The two-year MBA is the trip of a lifetime
Sunday, 20 September 2009
Paul Danos
YOU know how it is when you visit a place where the culture, the scenery and the individuals there change you forever? That is how I view the two-year, full-time MBA programme.
It is two years of immersion in new concepts taught by experts, living and studying with talented people with varied experiences from around the world.
However, the element that sets this experience apart is that these are people with whom you share the common goal of hoping to work in and possibly lead important organisations in society.
For many decades, the letters MBA were synonymous with the full-time, two-year model. Today, there are several other models - one-year, part-time, executive, corporate and distance learning among them.
The "best" model depends on a given student's circumstances. However, I believe that the full immersion and focus that comes with the two-year model, the personal connections, the opportunity to delve into topics with professors and the ability to gain business experience through internships and projects, all unite to give students the best realistic simulation of the life that they could face in business leadership.
A full-time MBA stretches the individual, persuading him or her to reach new heights of aspiration. The shared spirit of preparing for responsibility creates a palpable increase in competence and confidence. There is clearly an arc of progress taking students to the launching point of significant careers. When delivered correctly, the programme's graduates are both ready and eager to take on the mantle of leadership.
During the two years of study, students have the opportunity to reflect on their work experience to date and listen to their colleagues relate their experiences of varied industries from around the world.
Perhaps most important, these students have the chance to work in a different industry during the internship that falls between the two academic years.
Following an internship, I have seen many students change direction completely - from consulting to marketing, from business to not-for-profits, from engineering to finance. Some return to their old industries and, while a few may even go back to their former employers, all have the time to make informed choices.
Most of the top graduate business schools require considerable work experience and the average age of students on these programmes is between 25 and 30.
The reason for this age preference is that there is an important second wave of learning that comes from interaction with student colleagues who have worked in every imaginable setting and with some of the great companies of the world.
Teams are formed among these students and the learning becomes an enormously interactive endeavour, with the in-classroom and out-of-classroom parts forming a continuous stream of learning.
Is the return on this investment worth it?
True, moving to a new setting, living on a university campus, working in a pressure cooker of learning,
with so many new relationships, may look a bit drastic from a distance.
However, it is a tried and true path to leadership with a substantially positive return on investment, both materially and, more important, in terms of one's ability to change one's life and to change the world for the better.
One needs only to look at the figures - tens of thousands of applicants from around the world apply to the full-time two-year programmes.
Although there are many other thriving MBA models, it is the classic two-year programme that is, I believe, the premier form of the MBA.
Time and again I hear testimony from both new graduates and from those in their fifth decade of leadership after their MBA, saying: "It was the best trip I ever took".
Paul Danos is dean of the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College.
Posted by Linda Anderson, under syndication arrangement with FE
YOU know how it is when you visit a place where the culture, the scenery and the individuals there change you forever? That is how I view the two-year, full-time MBA programme.
It is two years of immersion in new concepts taught by experts, living and studying with talented people with varied experiences from around the world.
However, the element that sets this experience apart is that these are people with whom you share the common goal of hoping to work in and possibly lead important organisations in society.
For many decades, the letters MBA were synonymous with the full-time, two-year model. Today, there are several other models - one-year, part-time, executive, corporate and distance learning among them.
The "best" model depends on a given student's circumstances. However, I believe that the full immersion and focus that comes with the two-year model, the personal connections, the opportunity to delve into topics with professors and the ability to gain business experience through internships and projects, all unite to give students the best realistic simulation of the life that they could face in business leadership.
A full-time MBA stretches the individual, persuading him or her to reach new heights of aspiration. The shared spirit of preparing for responsibility creates a palpable increase in competence and confidence. There is clearly an arc of progress taking students to the launching point of significant careers. When delivered correctly, the programme's graduates are both ready and eager to take on the mantle of leadership.
During the two years of study, students have the opportunity to reflect on their work experience to date and listen to their colleagues relate their experiences of varied industries from around the world.
Perhaps most important, these students have the chance to work in a different industry during the internship that falls between the two academic years.
Following an internship, I have seen many students change direction completely - from consulting to marketing, from business to not-for-profits, from engineering to finance. Some return to their old industries and, while a few may even go back to their former employers, all have the time to make informed choices.
Most of the top graduate business schools require considerable work experience and the average age of students on these programmes is between 25 and 30.
The reason for this age preference is that there is an important second wave of learning that comes from interaction with student colleagues who have worked in every imaginable setting and with some of the great companies of the world.
Teams are formed among these students and the learning becomes an enormously interactive endeavour, with the in-classroom and out-of-classroom parts forming a continuous stream of learning.
Is the return on this investment worth it?
True, moving to a new setting, living on a university campus, working in a pressure cooker of learning,
with so many new relationships, may look a bit drastic from a distance.
However, it is a tried and true path to leadership with a substantially positive return on investment, both materially and, more important, in terms of one's ability to change one's life and to change the world for the better.
One needs only to look at the figures - tens of thousands of applicants from around the world apply to the full-time two-year programmes.
Although there are many other thriving MBA models, it is the classic two-year programme that is, I believe, the premier form of the MBA.
Time and again I hear testimony from both new graduates and from those in their fifth decade of leadership after their MBA, saying: "It was the best trip I ever took".
Paul Danos is dean of the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College.
Posted by Linda Anderson, under syndication arrangement with FE