It is not until they are well on their way to graduate school that many people start to think about their career prospects more seriously. As it were, when people first sign up for undergraduate studies, they usually don’t give too much thought into what they are pursuing and what their career prospects with it are, since the idea in most undergraduate study programs is to build the student’s general knowledge base anyway. It is therefore only after their undergraduate studies that the business minded go on to business school, with the kind-hearted (or increasingly the money-minded) going to medical school, the godly going to bible school and so on and so forth. Along these lines, a trend that is increasingly being noticed is where people are pursuing Master’s degrees in project management after their undergraduate degrees – or where people who have a Master’s degree in other fields, say MBAs are looking for additional qualifications in project management – say project management certifications.

So why would anyone go for a Master’s degree in project management?

For one, a master’s degree in project management – or at least some project management certification – is just what the employers are looking for. In today’s world, and especially after the release of highly influential literature and programs like David Allen’s ‘Getting Things Done,’ everything in the corporate world has come to be viewed as a project, and a person who doesn’t know anything about the mechanics of project management runs the risk of alienating themselves from today’s ‘project-minded’ workplace.

Go through any forum where jobs are being advertised – and you will always find a clause somewhere in almost every advertisement requiring some knowledge in project management. And although some project management content tends to be included in almost every university business course, a person who has a specific project management certification, or better still a project management degree will always have an upper hand over people who lack the same qualifications. This is because although every business graduate is expected to have some knowledge in project management, having specific certifications in the same is seen as a sign that the candidate in question has real in-depth knowledge in project management. Even in jobs where a project management knowledge is not a direct requirement – for instance in medicine – a professional who goes ahead to acquire a project management certification or even better a project management degree makes themselves a more attractive prospect in the job market, because although they might not explicitly demand it, employers are likely to be impressed by a project management certification, and are also more likely to cherish the prospects of having a person with knowledge about project management around their offices.

The beauty of a Master’s degree in Project management is that it is not too demanding, especially for a person who got good academic grounding in their undergraduate schooling. For this reason, people have been known to pursue Master’s degree in project management as their second master’s degrees – and therefore gain the professional esteem which comes with being a multiple master’s degree holder.