3 degrees whereas the whole point of the entire post was to try and shift everyone's goggles towards the bigger picture. When comparing the skills and concepts taught in all 3 courses of study, it is of my opinion that the MBA graduate has the potential to impact the greatest number of people (provided they carry though and utilize those tools learned). Granted, that is a humongous IF so it makes this discussion extremely hypothetical at best. But even so, there is nothing on this post that has convinced me otherwise. Additionally, the arguments made by bikerDUDE just make me shake my head with amazement. The reason that there is a governing body is to protect the welfare of the general public. The existence of some central authority certainly does not imply that those professions should be held in higher regard. For goodness sake people, there are so many industries that are regulated. Should we put real estate brokers on a pedestal now as well (based on that logic or lack thereof)? And I love how PharmDs and MDs magically became synonymous :P

You just sound like Mozammil now, since MD gets more attention then JD :). Not every Tom, Dick, and Harry can be a Doctor and I personally think medicine is the most important licensure on the planet. Infact law license is not the convincing as people on the jury are not lawyers and judge is also elected (I am not sure but I heard they don't require law degree either). As you accepted "even with codefied law' it is the better argument that wins". So a good debator can learn few pointer and win a case but can any one operate on a human being? There is so much more to medicine then you can imagine. even precribing a medicine is not that simple any more. You have to look for side effects, potential interactions of drug with other drugs and foods, their synergies, and individual chemistry. Well I can go on but I better stop here.

Well its true MBAs don't get the same respect as MD or JD but there serveral well justified reasons for that.

1. Its not hard to get MBA as there too many schools offering MBA programs, where as MD or JD schools are limited in number and not easy to get in.

2. The work needed to do MBA is much less then work needed to do MD or JD. I can say that from my experience as I have degree in pharmacy and the level of work required for MBA was nothing compared to pharmacy.

3. MBA is not regulated by any governing body where as MDs and JDs are. They are required to obtain license and maintain their licenses.

hbenamar good point. well put my man!

Hi all,
Seems everyone is making good/interesting points. Aasmaan, I agree with many of the points you made but I don't see how they relate to our argument regarding MBA respect. I understand that thought and logic are required for practicing law, but again I reiterate that fact that this doesn't necessarily preclude people from learning it, as say difficult concepts in physics,etc. Again I say this because one of my earlier points was that difficulty of a program has little to do with the amount of respect an individual will get as a result. Although I admit a smarter individual might make a better lawyer, I still maintain that given eternity many would not comprehend Einstein's little book on special relativity.

Yaar, thanx for providing your perspective as it seems you have lots of relevant experience. I will point out something that I think is backed up by your writing. I think a top tier mba is not necessarily a guarantee of success, but it seems to be a good guaranteee of opportunity. it seems like you yourself have hired top tier MBA's and I really think that is the value of the degree more than the actual knowledge. Although i'm sure the quality of instruction at hbs is better than joe schmo u, I'm sure the level of education is not that disparate. The strength of the hbs mba in getting you an interview or opportunity vs. poor joe schmo is where the strength lies in my opinion.
peace out,
Rami

Superman - ok some interesting points..but i would disagree on the joe schmoe lawyer part.

The reason that you are still a lawyer, even from a 3rd tier school, is because you have to take the same bar as everyone else to pass. Daffy Duck School of Law grads stil have to pass the same Bar Exam that the Harvard grads have to pass. Because the criteria established to be licensed is constant, at the end of the day is does not matter because your credibility as a lawyer is established by virtue of passing. The same goes for MD's and their Board exams..no matter where you went, the criteria to be considered and 'expert' is the same across the board - so no matter how dumb or smart of a JD or MD you might be, the law will not let you practice without your licence.

On the flip side, MBA's are held to no standard. Thus, the only 'standard' is the crediblity that comes with the respect of your school's name. If there was an MBA board exam that was required in order to practice, the top 20 would likely not matter at the end of the day.

Finally, I can only discern what 'uncertainty principle' means from the actual english of the word - but i would guess it is exactly what it means. The law is a completely uncertain feild in that, even with codefied law' it is the better argument that wins. there is no certainty to it at all and that is why is taught using the socratic method - you have to 'discern' the law and everyone discerns it differently. I do think that medicine is the 'dumbest' professional licensure on the planet. For the most part, the practice of medicine is a technical skill which requires no thinking outside of recalling memorized concepts and applying them to human beings. If evolution happened at a yearly rate, maybe Doctors would have to use their brains as tools for logic. Outside of the fact that I have no idea how to operate on myslef etc., I don'tthink doctors need much brain power to function. really no different than a carpenter. Oddly, I think veternarian doctors have more skill and brains tha human doctors do...

MBA respect is directly prop. to what B-school you went to.

About saying one is easer and one is hard.. it is all relative. Some find bio hard and then some find Electro-mag theory nightmare.. JD has its own spices..

About culturally.. yeah JD and MD do make money but u only make decent money if u r good.. and same goes for MBA.. if it is from good school.. with good experince.. u will be printing money..

Aslam,
I think to figure out why the MD's and JD's get more respect in our cultures you simply have to look back at your country of origin and see what little weight an MBA has had there in the past as opposed to an MD or JD. MD and JD's have been associated with social standing and are respected proffesions where as the MBA and business careers are just coming into their own now in these parts of the world.

As for you Aasmann, I can see you really want your opinion heard having repeated it twice =) I think the problem with your argument is that you're comparing the relative ease of the programs rather than the weight of the degree. I never said an MBA was more difficult in its curriculum. But in terms of societal standing I'd give as much weight to an MBA from a top school as I do to a JD or MD. The reason being and it's something it seems everyone fails to realize, that it's more difficult to get into a top MBA program than it is to get into an average JD, maybe about the same as getting into any MD. At the end of the day if you go to joe schmo university and you get a law degree you're still a lawyer but if you go to joe schmo university and get an MBA you're out of luck.

As for arguing the difficulty of engineering vs. law vs. medicine, I just used engineering to represent a field of study in which conceptual understanding was critical. We could've used quantam physics for all I care. I have neither studied law nor medicine but have taken basic courses relating to each and have friends who've studied both and unless I'm missing something I don't think either relies heavily on understanding difficult concepts like the uncertainty principle for example. That's my opinion for what it's worth.

seriously, my opinion again....mba's don't deserve the same love as JD's or MD's... MBA's are a cakewalk compared to the other two...I have another friend who is an MD/MBA...he said the mba was a joke. It is easier, it is intuitive and it is a good time. I have one and it hardly desreves the same respect as a MD or a JD. I think I am in a credible position to say so.... oh well...

Rami, you finally have hit on what I have been thinking myself. I just didn't want to come right out and say it because I wanted to see what other people thought first. I was curious to find out if this ranking of degrees was specific to desis (+arabs?) or if people from other cultures exhibited a similar perception of MBAs. It's not that I'm annoyed or anything...I'm just curious to find out the reasoning behind the detraction. I guess I should chalk it up to desi mentality and leave it at that. There doesn't seem to be a logical explanation from what I have seen so far on this thread.

For the record though, I can't agree with you on the point about engineering being the most difficult to achieve. As I stated before, I believe it's all relative. My intent was not to bash other degree programs in order to put MBAs in a better light. Rather, I was just wondering why us MBAs don't get the same love. Peace.

"My defense would be that given enough time most people can memorize enough to get by in a JD or MD program"

...uh.. yeah, no.
md's? - ok tangible
jd's? completely intangible, just like engineering concepts...

I hate to tell you this but your perception that MBA's get less respect than MD's or JD"s might have more to do with cultural differences than anything else. In mid east/ east asian culture MD's and JD's have a special weight the likes of which an MBA simply cannot achieve. Although I may be a bit biased having an engineering background I would venture to say that the engineering degree is most difficult to achieve from an academic standpoint. My defense would be that given enough time most people can memorize enough to get by in a JD or MD program where as some concepts in engineering would not be grasped regardless of the time limit. That being the case, even the engineering degree, although more rigirous, does not command the same respect as an MD in our culture. I'm sure if you were to poll average americans regarding their perception of an MD vs. and MBA from a top notch school (Wharton, HBS, Columbia, etc.) you'd find that they both command an equal amount of respect. That's probably the one caviet of MBA's it must be from a good school, whereas an MD is an MD regardless of the institution. That's just my 2 cents, maybe 3 cents considering how long this came out to be =)

I know several MBA/MDs and not one of them has indicated one degree being more difficult to obtain than the other. Having taking so many BIO classes and the MCATs myself in undergrad, I have to say that Bschool is no walk in the park either. I found my science classes to be more memorization while I have been consistently forced to use the right side of my brain in bschool. Besides, the level of difficulty of a program may not be relevant to this conversation as its all relative. Personally, trying to get a PHD in nuclear physics sounds frightning. Great, now I'm going to have nightmares tonight *:

nah....it is actually because MD's and JD's are harder...

thanks for the compliment

to your point then, i would think business drivers are not business leaders but instead it is the innovators who create the products that represent or create the need. which leads us back to mostly scientists...of course business folks get it all up and running but w/o innovation there would be nothing.......classic chicken or egg..

Hey Aasmaan...first of all, ur purrrtty. (A) Second, I agree with you about the significance of the MD/JD degrees and how they are necessaties for one to practice medicine or law. (Although, there is somewhat of an invisible ceiling for those without MBAs in most corporate finance/consulting/Ibanking industries) But, I wasn't so much trying to compare the immediate value of the degrees whereas trying to understand the intangible and macro level impact MBAs have on society compared to lawyers and doctors. Here's my thinking, economics are the main drivers for society. Without jobs, people really feel helpless and it usually results in some violence. Lawyers (especially) and doctors are there to support society whereas business leaders drive the economy and create jobs for everyone. I'm not sure if that makes sense *: And Third (see first bullet point), ur purrrtty...lol

since I have both (mba and jd), I feel like I can answer that.... an mba is not profession specific, all it does is HELP you get a better job than the last one you had, that is why it is tax deductable. A JD or MD is an education where in order to do what they do, they HAVE to have that education..without it the cannot practice law or medicine. Without an MBA you can still work in the business worls and not to mention both JD and MD are DOCTORATE degrees and not fun to earn AT ALL!...but my MBA was a blast.