Dual-degree MBA programs have become an enticing option for many students, offering a unique blend of skills and a competitive edge in the job market. In this episode of “Business Casual,” hosted by Pola Lem alongside Maria Wich-Vila and Caroline Diarte Edwards, the discussion revolves around the advantages, costs, and potential career trade-offs of popular dual-degree combinations like MBA/MPP and MBA/JD.

Maria and Caroline highlight key benefits, such as the expanded career opportunities that come from acquiring cross-disciplinary expertise. For instance, an MBA/JD is perfect for those interested in corporate law or consulting, offering an in-depth understanding of both legal frameworks and business strategies. Caroline shared how her husband’s dual-degree (MBA from Stanford + policy degree from the Harvard Kennedy School) was invaluable as he navigated worked in highly-regulated industries around the world. However, they note that dual degrees often come with increased time commitments and financial burdens. Maria brought up that in some cases, simply taking an elective or two is sufficient — for example, a class in business law might pragmatically be all that is needed, vs. a full-on JD degree. This trade-off requires careful consideration of personal career goals and financial situations before making a decision.

This episode provides a comprehensive look at dual-degree MBAs, unraveling their complexities to help prospective students make informed decisions.

Episode Transcript

Note: This transcript was generated by AI and may contain minor inaccuracies.

[00:00:02] – Pola

Hi everyone. I’m Pola Lem with Poets and Quants, and welcome to our weekly podcast, Business Casual. So I’m joined as usual by my co-hosts, Maria Wich-Vila and Caroline Diarte Edwards. Maria’s the founder of ApplicantLab, and I meant to put in a fun fact, but we didn’t get to that before we started recording. So Maria, what’s a fun fact, a fact about pets. How many pets do you have?

[00:00:31] – Maria

I have zero pets, but I have a teenage son, and so I feel like that qualifies me on some level.

[00:00:38] – Pola

Perfect creature.

[00:00:40] – Maria

You reminded me, you just reminded me, there’s, there’s a comedian named Tom Papa that we really like, and he has a joke that becoming an adult is like you become your own pet. Like, you just have to— that’s the entire— that’s the whole secret to adulthood is just you treat yourself like your own pet. You got to feed yourself, you got to walk yourself. You gotta make sure you get to the vet.

[00:00:58] – Caroline

It’s just the same thing.

[00:00:59] – Maria

So basically we’re all our own pets at the end of the day is basically.

[00:01:03] – Pola

I like it.

[00:01:04] – Maria

Agree.

[00:01:05] – Pola

And Caroline was Head of Admissions at INSEAD and is co-founder of Fortuna Admissions. And fun fact, any pets, Caroline?

[00:01:15] – Caroline

Well, yes, I got some very good advice many years ago that when you have teenagers, you need to have a dog so that someone’s pleased to see you when you get home. Um, and so I have two dogs and I can, I, uh, I, um, I think it’s been a great help to have those happy faces when I get back. And, but then Maria’s son is a teenager, but he’s delightful. So she doesn’t need a dog who’s pleased to see her, cuz I’m sure her son is delighted to see her when she gets home.

[00:01:46] – Maria

I need to be, I need to be able to rent a dog for his surlier days cuz like all people, you know, All adolescence, he’s got some bad jokes. So maybe I should write a dog.

[00:01:57] – Pola

So before we get into it, how was everyone’s weekend? Good.

[00:02:02] – Caroline

But I think you had the biggest weekend, Pola. You need to tell the viewers.

[00:02:06] – Pola

I did. That was a bit of a humble brag moment. Like, how was the weekend? Really what I want you to say is, how was your weekend? Yeah, I got married in Edinburgh in Scotland, which was great. And we had very nice weather and had some pints after, so it went as well as it could have gone, really.

[00:02:28] – Caroline

You look gorgeous and it looks like a beautiful day.

[00:02:31] – Pola

Thank you. Ah, so Maria, last time we recorded, you made a resolution to keep up with the LinkedIn posts. How’s that been going?

[00:02:42] – Maria

Oh no, I was hoping you had forgotten about that. I have not. I apologize. I am bad. I guess I get the social media lump of coal. I have not been posting on LinkedIn, but I will at some point in the future when I tackle all of the other things on my to-do list that I’ve been saying for a very long time that I will tackle. It’s right there, item number 172.

[00:03:07] – Pola

Yeah, speaking of LinkedIn, I mean, that’s obviously one way to get the message out when you’re a working professional, but I’m actually curious about the MBA and the pre-MBA. And you know, where our, the whole podcast is about admissions, but I’m curious for that pre-MBA set, how important is it to actually keep up with LinkedIn? Is that something that schools are looking at? Caroline, are they going to be looking at what prospective students are posting?

[00:03:40] – Caroline

It’s fair game, so you should definitely update your LinkedIn profile and just keep in mind that they could look you up. They could also Google you, so you should be aware of what your online footprint is and, and what is visible. In most cases, they’re not going to just because of time. They’re not going to have time to search through, but if they have any question marks about your profile, it’s possible that they look you up. So just, it’s important to make sure that there is coherence between what you present on in your application and how you present yourself on LinkedIn. So make sure, you know, the positions align, the job titles, the dates, descriptions, and all of that. And then it’s good to signal your interests as well. So you can perhaps follow some business professors or, you know, particular areas of interest that you have. You can show that you are following that, or perhaps you’ve been posting something about things that are interesting to you that you’re also mentioning in your application. So yes, it’s definitely worth thinking about how your profile and also your wider digital footprint will appear if a file reader does decide to look you up.

[00:04:53] – Pola

So that was my bit about LinkedIn, and we’ll move to our main topic today. So we’ve been talking a bit about dual degree programs. So this week we’ve got an article in Poets Quants on the University of Texas Austin McCombs School of Business, which expanded its reach into healthcare education with a new dual degree. That’s an MD-MBA pathway for medical students in two cities in Texas. So using that as a jumping off point, I’d like to ask you both whether these dual degree MBAs are worth it. But, uh, before we get into that, what are the main types of dual degree with the MBA, Caroline? And, uh, which of those are most popular?

[00:05:43] – Caroline

Yeah, so there are various types of dual degrees. Um, so one popular example is the MBA JD. Um, so getting a law degree as well as your MBA. and there are several great programs in the US, several options for doing that. Many of them run over 4 years. Normally law school, of course, is 3 years, so you’re gaining, you’re saving a year overall, but it’s still quite, quite a big time commitment, although there are some 3-year options as well. So that’s a popular route. Another popular option is dual degree master’s in public administration, as well as the MBA, public administration or public policy. So for example, if you go to Harvard Business School, you could do a 3-year program where you also spend a year at the Kennedy School. And my husband did his MBA at Stanford and then did the 1 year at the Kennedy School to get the combined MBA MPP. There’s combined MBA with international relations. So at Wharton, you can do the Lauder program, which is a 2-year program. And that is integrated between the Laura Institute and Wharton School of Business. And so you get a combined degree in international relations and you will have a focus on, in most cases, on a particular region of the world.

[00:07:09] – Caroline

And you will study politics and the language and so on of that region. And so for someone who’s looking for an international degree, international career, or looking to work in perhaps nonprofit or diplomacy or some role that will require working with government at an international level, that can be a very useful degree as well. There are many different dual degrees. There’s also at MIT Sloan, for example, you can do the LGO, which is a combined MBA with a master’s in engineering. And that’s a 2-year program. So again, they have integrated the 2 degrees so that you save time and you’re able to get those 2 degrees in the time you would normally get, for example, just the regular MBA. So very compelling value proposition for someone who has interest in both of those domains. Hmm.

[00:08:07] – Maria

Yeah.

[00:08:08] – Pola

Speaking of, of value propositions, Maria, There are lots, obviously lots of different flavors of dual degree. Who should consider them generally?

[00:08:17] – Maria

Yeah, I, I think it can be a wonderful opportunity if somebody really takes a close look at the curricula that are offered between the two degrees, uh, and asks themselves, okay, what exactly am I going to need to achieve my career goals? I think for some people it can be incredibly useful to have that broader knowledge beyond just what the MBA offers. Uh, I also think though that some other people sometimes jump in as what I, you know, we refer to sometimes as degree collectors who are just like, well, if one degree from Harvard is good, then two’s even better. And so they jump in and they apply for it, and then once they get there, they realize maybe I didn’t really need this. Um, so, you know, they do come with, with trade-offs. So for example, some of these programs, sure, it’s a, let’s say, the JD MBA, uh, you can get it in say 4 years instead of 5, but that does often mean that for your MBA electives, you’re going to have to sacrifice electives in order to complete the requirements for the JD. Or for some of the other dual degree programs, you might have to start in June with some sort of a prerequisite, you know, pre-MBA session, uh, in order to get all of that coursework in.

[00:09:25] – Maria

So you might sacrifice a summer, uh, so there are definitely trade-offs to make. And then also sometimes there can be higher tuition as well. So for the Lauder program, I actually just last week had someone one of my clients reaching out to me that they got accepted to Lauder and now they’re getting cold feet, uh, and they’re saying, well, but I have to start, you know, I have to sacrifice this and I’m not going to get to take all of the electives that I wanted and it’s, you know, X number of dollars more. Um, so this is part of why, you know, bringing it back to the application angle, this is exactly why schools ask like, why do you want this degree, uh, in their essays and in their interviews. It’s because they want to make sure that you’ve actually thought about it. So for the right person, it can be a fantastic way to augment and really broaden out their education. But just make sure that you’ve really looked into it and that you’re being a discerning consumer.

[00:10:12] – Pola

How selective, Caroline, are these degrees? Do they tend to be harder to get into than just a straight, straightforward MBA?

[00:10:23] – Caroline

They are extremely selective, and in many cases you have to be accepted to both programs. So you’re going to two admissions committees. So that does raise the bar, I think, on getting admission to those programs. So yes, they are. It’s not a backdoor into the schools by any means. It’s actually a little bit more complicated. It’s more work, and you have to pass the committee in two cases rather than one.

[00:10:53] – Pola

And Maria, you were— You were sort of, you know, issuing a bit of caution there about necessarily going for one of these dual degrees, but what sorts of options do they put on the table that wouldn’t necessarily be there if you’re just going for a straight MBA?

[00:11:10] – Maria

Well, I think, you know, if you do want to delve more deeply into another field that is at the intersection of business plus something else, for example, public policy, you know, Caroline, I don’t know if, who wants to talk about her husband, Heriberto, who did his MBA at, at the GSB and then got his degree at the Kennedy School. If you are going to pursue any sort of field that is at the intersection of business plus something else, where that something else, you need a really deep dive into that something else, then the full-on dual degree is worth it. However, if you want to do primarily business with some sort of specialty within it, you can often augment your studies with either 1 or 2 electives, or even just later on, some sort of a certificate, part-time certificate program. Sometimes that full-on dual degree, I believe, can be overkill for certain people who, again, just sort of rush into it and they say, “Oh, this sounds really great,” without actually really planning out, “Well, where am I going to use this? Do I really need to take this? Do I need the JD/MBA?” If you look at what the JD is, some of it’s very useful, but some of it is like constitutional law.

[00:12:15] – Maria

And so cool, intellectually stimulating, interesting, but maybe not super useful. So there can be other ways to get that education as well.

[00:12:25] – Pola

And I do want to ask you about this law class you took shortly. But first, Caroline, tell me about, or tell us about your husband’s experience with MPP.

[00:12:35] – Caroline

Yeah, so he applied for the dual degree because actually he was thinking about going to politics at some point. So what he thought was that he would work in business for a few years, and then go into politics. And in fact, when I met him many years ago, he said that his ambition was to become president of Mexico. Anyway, he, for various reasons, has decided not to go into politics, if not least because it’s a rather dangerous profession. But so that was his initial motivation. So as it turned out, he did not go into politics, but nevertheless, it has proven itself very valuable. So he was sponsored to do his degrees by Cemex, which is a Mexican-based but international cement company. And when he graduated, they sent him to Asia to do business development. So he was working on making investments and acquiring cement companies in, in Southeast Asia. And he had to deal a lot with government. So some of those companies were government-owned or government had investments in them. So that NPP background was extremely useful. And then when he left Cemex, he went to work for Alstom in France. So Alstom Transport is a company that builds high-speed trains and metro systems and tramways.

[00:14:05] – Caroline

And he was managing a region of several countries, Eastern Europe, some of the Middle East, and some of Africa. And so you are dealing with the, the mayor of Jerusalem and different local governments and national governments around the world. And so it was incredibly valuable for him to have done that MPP because he took very different, I mean, it’s a very different lens and very different classes that you will study when you are at a school like the Kennedy School. So, He took classes on things like how to win an election, right? That’s not something that you study at business school. And it really opened his eyes to how government, how they assess things. So of course, when you’re looking at a project from a business perspective, you’re looking at the return on investment and so on. But a government is looking at so many other different things, right? They’re looking at other externalities. They’re looking at the impact on the environment. They’re looking at public health. So many other different stakeholders that they have to deal with. So the MPP really opened his eyes to that and helped him understand the government perspective so that he could deal with them more effectively.

[00:15:19] – Caroline

It also gave him relationships and gave him access to a network that was useful for opening doors when he was in Thailand or Indonesia or wherever it might be. So yeah, it was extremely valuable on multiple levels. Now, I think he was fortunate in that despite the fact that he completely changed his career ambitions, it still turned out to be very valuable. What we know is that the MBA itself is a very transformational experience. And so some people may go into a dual degree with one particular career vision, and then they completely change their minds about what they want to do. And that’s very common. And so some people may come out of the dual degree and decide actually it wasn’t all so valuable after all. So I think he got lucky in that it was turned out to be extremely valuable despite the fact that he didn’t become president of Mexico. There’s still time. There’s still time. But, um, I would also say that, um, I do sometimes speak with candidates who are thinking about doing a dual degree and Sometimes it’s because they are not sure which path to go down, and I think it’s a bad idea to do a dual degree just because you can’t choose.

[00:16:41] – Caroline

Because it is a big commitment. It’s a big financial commitment. It’s a big commitment of time. It does also impact your experience when you’re on the program, because if you’re juggling an MBA, for example, with a JD, then you have an integrated curriculum. Curriculum, you are going back and forth between two schools, you won’t graduate at the same time as your classmates necessarily. So it does really change the experience, and that’s worth it if you need both of those degrees and you’re really going to use them. But if you’re doing that because you couldn’t quite choose and you wanted to hedge your bets, then I think it’s better to really spend some time upfront before you apply on thinking carefully about your career vision and doing some research and talking to people in different careers that you aspire to, to really sort of kick the tires on whether it makes sense to do that dual degree or whether it makes sense to just pick one path or the other. So I don’t think it’s a good idea. As a route to just keep your options open.

[00:17:53] – Pola

Yeah. Maria, you also have a friend who did one of these dual degrees. What was their experience?

[00:17:59] – Maria

Oh, I mean, I have, I have like, you know, a lot of people in MBA programs do some sort of a dual degree, and more— some programs more than others. Like Stanford, I think, in particular, has a pretty high percentage of a lot of MBA students who end up doing some sort of dual degree. Um, I think it, again, as we’ve been saying, I think some people entered it not really sure what they wanted to do, and so they wanted to keep their options open. But I also think that a lot of folks who, who did it have sort of acknowledged that maybe I didn’t really need it. You know, I could have, I could have gotten what I needed. Like, yeah, that subject was interesting to me. I enjoyed studying it, but did I really need an extra year of school, an extra year out of the workforce, an extra year of tuition? All the logistical hurdles that Caroline just mentioned. In some cases, maybe not. So I’ll give you one example of when sometimes the dual degree might be overkill. And again, this is why really looking deeply into the curricula can be such a vital step here.

[00:18:59] – Maria

Actually, before I say that, let me give a separate example. I had an international student once reach out to me and say, I’m applying for the JD/MBA at these different various schools. And I said, well, what do you want to do? And they started talking about, well, I need the legal degree because I need to do something very, you know, involved with legal regulations, but they didn’t want to do it in the United States. And I said, well, the JD in the United States is very focused on the American legal system. There are other legal degrees that are not as US-focused. And then they looked into it and they’re like, oh my gosh, you’re right. Like, I don’t need to know US environmental law if I’m going to move back to Indonesia or whatever the country was. So in my case, for example, I think that all people in business need to know something about law and something about public policy, no doubt, especially because so many, you know, the intersection between business and legal frameworks or government or policy frameworks are inescapable. But, you know, I don’t know if someone always needs the dual degree.

[00:19:57] – Maria

So in my case, for example, when I was in business school, I took a class, a business law class taught by this amazing woman named Constance Bagley. So just the most inspiring woman. Her very first day she said to us, look, my goal for you is I’m not gonna teach you all 3 years of a JD in one semester, but my goal for you is that at any point in your business careers, should you ever seek or need legal counsel, you will know exactly what to ask them. You will know exactly how to work with them, and you won’t be swindled by them. And also, I’m gonna give you a, uh, enough of a background so that you don’t get into legal trouble in the first place. So we covered all sorts of things like what is insider trading, uh, VC term sheets, employment law, all the big business aspects of management. So we didn’t talk about constitutional law or civil rights law or some of these other things quite as much. We just, any topic that you might encounter as a business person. And I’ve found over the years, and my husband, I actually took the course because my husband, who was a year ahead of me, recommended it, uh, and we have And like, that is one of the most valuable classes we’ve ever taken because we know exactly, you know, I’m not, we’re not lawyers, but we know how to work with the lawyers when we have to and how to push back and how to cooperate with them, et cetera.

[00:21:15] – Maria

So, really, again, be an informed consumer, really try to picture yourself in the future. And if you’re like, “I don’t know what my job is going to need in the future,” well, no one does. But then ask people who are senior leaders who have roles that you might aspire to one day and say to them like, Do you ever wish you knew a little bit more about the law? And they might say, yes, I— gosh, there’s so many times I wish I knew more. Or they might say like, yeah, it’s fine. You know, that’s what we’ve got the general counsel down the hallway. Like, that’s what she’s for. So, you know, really, again, just do your homework so that way you really maximize your time and money.

[00:21:49] – Pola

I mean, that’s the tricky bit, though, isn’t it? Figuring out what you might need in 20 years’ time. I mean, Caroline, you said You have an anecdote about your sister who’s a doctor and then, well, tell, how about you tell us the anecdote?

[00:22:05] – Caroline

Yeah, sure. So, she’s a doctor and so 20 years into her career of practicing, she finds herself in a management role and she hasn’t studied anything or have any experience really that has prepared her for that. So it was a huge learning curve for her. And I, and so I can see how doing a dual degree in medicine and an MBA could be very valuable for someone who ends up in a senior management position, managing a large department, many people, massive budget, etc. But that’s difficult to anticipate, I think, when you are at medical school. And also medical school is just such a big investment and time commitment that I’m not sure that she could have contemplated taking on the MBA at that time. But I can certainly see how those business schools are critical to doctors, especially at the later stages of their careers. Hmm.

[00:23:11] – Pola

Yeah, I mean, maybe we could talk a bit about alternatives. Maria already touched on this, But obviously there are sort of courses that you can take to brush up in certain areas, shorter certificate programs. Are there any particular ones, Maria, that, that you wanted to, to tell us about?

[00:23:33] – Maria

Yeah, I think, well, a number of business schools have actually figured out this exactly the use case that Caroline Sister found herself in. And so there are a number of part-time programs that are like master’s in healthcare management, you know, the executive MBA in healthcare management. So that way if a doctor finds themself in a position where they find, you know, eventually need these skills, they can get that degree, but they don’t have to go full-time back to school, right? They can do it part-time, sometimes online, and very good schools. I mean, you know, Columbia has one, a lot of these, a lot of the schools, all of the top, many of the top schools will have something like this precisely to answer this need that Caroline talked about. And I do think that many doctors You know, if, if, if you want to be a practicing doctor, you may not need the business degree, but maybe later on you become a solo practitioner and then you might say, well, I might need a few more business skills to manage my own, my own business. Or in my case, there was a woman in my class who did the, the MD MBA and she today is, you know, she’s an emergency room physician, Dr. Darya, but she’s also, you know, creating an online course called No Panic Parenting.

[00:24:46] – Maria

And so I, I’m sure that her MBA skills are, are helping her, are helping her conceive of and market these sorts of programs, I can imagine. And so if you think you might want to be on the management side of, of medicine or, you know, running your own practice one day, then it might be good foresight to, to start investing in these skills early. But if you don’t, don’t panic because there are in fact so many part-time and executive programs in the future that will fill that gap should you need it.

[00:25:16] – Pola

Yeah, No Panic Parenting is a course I think I should probably take at some point.

[00:25:24] – Caroline

We’ll sign up.

[00:25:26] – Maria

I know, it’s a baby-proofing course, but who knows, maybe she’ll expand to the older age groups too.

[00:25:34] – Pola

And that kind of segues nicely into our final question before we sign off today, which is, What’s been taking up too much of your mental energy lately? I think mine is worrying about things that don’t matter. Maria?

[00:25:50] – Maria

Mine is worrying about things that feel like they do matter. No, I mean the same old stuff. I mean, it’s the end of the school year and we’ve got AP exams and final exams and we’re also selling a house right now, which is not, it is not a stressless situation. So, you know, let’s go, but hey, it’s life. I mean, I don’t think there’s any point where there ever isn’t anything like, yeah, all of my stresses have magically gone away. It’s like the mythical to-do list that will one day be completely finished. It’s like, I think the stress-free life is a myth, but maybe just for me. I don’t know.

[00:26:26] – Pola

For me too, I think. Yeah. Caroline, what’s yours?

[00:26:30] – Caroline

Well, my second daughter has to commit to college tomorrow and I’m not quite sure what she’s going to decide, so she’s keeping us waiting for the last moment. So we’ll see. I’ll let you know next week what she decides.

[00:26:47] – Pola

Exciting.

[00:26:48] – Caroline

So, yeah, amazing. She’s been, you know, we’ve been having discussions with schools about scholarships and different things, so it’s been an interesting process.

[00:26:59] – Pola

Well, good luck to her, and thank you both, Caroline and Maria, for chatting with us today. And please come back. Thanks everyone for listening first, and please come back next week if you liked our talk today, and also check out poetsandquants.com. Thanks everyone. [MUSIC]