You don’t come on the UCD Smurfit MBA to practice things you’re already good at and avoiding falling into this trap has been a key priority for everyone thus far. When you’re pressed for time (as everyone is with such a big workload) the inclination is to get the accountant on your team to do the accounting and to get the marketer to do the marketing. But what would be the point in that?
The MBA is all about developing you into a better-rounded professional so this means you have to become comfortable doing things that you don’t have much prior experience of. Coming from an international journalism and communications background moving over to “dealing with the numbers” in Corporate Finance and Financial Reporting has been truly challenging for me but after the initial shock I can say the experience has been worthwhile and I’m now much more prepared to analyse things from a quantitative perspective.
I hope the people on the course from a more quantitative background are feeling similarly positive about crossing over to more “woolly” subjects and that we are all using our experiences to make each other stronger
Conall Campbell,
FT MBA 2014