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Comment by allenleee | Hacker News Reader

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allenleee

To people who consider to join this program:

Just dive into a startup then learn.

3mons in a startup > 1y in Master's Degree in Product Management

Save your money please.

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You're not considering an important factor: connections and opportunities. If doing this course makes you multiple steps closer to getting hired at Big Cos, then I think the tuition fee is worth it. Same applies for almost every degree in the world. Courses are easy to replicate; environment is not.

Like you said: Courses are easy to replicate; environment is not.

Do you think the connections and opportunities in CMU program are better than the connections and opportunities in a YC startup? If you don't, then I suggest you can just jump in a YC startup then learn something REAL.

Most people can't just "jump in a YC startup".

I think the value here is more for non-technical (or just less-technical) folks. "Just dive into a startup" is fine advice for programmers, but for those of us who aren't at that skill level, it's easier said than done. Nobody wants to hire a 'product guy' with financial skills and business acumen to help them manage their pet project. I see this program as being valuable to allow semi-technical folks like myself to learn more directly useful skills without spending years becoming a developer first.

Largely depends on the startup.

In my personal opinion, it's hard to compare startup experience with 8 hours of full time learning every day, for a year or more.

Sure it depends on the startup, I agree it will be a totally different game. But the REAL WORLD experience is unbeatable.

If you wanna be a product guy:

8hours of full time job experience at a startup > 8 hours of full time learning every day in Master program of PM

The cost to that approach is on the back of the startup.

i agree but sadly all people care about is name. so having CMU on your resume by paying 65k might be worth

Yeah HBS/Stanford MBA won't make you a good PM. Even doing a Marketing/Engineering/Product intern at an early stage YC startup is much worth it.

Unless some people wanna have a title like"Stanford MBA dropout",then that's a different story and I respect that.

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