Personal Perspective

How did you decide to pursue your MBA?

Education is something that was inserted into my lifestyle since I was primary school. Family and school often made us think on our future, with simple question as : “what do you want to be when you grow up?

In my case, education has always been considered for my family as the key to success and I strongly agree with that idea.

When completing my bachelor’s I always thought about continuing with the MBA but that idea started fading when events like marriage and full time job occupied the agenda and brought more responsibilities.

After being in a company for 2 years, I realize the need to continue with my studies, in the search for more tools and techniques to apply not only for my current position but for my professional development.

Tonne (2008) noted the graduate school has become a dominating aspect of the work

of the collegiate school of business. Here the student with a bachelor's degree can pursue a detailed study of the functions of business under the direction of professors with established reputations. While committed to a certain amount of lecturing, professors emphasize the situational approach; that is, after developing an understanding of the basic nature of the business process, teachers give their students an opportunity to work out solutions to case problems, either individually or as a group. Increasingly, information technology and quantitative methods are emphasized as key instruments of control. The most commonly sought degree is the master of business administration, or M.B.A

Factors that impacted my decision on taking education to an extra level are:

Seek of Professional/personal growth; personal values, self confidence; enrich curriculum; become a more valuable professional; company’s demand for higher educated professionals.

The following article shows the perception employers have about an MBA:

“Employers continue to value the MBA as a guarantee of general business skills and knowledge. Purcell (2005) reports on the attitude of Sir Martin Sorrell, head of Wire and Plastics Products (WPP), the global advertising giant, who said that, "faced with two candidates of equal caliber, if one possesses an MBA, I would always employ the candidate with the MBA" (p. 23). The problem for employers, businesses, and students is determining the best curriculum structure at any point in time that offers the greatest benefits. One of the big curriculum questions today is related to the issue of the traditional MBA versus the specialized MBA.” (Gupta, Saunders, Smith, 2007)

What do you expect to gain from completing your MBA program?

Throughout the program I expect to acquire the following:

Knowledge: Improve skills such as decision taking, negotiations and management of personnel not only from the program itself but profit from classmates with more professional experience .

Better opportunities: new positions , job opportunities, creation of own business.

Salary increase.

Gupta, Saunders, Smith (2007)