Andrew Atzert, ASU WP Carey

Are online MBA programs comparable to classroom-based ones? We asked Andrew Atzert, assistant dean and director of the W.P. Carey MBA – Online Program at Arizona State University

Is online a compromise?

We developed our distance learning MBA program using the faculty who teach in our regular program and the same curriculum in our regular program. We’ve always had the philosophy that our MBA program is the same program as our regular MBA program in terms of the actual degree and knowledge you get from the program.

But at the same time, it’s different. What potential students think is that there’s a trade-off when you choose an online program. And the trade-off is that most people want face-to-face interaction.They want the ability to network with other classmates and faculty. So they accept the convenience of an online program, but they also feel like they’re trading off that interaction. The challenge for us is to try to not have as much of a trade-off, and to offer more interaction.

That’s one preconception about online programs: that there are fewer opportunities for face-to-face interaction and networking. Is that the reality?

In a paradoxical way, online can be more interactive.

Face-to-face classes tend to be dominated by the most talkative people in the class, and so participation in live classes tends to be uneven: some people may not think of the best thing to say while they’re sitting in class, they may not think of it until they go out into the parking lot, or later on when they’ve thought about it a little more. So if you’re the kind of person who processes and doesn’t immediately jump into a discussion, classrooms can be challenging.

What happens in a distributed environment, like in our online MBA program, is that everybody can participate equally. So if your first language isn’t English and for that reason you can’t jump into the conversation as quickly as others, or if you just tend to process, it doesn’t matter. You can jump into one of these threaded discussions at any time. And as a result of that, across the class, the amount of participation per student tends to be more in online than it is in a class.

It’s very hard to be anonymous, oddly enough, in an online class, because you have the opportunity to be electronically present at any time. You can’t say that somebody interrupted you because it’s impossible to be interrupted, and there’s no time limit. You can be on there 24/7.

Do students get better jobs after graduation?

Because our online program is designed for working professionals, they already have a career going, and they’ve chosen to do an MBA because they feel it will advance their career.

Most company leaders would never expect a senior person to go through an online MBA program; they’d want them to go through a peer-based program where they’re with other senior leaders. When you get to the more senior levels, the skills that you need are less technical and more based on your ability to influence others. It’s more the soft skills, and those can be best dealt with in a live classroom environment.

But for mid-level people, the fact that they got their MBA from a really good school that has an online program versus a school that has a good face-to-face, may not matter. Employers may not think that you can adequately teach interpersonal skills for leadership in an online program, and that’s a challenge for us in designing online programs. We’re trying to make it more possible to work on those soft skills in an online program. But where online programs excel is in their ability to duplicate everyday interaction in a normal working environment.

How could an online environment duplicate everyday business interaction?

The simple fact is that even senior level people, on a daily basis, may relate to a lot of other people in their companies in an electronic environment: they send email, they’re doing webconferencing, because the way that the business world works is electronically mediated. So what we try to do in our online program is use technology in a richer way so that individuals can project a richer presence.

We use webconferencing tools, have groups work together online, and use established technologies that still work really well, like phone conferencing – all of this that mirrors the way that people work in a distributed business environment.

So it’s possible, using those tools, to teach leadership skills in the program. All the students in our program are put in small study groups, and they’re responsible for doing group assignments and group cases. We use that group setting to discuss their leadership skills.

And in the business world, that kind of distributed interaction happens everyday: people have to call their Hong Kong office from Los Angeles, or their office in Azerbaijan from Houston and communicate with those people. In the real world, global businesses do projects that are distributed all the time. And so we ask people to do in our program what they will do in their jobs.

Rachel Killian

Online MBA programs can provide more flexibility than classroom based programs. But how does the actual experience compare? We asked Rachel Killian, the Marketing and Recruiting Manager at Warwick Business School.

What are the benefits of a distance learning program over a class-based one?

There are two main reasons why people would choose a distance learning program over a class-based program. The first of which is the cost, because typically a distance learning program is likely to be more affordable – particularly if people are looking for a part-time program but are not getting any corporate sponsorship or funding from their employer. And we have seen a fall in the last 12 or 18 months of the number of corporations that are able to sponsor students’ MBAs. For those people who are not getting funding, then a distance learning MBA is an affordable option. The second reason is that it gives students more flexibility in fitting their studies around their professional lives, but also if they have family as well, their family life. Because for us, the average age of our distance learning MBA students is about 34 or 35; and that’s a time of life where people are quite busy, so I do think that it gives people more flexibility.

They can study when they want, when it suits them, and when they can fit it in.

Do graduates from Warwick’s distance learning program generally go on to get better jobs?

It’s difficult because it’s not something we necessarily track, because all of our distance learning MBA students are already in the workplace. So this is something that they’re doing as they would any other part-time or executive MBA program. They have access to the career services that we offer here, but generally speaking, peoples’ motivations are a bit different from those people who might do a full-time MBA.

Whereas full-time students – you might classify them as career-switchers – they’re looking to change industry or function or even location; the distance learning MBA students tend to be people who are more what I would call career boosters – so they often come from a specialist background, for example, and they need a generalist management program to increase their chances of promotion or just boost their career a little bit. The agenda isn’t quite the same.

Do people get better jobs after doing their MBA? Well, yes, many of them, but not all of them – that’s not the reason why everybody does it.

Warwick’s distance learning MBA program is one of the oldest. It’s changed much in the past 20 years, hasn’t it?

It has changed, mainly in how it gets delivered. It started out as a paper-based course, but as technology has changed, especially in the past few years, it’s changed the way people study so much. The old view of people who study by distance learning is that they’re in a room alone with just their books, and they never talk to anybody. That’s just so out of date now. It started changing a few years ago with everybody having access to all of the journals online, so it meant there was little need to go to your local library. But now, in our program, we have virtual classrooms, where we can teach directly to students and they can interrupt on webcams and make their points verbally using audio and video as teaching mediums. In the future we’re looking at textbooks being available online, groups meeting virtually so they can network with people over the world. It’s just changed so much, and it continues to change. And that’s a really exciting part of it.

A main criticism of distance learning programs is that students lose out on the interaction that happens in a classroom. Is this valid?

There are actually a lot more opportunities to be interactive. Not everybody will want to, but on the whole, the majority of people welcome more interaction. We encourage our students to join both local study groups, so if somebody’s based in London or Dubai or New York, there’s going to be a good volume of other students around with whom they can get together with face-to-face. And we also encourage them to join virtual study groups so they’re not just restricted to interacting with people living or working in their own city, and get different perspectives on their studies.

It will never 100% replicate what it’s like being in a classroom and spending a year or two years with those same people almost 20 hours a day, but it can offer a lot of that interaction and in a different way. There are more opportunities for students to do that, and our students are certainly loving it, they’re welcoming every new initiative, every new way of teaching it.

They’re welcoming it with open arms.

Thomas Pan

Thomas Pan is currently studying for his MBA at China’s Tsinghua University. We asked him about the program and what it’s like living in China.

Where are you from originally?

I was born in Hong Kong but I have paternal roots in Suzhou, just outside of Shanghai. At the age of one, I moved to the United Kingdom, where I spent most of my formative years. I also spent some time living in London, Hong Kong and Singapore before heading over to California for my undergrad degree.

Why did you choose Tsinghua University?

After graduating, I worked in London and Hong Kong before settling in New York City. I actually started my US applications in 2007 but was concerned about my future in the US as a non-American, not to mention it was still a good time to keep working back then. When the time came for me to reevaluate an MBA in 2008, I realized two things: firstly, that I needed to differentiate myself from the growing number of MBA graduates in the US and secondly, that anyone willing to do an MBA in the US is probably in a prime position to take a little risk in life. With this epiphany, I hopped on a plane to China and took a look around Beijing and Shanghai, then settled on investing my future with Tsinghua University.

It’s true that CEIBS is sitting pretty with its respectable FT ranking and Peking University arguably has a more established international name than Tsinghua. However, the experience that impresses me the most about Tsinghua is the power of its brand name within China. Upon hearing the words Tsinghua University, local Chinese almost invariably confer upon you a degree of admiration and respect I’ve seldom observed anywhere else in the world. This attitude is likely driven by Tsinghua’s mainstream representation in China’s economic development and political leadership. Next, take a look at Tsinghua’s advisory board and you’ll find a list of business leaders that’ll make your jaw drop. To me, this is allure. This is what tells me I’m looking at the right place. If you’re going to throw yourself voluntarily into the dragon’s den, you’d better take the sharpest blades in there with you.

Did you consider other schools in China as well?

I considered Peking University’s Guanghua Program as well as CEIBS in Shanghai, but decided that since neither complemented my agenda, I would not apply. Both are fantastic programs, but I felt that Beijing was a better platform from which to learn about China (try visiting Shanghai as an expat in your late 20’s and you’ll find an abundance of distractions) and that Tsinghua held a marginally better brand name in today’s China.

Are there a lot of international students in your classes?

My class in Tsinghua’s International MBA has just over 120 students, of which over 45% are internationals. International students represent 16 different countries, which I think is phenomenal for a single class in a Mainland Chinese MBA. The year above me of about 100 students stood at almost 55% international, representing 11 different countries. In total, there are 22 nationalities in our combined classes. Please excuse all the stats – perhaps I’m becoming more Chinese but it’s a habit I’ve picked up since moving out here: Chinese people love to hear the numbers!

I’m also happy to report that this year, we welcomed our first Finnish, Israeli, Indian, Romanian and Swiss students to the Tsinghua MBA family.

Are you planning on staying in China after graduation?

Absolutely! I have two main beliefs about coming to China at my age. Firstly, you have to keep your mind open to being here for the long-run. By that, I mean well beyond the two years of your Tsinghua MBA. Thinking on a two-year plan will only restrict your sense of exploration, adventure and perspective.
Secondly, being frank, I think most MBA candidates in China recognize that while a Chinese MBA degree may raise a few eyebrows or differentiate us back home, the brand names still have a hill to climb in the international arena. Nonetheless, we’re all here because we know that within China, our degrees open doors that no foreign degree can come close to opening, and that education in China is modernizing to international standards at an unprecedented pace. With the experience we gain here, we hope to be well-positioned for the mounting surge in Sino-global business. We’re first movers, we’ve invested in our advantage, and we’re here to stay.

Why do you think China has become such a hot destination for international students looking for MBAs?

There are a host of different reasons really, some shallower and some deeper. On the shallow end, Chinese MBAs remain relatively cheap compared to US or European degrees, and there’s a strong demand from universities for international students too. Moving deeper, I personally find that US MBAs are becoming increasingly commoditized and homogeneous. Global experience is an excellent way to differentiate oneself today, as is a willingness to swim upstream instead of going with the herd. What better way to demonstrate such qualities than to come to China, where the language is gibberish to non-Chinese speakers, foreigners still stick out like a sore thumb, and the pace of change is reminiscent of Michael Phelps’ Olympics record-breaking spree? MBA candidates are waking up to the fact that China’s ascendance is inevitable, and that in terms of positioning oneself for this growth, few things trump first-hand, on-site experience of the local culture and mentality.

Baswajit Das

Why an MBA in Canada? We asked Biswajit Das,  who in 2007 received his MBA from the Queen’s University in Ontario.

Why did you choose an MBA program in Canada?

I was looking for an MBA program that would compliment my science and technology background, provide me a sound understanding of business and help me attain my goals. From the economic point of view, I was looking for an education that would be for a year (and not a two-year program). I checked the U.S. B-Schools and the good ones were all two-year programs. There were European schools but they were expensive. Moreover, I wanted an MBA from a North American School. I had admission to some of the best Indian B-Schools but I am of the belief that I wanted to be a global manager in the flat world –someone who has the ability to accept and deal with diversity in the word. Canada is one of the most diverse countries in the world and became my obvious choice

Was there anything about Canada or the program itself that took you by surprise?

The program exceeded my expectations. At India, with so much of population, I was always a “number”. Here, with a fewer number of students in the class, I had more personalized attention and care.  Also, being a one-year program – I always had to be on toes. It was like doing MBA through a fire hose. Come December, the winter in Canada was something that surprised me! I also found a lot of diversity in Canada, especially Toronto.

What have you been doing since graduating?

I finished my MBA in 2007 and joined a premier management consultancy firm. Over the years, I have strategized, executed and managed projects of various kinds and sizes for companies ranging from Fortune 500 to start ups in different industry segments including telecommunications, automobile, aerospace, electronics, software and pharmaceuticals. I have got to work in India, USA and Middle East and I think an MBA from Queen’s has helped me get where I am today.

Would you recommend this experience to other students from India?

Certainly! As I mentioned earlier – the world is getting flatter and one has to become a global manager – work with folks from other parts of the world and identify patterns and accept different points of view. A country such as Canada and a program like Queen’s certainly gets you ready for that. I share my experiences with folks who have done their MBA in India and I know what they have missed!

Photo Courtesy: Biswajit Das

Armen A. Avakian

Why an MBA in Eastern Europe? We asked Armen A. Avakian, who received his MBA from the Central European University (CEU) in Budapest, Hungary in 2009.

Where are you from?

I was born in Iran, and then I was raised in the States, in Boston, and then we moved to Armenia. I’m Armenian, so I’m coming to Budapest from Armenia.

Why did you decide to come to Budapest for your MBA?

I wanted to do an MBA – that was for sure, so I was looking around. Why I chose the States first was my initial reaction was that I could get a student loan in the States because I’m a citizen. It would have been easier for me. My parents have a house there, so we have a mortgage, we have credit, my parent’s credit rating is great, so that type of thing. But then when I found CEU, it just kind of fit in. And it’s in Europe, and also CEU had this new transnational leader program that was launched last year actually, we’re the first year to do it. And that fit perfectly into what I was thinking at the moment, that business isn’t just business anymore, especially in Europe and Eastern Europe, and emerging regions, business is more global. There’s politics involved, there’s ethics involved, there’s different issues involved that American MBAs don’t really hit on very much.

You finished the program earlier this year. Where are you now? What have you done since graduating?

I graduated in July, and I’ve been working here [in Budapest] since April, I actually started working before I graduated. It was a great job offer at a marketing consulting firm here. It’s called Garrison Group, and I’m a junior consultant currently.

Did you intend on staying?

It actually came by surprise. I was actually thinking about going back to Armenia. I feel very at home in Armenia. We actually have a small family business in Armenia that my parents run, it’s a tour agency, and we were looking for someone to hire – a marketer – someone who can actually do marketing for us, and there was literally no one. We couldn’t find one person that could do marketing in Armenia, and I thought that would be perfect. And I took a lot of marketing courses here, and I thought I’d be going back. But then this job came along, and I ended up staying.

I think I’m going to go back eventually, but for now, for the next two or three years, probably. My wife is moving here, so I guess we’ll be here for a while.

Did most of your peers stay in Budapest after graduating as well?

I think something like five or six of my peers stayed. It was very interesting, it was mostly people coming from Western Europe and the States wanted to stay, and people coming from Eastern Europe wanted to go back. The way I see it, it was more MBAs moving towards the emerging regions. For someone coming from Serbia, or Montenegro, the emerging region is still Serbia or Montenegro – Hungary is a bit higher up, so they wanted to go back. Whereas we had people from the U.K., America, and Italy that stayed here and are here now.

What was the program like?

A large part of our cases studies was from the States, because in general, a lot of great case studies in business come from the States. But then when we were talking about politics, the legal environment and all these transnational aspects of it, we got into Europe and the States – the similarities, the differences, how it works in Europe, how it works in the States. The code system here and the case system in the States, that kind of thing. And then in the end we had this emerging regions course, it’s a three credit full course that you had to decide from China, Middle East/North Africa, or Central/Eastern Europe, where you really start getting deep into what you’re interested in. So some people were coming from the oil industry and were interested in the Middle East more than any other place, so they took that one. I was interested in Central and Eastern Europe so I took that one.

Most of our professors aren’t academics; the majority of them were businessmen. Most of the guest lecturers either owned their own company or were higher-ups. So we got a lot of hands-on experience in that sense. I have to say that probably 20, 30 percent were Hungarian-based companies, and the rest were mostly multinationals or outside of Hungary. We had people coming from the States or Finland, that type of thing and they had their own business there.

Was the class international? Were a lot of nationalities represented?

It was amazing. I knew it was international, but it was very unexpected. We had 19 different nationalities and there were only 23 of us. So everybody was from a different place. The interesting thing was that when an issue came up and we were talking about any subject or any case, you would get at least 19 different perspectives on the same exact problem. So you start thinking outside the box. It’s a cliché, I know, but you really start thinking outside the box. So now when a problem comes up, it’s easier to solve because you see it in all these different angles, whereas before you could only see it as you would see it. So in that sense it was very interesting to see what an Indian who has an IT background, compared to someone from the States who has an anthropology background, or my mindset, being Armenian from a financial background – totally different.

Can you comment a bit about Hungarian business culture? Do non-Hungarians find it quirky?

Armenia has a lot more quirks, as you say, than Hungary does. So I didn’t find anything that amazed me. But there are things that would amaze Americans. It’s still an emerging region. The great thing about Budapest now, I keep saying when they ask me how is Budapest I say if you’re going to come to Budapest, you have to come now. And everybody asks why, and I say, now is when you have this western influence sitting on top of the eastern mindset. And it’s a very interesting mix; there’s a lot of opportunities here, right now. Whereas ten years from now it’s not going to be like this. The western influence is going to get settled in, and the mindset is going to go away, the eastern one. So it’s going to become more westernized. Whereas now, you actually have this eastern mindset level on the bottom and then you have all this western influence sitting on top. And there’s a lot of opportunities there.

What about the language? The CEU program is in English, but what about business?

Hungarian is a very, very difficult language. If you look up the statistics on Google, it’s something like the third hardest language to learn in the world. It’s ridiculous. I’m not learning it currently. I asked a couple of our senior consultants from the States, one of them speaks fluent Hungarian. And I asked him how long it takes to learn, and he said it takes at least five or six years. I don’t see myself here in five or six years, so I’m not really pushing for it. But I do know a lot of Russia so I’m going to push on that more.

The businesses are all in English. Our clients are actually mostly not Hungarian, they’re all Central and Eastern European, and they’re all multinationals so English is the preferred language for them as well.

Would you recommend this experience to others?

I would definitely recommend this. You have to be a bit more of the adventurous type, though. You have to be looking for challenges and opportunities. If you just want to go to a Wall Street firm and make $500,000 a year and sit in your office, then this is not your place. But if you’re looking for challenges and some experiences and some opportunities, then definitely.

Photo Courtesy: Armen A. Avakian

One of the questions that keeps coming up in our discussion board each year is “Why do I need work experience in order to get into business school?”

So, I asked around. Here’s what they said:

Marc Endrigat, Pepperdine University (Graziadio)
“If you don’t have any work experience, you’re not going to get as much out of the program. Until a couple of years ago, we used to not require work experience, but then the students and the professors said that the people who are in the program without work experience cannot contribute in the classroom, and they don’t get as much out of the classroom. If they don’t have any experience that they can relate the theories to, they’re not going to learn.”

“The work experience that someone brings into the program is usually going to be the biggest asset on their application…I would say that the quality and amount of work experience can supercede a lower GMAT score.”

Melissa Jones, INSEAD
“At INSEAD, you need a minimum of 2 years of work experience to get admitted to the program. The average of our students is 6 years. We just feel that bringing that experience to the classroom can bring so much more value than coming straight out of an undergrad. When you’re in the classroom, 50 percent of the learning comes from the professor and the other half comes from all your peers. So, if you have that experience, that’s when the learning really takes place.”

Spencer Altman, Alumni, HEC Paris
“It’s actually for everyone in the program, including the person who is applying … With all of the subjects that you cover in an MBA, it’s important – with 4, 5, 6, or in some cases 8 years (of work experience) – to be an expert in at least one of those subjects as some sort of reference point to apply to the rest. So, if you’re an accountant, to at least be able to say, okay, I know this.”

Hanne Jeppesen, Open University
“This is the leadership level, so you need to the actual experience to apply what we are teaching. If you go into a full-time MBA straight after university, you have no experience to apply it to, and you’ll come out at the end of it knowing all the theory about how to be a good manager and how to be a leader, but have no grip on about how to apply it to real life. When you learn theory, it’s important to have some idea in terms of how it applies to a real-life situation. You’ll be an expert on the theory of management, but you won’t be a manager.”

Photo: Annie Mole / Creative Commons

Cynthia Wharton

For prospective students in their thirties and forties, an MBA can be a great way to remarket yourself, says Cynthia Wharton, director of Employer Recruitment and Outreach at the Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina.

Do you get a lot of older students in your MBA programs?

Traditionally, we have several programs that attract older students. Part-time MBA students have the opportunity to work; classes are in the evenings and on weekends. Students may want to gain additional knowledge through an MBA program, but not let go of a job if they have one. In other instances, students may want to be in job-search mode during the day and continue with their schooling at night.

In our traditional MBA program, we do see some older students come through. The mean age is around 27-28 at Moore. Some years it can be a bit higher or lower. We aim to find students with at least two to four years of work experience.

How do older students fare in the classroom?

Some older students may find it more of a challenge than others. It is important to decide about one’s attitude beforehand. Anyone with five or ten years of experience will often find it a jolt to come back to school, especially if they have done well in their professional career. The longer one is out of the academic arena, the more of a jolt it is.

In the current environment, many professional people have added baggage associated with their career, especially if they have been middle or senior management. Perhaps they have taken voluntary leave or have been laid off. It’s important to look into counseling or a life coach to see if they are ready to go back to school. Yet, going back to school will usually be the best thing they can possibly do.

Many managers are now younger than the employees they manage. This is an issue in real life that MBA programs tackle. Older students use the opportunity to retool themselves and get their skill set up to speed. Old-school marketing was one thing, but now many people in marketing need more analytical and statistics skills, more computational analysis. Sometimes people don’t have the opportunity to gain or use those skills in their current positions. The MBA environment gives students the opportunity to look at their careers and skill set and what they need to go forward. With older students mixed up with group work, presentations, strategy projects, it’s a wonderful opportunity to get one’s head back in the right place to enter the workplace.

How do employers view older students?

The big issues that recruiters have when looking at older students are the same regardless of the age range. They are always looking for the best talent. Every major or minor corporation wants to find the best talent. Age really has less to do with it than the student’s good judgment and analytical skills, a can-do attitude, and flexibility. Given the economic environment, we are actually expecting a larger number of older applicants to come through.

Not all employers are looking for older students, just as not all employers are looking for younger students. Employers are looking for the right fit. For older students, it is not just about enhancing one’s personal tool kit but also learning how to rebrand. Remarketing oneself is an important part of what one is able to do in an MBA program.

Would you recommend a part-time MBA over a full-time program for older students?

If a prospective student is in a position to do a full-time program, it’s excellent. There is a tremendous amount that can be achieved. There are more opportunities for bonding and networking. When prospective students come in to talk, we try to provide the best counseling. It’s important that people find the right fit. Some people can’t afford to drop everything and go back to school full-time. However, the full-time experience allows people to network with peers in the classroom and outside of the classroom experience. Getting the degree is more than just a name for a resume; it’s also building a network of alumni which is valuable for the rest of their lives and learning from classmates.

We find that often people are stretched too much, which of course depends on the school and program. I have a lot of respect for the part-time students. They have a tremendous amount of dedication. Some people have a hard time managing that, but it is such an individual experience. Online distance learning programs could benefit some students but that really depends on the individual; maybe some people can supplement the networking which usually happens in a traditional program. Distance learning can be wonderful as one component of a program however students will miss a tremendous amount of face-to-face experience. Technology, however is overcoming the difficulties and things are changing. However still some things can’t substitute for face-to-face learning.

What advice do you have for prospective MBA students in their thirties or forties?

There are lots of reasons for people to think about going back to school full-time. Older students should think about: Who am I?  What have I achieved to date? Where do I want to go? and How do I best get there? It depends on the individual and finding the right fit.

Students coming in with an IT, engineering or consulting background in combination with an MBA is now much in demand by many companies. If students can develop good communication (oral and written) skills, they are definitely interesting for companies. We have a required internship for our international program which includes language training and an internship as part of the degree, which is unique in that respect. Older students can gain cross cultural credibility by developing functional competency in a language through an internship abroad. Companies are looking for mature managers with cross cultural and language experience; there are opportunities here for older students, as well.

A lot of the people who are thinking about coming back to school are very bright people who may not have been in a test-taking mode lately. It’s important to recognize, especially for professional managers, for people who have never had accounting, etc. Maybe they need to buy “Calculus for Dummies” or take a formal class in accounting or statistics, to get back into that mode.

There’s the old adage: when you are given lemons, make lemonade. It’s hard in any economy when someone is laid off, and there are lots of reasons why good people get laid off. I think that whenever an older person decides to think about becoming a student again, it’s not to run from something but to something. Think about what you are running to and why. Think about finding the right fit. Alleviate the stress and tension, if the reason that you are going back to school started with something negative. These things become really obvious to a recruiter. Recruiters are looking for a positive attitude, flexibility, energy and a passion to help an organization achieve its goals. Those traits, along with maturity and newly-acquired or updated business skills, combine to make MBA challenge worth the effort !

Photo Courtesy: University of Southern Carolina Moore School of Business

Zelon Crawford

Going back to school can be a jolt if you’ve been out for a decade or more. We got some tips from Zelon Crawford, director of Graduate Career Management and Corporate Relations at Temple University’s Fox School of Business and Management.

Would you recommend part-time MBAs over a full-time program for prospective students in their thirties or forties?

Full-time students tend to be younger. Some of the older students do get frustrated in this environment. I would recommend a part-time program to older students. Because of the varied age range of students, older students acclimate to the part-time or EMBA programs. I would encourage that.

Part-time students also do not want to leave their companies and want to navigate the corporate structure internally. Sometimes they want to do something more entrepreneurial, change industries or use the MBA as another credential. For the full-time program, there is a required internship in the summer. For older students who are currently working, they generally are not interested in participating in the internship component.

What should older students look for in an MBA program?

Although there is nothing definitely specific to age, older students may want to investigate informal tutoring services. Sometimes students find it difficult to adjust to statistics, economics, etc. Other courses are more straightforward, but for some courses older students may need extra help. However, this advice is relevant for other students of any age.

How do older students fare in the classroom?

Older students usually adjust really well after the initial scare. Some students have difficulty with statistics. It generally takes a little more time to ramp up to the amount of work and working in students groups. However, many difficulties that students experience are not necessarily attributed to age. Often, the more senior students will be the go-to people in class. Although these students are not always subject matter experts, many of their peers find that they have a range of experiences to share with other people in the classroom.

How much work experience is preferred for the average applicant?

Students with little work experience are harder to sell to an employer, who is usually looking for 4-5 years of experience. Often prospective students with this level of experience are not necessarily looking to come back.

Some schools do search for younger students with zero to two years or experience, but there will also be people with eight years of experience coming back to start a full-time MBA program. These students are often finding that it is difficult to switch careers, for example from engineering to operations or engineering to marketing. These career changes are often difficult to do without an internship, which is why some career switchers prefer the full-time MBA program.

How do older students find a company that values older students’ experiences?

Find a place that has a good culture, where they appreciate your experience. If you go through a traditional MBA program, companies are generally looking for someone to start at an associate or manager level. It is often difficult to bring in an older person at that level. Often they will have someone 20 years old managing them at that level.

Older students should be proactive, doing an independent job search to find a position that matches what they are looking for. Sometimes older students end up working for their own company, a family-oriented company for awhile, or look into entrepreneurial experiences. Generally, older students should be searching outside of the structured recruiting process.

In the current economy, would you recommend older students to enrol in an MBA program as a path towards a career change?

Yes, there is definitely always value in obtaining an MBA, especially if you have the resources and time to do it, coupled with uncertainty about what will happen two years down the line.

Do you have any general advice for older prospective students?

I would just say to look into the program and to do research to make sure that the program is a good cultural fit for you. This is very important to your experience in the classroom. Find out what kind of companies recruit at the universities you are interested in and what type of career services are offered. Students should definitely look for a school that has a strong alumni network. Right now, it’s all about networking and connectivity.

Photo Courtesy: Zelon Crawford

Ahead of the Curve is a first-hand account of how a relative outsider – a British journalist named Philip Delves Broughton – got into and graduated from Harvard Business School. It is a quick and amusing read that will be of interest to people considering business school, particularly those without the “conventional” MBA resumé.

At HBS, Delves Broughton’s resumé probably qualifies as unconventional. In 2004, he quit his job as Paris bureau chief of the Daily Telegraph. His experience at the paper – including leading the coverage of the September 11 attacks in New York – combined with good GMAT scores helped get him into HBS, probably the most famous business school in the world.

For much of the first half of the book, Delves Broughton plays catch up to the jargon and spreadsheet wizardry of his business-seasoned classmates. Eventually he does catch up, showing that with some hard work, there is hope – even someone who spent their university years reading Greek classics rather than macroeconomics.

Paddling upstream, Delves Broughton is joined by a mixed bag of classmates, which he describes in tones suggesting awe and contempt (and all points in between). His interactions with other students and teachers is what adds to color, humor, and – at times – a touch of ugliness to the book. There are the infantile drinking games, classroom one-upsmanship, and zealous and overbearing fellow students that complicate the already awkward team exercises at orientation. There’s also the campus parking garage full of luxury cars that some students allegedly bought by scamming the financial aid system (though HBS denies this).

Obviously, out of a class of several hundred students with world-class ambition, there are bound to be a few stinkers. One alum, Enron’s Jeffrey Skilling (HBS Class of 1979),  went on to famously shady dealings, which  cast a shadow over the world of big business, at least until the onset of the financial crisis last year cast an even longer, darker one.

Towards the end of the book, Delves Broughton reflects on how Harvard business education teaches students to look at the world; and what it means to release some 900 Harvard MBAs into society each year. The author even catches himself making a ruthless, hard-nosed judgment on a Costa Rican case study in a second-year class – apparently a wake-up call that he’d lost touch of the human angle he’d so cherished as a journalist.

Delves Broughton tells us, however, that some fellow MBA grads left HBS with a greater appreciation of what is now called “corporate social responsibility.” Nonetheless, many students go back to the sectors they came from – private equity, hedge funds, investment banking, etc. – despite going to business school precisely to escape that line of work.

“How many people in our class wrote in their applications that they wanted an MBA so they could do micro-finance in Uganda and are now going into investment banking,” asked one of Delves Broughton’s fellow students at HBS.

Compromise and balance are themes that thread through the book. Many HBS guest speakers and alumni, for example, seem to regret having sacrificed their families and personal lives for a big career on Wall Street. Unfortunately, Broughton does not tell us much about he got through two years of business school – itself a very demanding regime – while also balancing his family life.

But Delves Broughton’s is candid in describing the arduous process of landing a summer internship and post-MBA job. He admits feeling the pressure on second-year MBAs to get something – anything – before graduating. These chapters make for fascinating reading for those of us who wonder whether it’s possible to use business school to transplant one’s career, say from journalism, into a something entirely new, like venture capital.

Ahead of the Curve is not the first “insider” account of HBS. But it, along with the many MBA student bloggers around the world, is an intriguing snapshot of business culture in the aftermath of the Enron scandal, in an increasingly globalized world, on the eve of a major financial crisis.

Broughton’s claims he hadn’t planned on this book when he applied to HBS, but it is not hard to imagine such a book taking shape quickly in the mind of any journalist surrounded by such ambitious personalities. Vivid descriptions and reconstructed discussions suggest that Broughton’s senses were on alert during his two years at Harvard.

Meanwhile the school went through the trouble of officially rebutting a handful of “errors and mischaracterizations” in the book, so one is left to wonder how soon HBS will accept another journalist into its midst.

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You can read our interview with the author here.

In the UK, Ahead of the Curve is published as What They Teach You at Harvard Business School: Two Years Inside the Cauldron of Capitalism