Greetings everyone. I am currently pursuing my MBA in Business Management. But before I register for Fall classes, I want to know what type of graduate courses would introduce me to project management and digital business practices? Saving Changes...
A year ago I finished a 2.5 year full-time on-line MBA program. The particular program, while containing the traditional MBA course work like financial and organizational management, was immersed in "technology management". Bridging technology to the business world was the core of the course work. Project Management was one such course along with Strategic Management of R&D, Intellectual Property, Technology, New Ventures, Innovative Processes, Technology Forecasting, and IT/Decision Science. All have an aspect which builds your general PM capabilities.
A point note on the on-line approach - the 2 dimensional communications requires significantly more thought and/or critical thinking. This leads to a greater learning experience. A personal opinion shared by many classmates and other students who transferred from the traditional classroom environment. Saving Changes...
Gary - where did you receive the MBA from? I have been considering it myself and was looking at Univ. of Maryland University College's online MBA program. They have a strong technology bent as well. http://www.umuc.edu/gen/virtuniv.html
Also, do you feel your $ was well spent. Sounds that way in terms of learning but what about career-wise? Did you persue the MBA while working full-time? Are you with the same company now that you have finished?
Any advice you can offer would be greatly appreciated.
Yes, I worked full time, took care of the family and home, concurrent with my school work. Thank God I love coffee. Many, many late nights. You gotta want and desire it.
I attended the University of Phoenix on-line program (www.phoenix.edu). When I started, it was one of the few recognized programs with a solid on-line capability. Many have modeled themselves from their success. They were profiled on Dateline, and Times magazine a couple of years ago. They're a bit pricey $$ as far as private universities go.
It was a great learning experience as you are with students from throughout the US and overseas. Many varied backgrounds (healthcare, Boeing, Allied-Signal, consulting firms, BP/AMACO, and others). You get to see many perspectives in applying the material in different industries.
No, I'm not with the same company. Unfortunately they didn't appreciate the new skills (IMHO) in a way that leveraged my 20 years of engineering (EE), PM work, people management, and client relationship development skills. Thus... I moved on. I am presently working in a contract mode to Booz-Allen & Hamilton. A very significant management and technology organization. However, I think I'm still trying to find that right fit.
If you have a good technical background and wish to build knowledge and skills from the business side of the fence, an MBA program with a slant toward technology is a great way to go (from wherever you get it.) The on-line approach is extremely convenient for us working stiffs answering to the man. After going through the program, I have a new respect for the responsibilities of CEOs. Saving Changes...
John ZacharProduct Dev Manager| Association for Project Management (APM)Brackley,, Northamptonshire, United Kingdom
This is several days after the discussion, and may not apply, but here goes.
I am a transplanted Yank, living and working in England. I've lived in England for about 25 years, about 20 miles north of Oxford. In about 1990, I started a 3 year (term time) MBA with one of the Universities in Oxford. I spent Wednesday afternoons and evening attending classes each week for the length of hte terms (basically the same as US). I completed by BSc with the Univ of Maryland at night and on weekends over a period of about eight years.
I know that 'on-line' seems to be the way to do it these days, but to be perfectly honest, I needed the classes - for two reasons. I had a deadline each week that I had to meet, so the artifical discipline was very useful; second, the personal interacitons with the remainder of the cohort was invaluable. I think it enriched my MBA experience by at least 100%, and maybe more. Saving Changes...
For some, the class room mode is necessary, especially if they are resistant (for whatever reason) to change. However, the on-line approach (at least for the UoPhx. program) was very disciplined. There were deadlines, penalties, books to read, papers to write, group projects (across multiple time-zones) and a very significant amount of classmate interaction. For some classes, I would have to read through between 200 and 300 classmate coorespondance messages per week. There are pros and cons for either the traditional or the new e-learning approach. Having experienced both, I won't claim either as better or worse, but I will say that the UoPhx online MBA program is very effective. Saving Changes...
Gary, I also completed the UoP MBA program, but in a classroom setting in 1984. The instructors were all seasoned excutives teaching not for the money, but for the interaction with students. And BTW, the books used in the UoP MBA program were the same books used at USC, Pepperdine, and other universities across the country. Saving Changes...
That makes for an interesting point. When I went to the University of Oklahoma, and some were espousing the "better" schools like MIT, ... come to find out ... the physics, calculus, thermodynamics, electromagnetic propogation theory, et.al., were the same there...Hmmmm...even the text books were the same for most of the courses. It's what you put into it and get from it, and how you apply your learned skills that ultimately matters. Saving Changes...
"Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. THAT's relativity."
