UCD Smurfit MBA Blog

Archive for the ‘MBA Programme Team’ Category

Friday 02 September was the final day of the MBA Foundation Module and for those involved it has been quite an experience.  Lengthy and complex preparations have been set in place for the new Fulltime and Executive MBA classes who have been onsite here in UCD Smurfit all week.

Likewise, countless hours have been spent by the Marketing Office, Admissions, Interviewing Panels, MBA Career Manager,  and MBA Director to have everyone signed up and ready to go by Monday 29^th August last: D-Day.

The MBA Foundation Module itself is designed to be a tough and an intense intro week and despite all of the information available to participants in advance through websites, interviews, the Incoming MBA Student Portal and regular updates, the full impact of the week’s workshops, activities and networking will not really hit them until they come out the other side Friday evening.

As much as possible is squeezed in; Team Building, Communication Bootcamp, Time Management & Effectiveness, IT, Study Skills, Case Study Analysis, Report Writing and MBA Club launches to name only a few.  All of these sessions launch both the Academic Programme and also the Personal & Professional Development Programme and equip all new UCD Smurfit MBAs as much as possible for the semesters ahead.

It is no wonder that the mantra for those who have been involved this week has become: ‘Start as you mean to go on’.

Stay tuned to hear from the new Smurfit MBA students…

- Michael McDonnell, MBA Programme Manager

The title of Bjork’s song captures the mood in the MBA Office at the Smurfit School at the moment. It always strikes me this time of year how quickly the last year have passed – it only seemed like last week I welcomed the Full-time MBA Class of 2011 and was running around outside participating in the team building exercises and discussing what kind of animal we all were. Throughout the year, I have enjoyed getting to know these talented individuals and seen how they have developed over the year and taken on everything that we threw at them (in the nicest possible way).

And now, most of the FT MBA Class of 2011 is enjoying some well-earned time off, but I am sure I will see them again soon. As I said as they were coming in to say their goodbyes and thanks, for better or for worse they are now part of the large Smurfit MBA family and we will continue to stay in touch.

- Rikke Budolfsen, FT MBA Programme Manager

Last Saturday, 25 June 2011, saw the annual Smurfit MBA Summer BBQ which has become a much anticipated event marking as it does the period just after semester 2 results, the last modules of the year and the beginning of the summer.  The BBQ was held in the school grounds and gave us all a chance to see them at their best in a way we usually don’t have the time to.  We were a little worried about how things were going to go on Friday as the rain and the wind made their presence felt but happily by Saturday morning the temperature had risen markedly, the grounds had dried out and not long after the BBQ began the sun put in an appearance. In the end Saturday afternoon turned out to be one of the best of the summer so far (not difficult), some people even reported minor sun burn.

There was a great turn out of over 180 adults and 60 children, representing the MBA full-time class and all three EMBA classes (Year 1 and Year 2) and accompanying partners and children.  The event allowed people to relax and enjoy each others company and talk about matters unrelated to Management Accounting or Performance-Driven Marketing, although I did over hear a very interesting discussion concerning the success rates of mergers and acquisitions inspired by an option module the previous week.

The children’s entertainers did a terrific job and kept all the little guests occupied and amused with the bouncy castle, puppet show and related activities, particularly popular was the face painting and when all the children who wanted adornment were catered for some of the MBAs decided to participate in the face-painting experience too.

All in all, it was a great event, plenty to eat and drink, good conversation, catching up with friends, classmates and the occasional academic outside the pressure cooker of the average MBA semester.

Many thanks to Mary O’Dwyer from the MBA Office who was the main organiser of the day.

- Roisin O’Loughlin, MBA Programme Manager

UCD Smurfit has won back the MBAAI Strategy Forum Trophy.

Our team are All-Ireland Champions after a historic win for UCD Smurfit at the annual business strategy competition held on Saturday last, June 18th in the salubrious surroundings of the St. Stephen’s Green Club in Dublin city centre.

Congratulations to our team which was made up of participants from the Executive Year 2 MBA City cohort:

UCD Smurfit 2011 MBA Association of Ireland Comp Winners. L to R: Alan Dunne, Fionnuala Healy, Siobhan O'Dowd, Maria Finnegan, Tom O'Connor

Organised by the MBA Association of Ireland (MBAAI) and open to all MBA programmes in Ireland, teams of MBA students from around the country met in Dublin on Saturday (June 18th) to compete in the day-long Inter-Business School MBA Strategy Challenge.

Well done to the team who came through an internal preliminary round and put in the hard work required to reach the standard necessary to become All-Ireland Champions for 2011 and demonstrating the high calibre of participants on our programmes this year.

The wonderful Waterford Glass trophy is currently on view in the MBA Office and will be moving to the new MBA Trophy Cabinet to take pride of place beside the MBA World Cup trophy.

I hope you will join with me in congratulating the team.

Well Done!

Michael McDonnell

MBA Programme Manager