UCD Smurfit MBA Blog

Archive for the ‘Full-Time MBA’ Category

Recall last August when arriving in Dublin, many things were strange to me: people go on the left hand-side on streets, the weather was cold even in the summer and the sun was still on my head even in the evening. In my country, Vietnam, evening means dark and no sun, summer means very hot and humid; and of course, we go on the right hand-side. All those things made me feel unusual and I asked myself how could I adapt to a new society and what should I do to perform well in the MBA?

How am I now after one year? Everything is different. I am confident walking on streets in Dublin, I am confident to be a tour-guide for my friends visiting the city. I can speak fluently about Cork, Galway, Killarney, Cobh, Dingle bay, Belfast and Giants Causeway. More than that, I also have experience of working in family farms of my classmates in Sligo and Mullingar.  I love to play football and hurling with my mates in sunny evening (you cannot say “sunny evening” in my country!). What has changed me? That is one year MBA with lovely people.

The first day coming to my class, I worried – how can I catch up with the class, how can I work with people from various countries? My concerns were reasonable because the difference in culture, the unfamiliar business environment and the language barrier were big challenges waiting for me. In the first term, those challenges accompanied with heavy workload were extremely tough. Indeed, language barrier was the major obstacle. For example, sometimes, I was confused in class discussion; and it took me double or triple times to finish all readings and assignments in comparison with others in my class. I feel that the first term was the hardest time of study in my life.

How am I now? Now I am confident to involve in discussions and presentation in my class, I understand the business customs and I am comfortable to contribute ideas from the viewpoint of people from an emerging and dynamic economy in the East. My contributions are valuable to the class because I give them the perspective from different experience and different angles. What has changed me? That is the MBA.

It is the end of June now and there are only three days left for me to finish my journey with the MBA. I am very sure that MBA in Smurfit School is my best decision ever. It is a bridge for my future, both in career and in life. I came here with a group of Vietnamese people and I am very sure that they learned a lot too. I would like to say thank you to my classmates, to the school, to all my professors and teachers and especially to Irish Aid who sponsors me for my MBA. Only three days more in the school and several weeks before coming back to Vietnam, I am very sure that I will miss Ireland and the school a lot. To me, MBA is unforgettable in my life and Ireland is my second home.

- Phuong Hoang, FT MBA 2011

I was thinking about how I could describe life on the Full Time MBA, when a verse of The Beatles song “A Day in the Life” came to mind (well the title, and a Google search actually);

Woke up, fell out of bed

Dragged a comb across my head

Found my way downstairs and drank a cup

And looking up, I noticed I was late

Found my coat and grabbed my hat

Made the bus in seconds flat

Found my way upstairs and had a smoke

And somebody spoke and I went into a dream

Ah,

The song is from the Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club album. It has been described as the first ‘concept album’; dealing with a single issue through various songs. Is this a metaphor for the MBA or what?

Anyone who has undergone, or is undergoing, an MBA will understand the various images the above conjures. However, not so many FTMBA students have had the MBA Dad/Mum experience. Nor have they had the 40+ experience. Each brings its own nuances, but the combination creates a fascinating experience; the experience of experience; so to speak.

Dragged in many directions, yet strangely intact, I can honestly say that my experience has been no more difficult than that of the younger, single (or otherwise), FT MBA classmate; or of the ‘work all day’ and ‘study at night’ Executive MBA. What I lose in study time by maintaining a presence at home, is compensated for by my ability to devote full days to the course, a regular hour of Simpsons with Sadhbh (7) & Ailbhe (4), bedtime stories and the reality that once all of this is done my mind is clear and the MBA seems somewhat less oppressive or omnipresent.  I cannot do it all, nor can any one of us, but I get more than enough from the time I do spend engaged in the daily MBA experience.

A number of my class mates are married with children, but typically there is no one version of this. One has just had his first child; the other’s wife is a stay-at-home mum. My wife travels a week a month with work so we have a child-minder; Sophie, who at 22 is more like a big sister/cousin than a governess. In fact her presence means that when Fiona is away I can stay in college until 5.30, so have a full day of study fun. Additionally, because Fiona has been in her current job for the past 18 months, we are acclimatised to not being a ‘both parents home at six’ family.

Sophie, Sadhbh & Ailbhe

One aspect of the course I feel I ‘missed’ was the evening/night sessions in the Syndicate Rooms. To see the cross pollination of ideas and solving of problems between project groups, as classmates flitted between syndicate rooms, was to see the power of the MBA. “Sorry, but I must be home for six to relieve Sophie” was a regular refrain from me. As a result I think I missed the intense bonding of the first term. I had to make an effort to take on additional work, to make up for missing the group work done during those hours. In fact it is virtually impossible to make up this work, so thanks to those with whom I worked in groups; it’s good to help the elderly!

As I mentioned in my previous missive, I entered the MBA programme hoping to draw together the strands of my varied work experiences; I needed a focus. Many of my contemporaries sought breadth, or a broader view of the business world. Both are available on the MBA. In fact both are compulsory; nothing is excluded in the package the MBA offers. The course is suited to all shapes and sizes of student and it is this that makes it so worthwhile.

P.S. I wouldn’t look up the full lyrics of “A Day in the Life” as they are rather depressing; the selective focus of the MBA in action, perhaps!

- David Gosling, FT MBA 2010/2011

I usually sleep soundly. A couple of years ago I found myself waking in the morning with a sense of anxiety, which I could not explain. Then one morning I woke in the middle of a dream, in which I had arrived at an exam for which I was absolutely unprepared. Well, I thought as a not particularly academic person, I will never study or sit an exam again, so I can relax. And I did. The sense of anxiety departed. How then do I find myself in the tenth month of a full time MBA; surely the epitome of all that created my anxiety?

Without delving into the details, I found myself at a point in my life where I had worked in the government, commercial, self-employed, charity and entrepreneurial sectors, over 20 years. Yet my CV did not say what I was; a soldier, a facilities manager, a property developer, a do-gooder or an  e-tailer? I entered the Newstalk MBA scholarship competition, did not win, but did secure a place on the course. I realised that the MBA was just what I needed to focus my CV, so I accepted the place and started the course in September.

So, how has that worked out for me? Apart from not yet having secured a job, it was a brilliant decision. The MBA is an amazing product, experience and challenge. Central to the MBA is understanding relationships; between people, decisions, structures, markets etc. This applies to the subject matter but also to the students. For 10 months we have been ‘mushed’ together in class, groups, at lunch and socially.

However, I believe that the MBA is essentially a course about thought, about thinking and about joining the dots. It is a slow burner. During the first seven week term we were so busy, and the subjects so seminal, that we gained five separate perspectives. The second term saw the thought, the dot joining, commence. Financial Reporting was leveraged by Managerial Accounting, Decision Making contextualised by Financial Markets & Valuations, Business Economics de-mystified by, well everything. By May, when the In Company Projects were in full flow, we were deep in the art of demonstrating ‘cross learning’s. This cross pollination of ideas is what the MBA takes away from the course, not the T Account, Black Scholes, ROI, Decision Trees or Porters Value Chain. No, the MBA graduate is a business thinker, leader and manager. She is primed for the future. He is launched into an interconnected world, with an interconnected way of thinking.

But is he/she the stereo typical arrogant MBA? I will leave you with this anecdote and let you make up your own mind. A student on the premier UCD Smurfit marketing course, the MDP, asked me “what do you do on the MBA?”. “Well” I said “they teach us to be your boss!”. I presume he got my point.

- David Gosling, FT MBA Class of 2011

With only two weeks left before finishing up the MBA I’ve started to reflect a little on what I have learned during the MBA. What little gems did I find? Perhaps the secrets which created great companies and differentiated them from just good companies? Perhaps what did I spend all this money on college fee’s, loss of earnings and a year of my life? Or even the age old question; is the MBA worth the financial and personal cost??

Before deciding to start the MBA, I read a book called “What they teach you in Harvard Business School” and the key message I got from this book was that the real source of wealth and information in the MBA class was not the academic staff but your classmates. So on the first day of the MBA I was understandably wondering who were these people I was about to sit beside and work closely with for the next year?

Quickly we launched into Semester 1 and raced through subjects as diverse as Economics (the Celtic tiger gets slaughtered!) and Operations Management where the issue of Sustainability became a class favourite. Marketing introduced the class to Professor McLoughlin which was an entertaining education in both Marketing and Life! However the highlight for me was the introduction to Strategy where we were guided (patiently) through how some of the great companies became and continue to be successful.

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