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ILLUSTRATIONS BY NILS JAWA
What exactly makes the MBA such a popular qualification? Over the next 18 months we will follow four students through their courses at schools across Europe to better understand the personal and professional appeal of taking an MBA
WORDS BY MATT BOCHENSKI
INTENSIVELY COMPETITIVE, OCCASIONALLY
CONTROVERSIAL AND
CURRENTLY IN RUDE HEALTH, THE MBA IS AN INCREDIBLY POPULAR QUALIFICATION.
Global application statistics for 2006 compiled by the Graduate Management Admission Council reveal that 65% of full-time programmes reported an increase in applications, and the growth looks set to continue. As Dave Wilson, president of GMAC puts it, “The bloom is back on the MBA rose.”
Nidal Babar |
Maureen Robson |
Ferez Florez |
Stefano Breda |
One reason for this enduring popularity is the financial and professional return that an MBA can bring. Paris-based INSEAD, one of the world’s biggest business schools, reported that in its class of 2006 the overall annual median salary of MBA grads was €80,000, with 92% receiving at least one job offer within three months of finishing their studies. And yet money can eclipse the many other reasons for taking an MBA. Speak to most MBA students and they’ll list a variety of personal as well as professional reasons for putting themselves through a course that is often squeezed in around their normal working lives, requiring discipline, sacrifice and real financial commitment.
Over the next 18 months easyJet inflight magazine will follow four new MBA students in an attempt to better understand their various motivations. All four have either recently started or are about to start an MBA course, and we will return to them twice a year to catch up and report on how their real-life experiences match their pre-course expectations. Maybe then we’ll understand what really motivates the modern MBA student.
is the 31-year-old Head of Support and Technical Operations for ICAP, which provides voice-based IT trading and clearing solutions for investment banks. He’s been with ICAP for seven years since gaining a degree in Computer Information Systems from Bellevue University in Nebraska.
He started an Executive MBA programme at London’s Cass Business School in September 2007, and in many respects his motivation is emblematic of a new breed of MBA student. “I’m doing it not so much for career progression,” reveals Babar, “I’m doing it more for the learning experience… A lot of people walk into the MBA thinking that the day they walk out they’re going to get a big raise and a big job. I’m not a believer in that. I’m more a believer that my perspective will change.”
MAUREEN ROBSON ECHOES THIS SENTIMENT:
“I was getting lots of challenges in a work sense,” she says, “but it’s been over 10 years since I finished my degree, and I felt that in an academic sense I haven’t challenged myself in a while. I wanted to learn something new.” Also 31 years old, Robson is a Business Administration graduate from Northumbria University in the UK, and a Principle Business Consultant at Fujitsu Business Consulting, specialising in HR. She decided to stay close to home in the north east of England to do an Executive MBA, at Newcastle University Business School.
Colombian-born Ferez Florez left his job as a mechanical engineer at Metro de Medellín to take up a position on the MBA program at EM Lyon in France. At 30 years old, the decision made sense given the unique economic opportunities blossoming in Colombia. “Colombia is starting to develop at the moment,” explains Florez. “There is a lot of governmental aid and seed money for people who want to begin their own company, or invest in technology. I had these mechanical skills but I wanted to start again and create some skills in new ways. This was the best moment to do it.”
All of our MBA students are on courses studying face-to-face, but many potential MBA students appreciate the flexibility and economy afforded by a distance learning course. Edinburgh Business School (EBS) has more international MBA students studying overseas than any other MBA programme, with students as far a field as China, the Middle East and Australia. “Most MBAs are for experienced professionals with busy working lives,” says Alick Kitchin, business director of EBS. “We’ve found we’re in demand around the world because people feel they need to study flexibly to fit around their schedule.”
 ALSO LEAVING HIS JOB BEHIND TO STUDY IS STEFANO BREDA, a 34-year-old engineer from Italy who quit his position in research and development at Electrolux to take a full-time one-year MBA at ESMT in Berlin. “I wanted to develop my career,” he says, “and realised that since my background is in engineering I was lacking academic training in the finance and economics side of the business. I wanted to speed up my career, but I also wanted to meet people from different backgrounds, and I’m hoping that will happen for me.”
For all that our four candidates have dramatically different backgrounds, their common traits stand out. They share a no-nonsense approach to the work that lies ahead: “It is a lot of hard work,” says Robson, who puts in three days of intense studying every six weeks, and will be travelling abroad to do case studies in both developed and non-developed countries. Three months into his course, Babar is often working 17-hour days, and he warns anybody considering an MBA: “It’s a very serious commitment of time.”
Nor is there any guarantee that their investment of time and money will pay dividends in the long run. All seem confident that they will learn new skills and make new contacts, but the lack of a solid job at the end remains a concern. “I’m 34—I’m not so young,” says Breda. “So it’s a big step, especially for the sort of money I’m spending on the course, and I don’t know what’s going to happen about my employment possibilities next year. I’m quite sure that I’ll get good training, but I don’t know if this will be appreciated or in any way rewarded from companies later on. I also don’t know many people who have been through an MBA, so it’s not a very clear path.”
All the candidates have their own concerns, but they also have a tendency to see opportunity in adversity. For example both Babar and Florez have the added pressure of studying in a country a long way from home, but they agree the experience will make them stronger. Florez chose EM Lyon in part due to French business contacts he made while working in Medellín. While he admits that studying abroad has made the experience significantly more expensive, it’s a short-term sacrifice that he believes will pay off: “If you want to start up your own company, you have to be international.
I think I made a very good decision to come to France.” Interestingly, however, Maureen Robson offers a different perspective. Given the international focus of the programme in Newcastle, she argues, “I don’t think you necessarily need to take your course abroad to get a feel for what that particular place is like in terms of its business culture.”
As most of the candidates are only a few months into their courses, the impressions they have so far are limited, although Babar admits to being surprised by the atmosphere among the students: “I expected that there would have been more rivalry,” he says, “but everybody is working together; it’s very much a collaborative effort.”
Look out for more on our MBA students in the September issue of easyJet inflight magazine.
Business schools across Europe are reporting a continued rise in applications, evidence of its increasing popularity. While some of this growth appears to come from individuals in Europe, the USA and other traditional MBA territories, the expansion also owes much to students studying the qualification further a field. “We anticipate a continued and healthy interest in the MBA,” says Jioia Pesbetto, Associate Dean of Durham Business School. “This growth is partly due to more students turning to flexible modes of learning such as part-time MBAs, distance learning programmes and executive MBAs. The increasingly global nature of business also makes the MBA an ideal choice for executives seeking to widen their career prospects in an international marketplace.”
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School of Thought
