The counterintuitive notion that Manchester MBAs students "spend thousands of dollars to ... just play games at these workshops" suggests that not only you seem to have made up your mind, but also that you have a substantial misunderstanding of the Manchester MBA. You would be wise to be careful to not look only for data which confirm your current bias.

The admissions offices will be able to connect you with current students. Since you've reviewed the posts you will have seen comments by students on those programmes. I recommend you also message them directly, because they are unlikely to read this post. That said I can't see any way to get fresh perspectives about the cohort that starts later this year; after all, that is in the future.

I did not mean that you will not learn anything at MBS. Obviously there will be course content which must be mastered but from the video positing on YouTube and written articles about these induction workshops it seems that this is what is being focused on. I want to find out if people are being challenged in this course rather than going out for dinner and just networking.

I have done my research but what inside opinions from current and past students. I have reviewed all public information good and bad about the programs so your statement regarding my lack of research is false.

From my experience, admission offices connect you with students that have received scholarships and are usually obliged to provide postiive feedback.

In terms of fresh perspectives, I mean decision criteria or recent news about either school. Since you are neither an MBS or WBS student your input does not help. You have already posted your thoughts on other forums and they have been read. So please do not interfere with my post.

What are you looking for? I did an indepth assessment of Warwick and Manchester as well as EMBAs before I decided to embark on the Manchester course.

Be advised that the Manchester method is an approach to applied learning that goes beyond talk-and-chalk.

You will be lucky to have time for dinner, as the impression I got was that the workshops are extremely intense to the point at which there have been some moves to reduce the necessity evening working.

Each Workshop is three days. There are usually two assignments, one completed at the workshop (often group presentation) plus another one to be submitted online several weeks later. Most of the courses also have examinations at the end of the semester making half the overall mark.

The online portals and blackboard delivery of learning materials, interactive tasks and consolidation of your activities is very well developed and I find it very impressive.

Alternatively, a good insight into the Warwick experience can be found on Matt Cooling's excellent blog.

I would try and avoid being scathing of others input on this forum. Your post above comes across as arrogant and dismissive.

BigD

Self-evidently, I'm not sure that I don't have anything to offer. You have gathered the impression that Manchester MBAs "spend thousands of dollars to ... just play games at these workshops". That seems, from first principles, unlikely and it's a service to you to point it out.

While I'm not a student on at MBS, I am an alum of the school and a mentor to people on the MBA. I visit the school regularly and live with a student on the Global MBA. I also work as an admissions advisor to applicants comparing MBAs here in the UK. That said, I'm sure you're right: nothing I can say will be of any value to you, since you've made up your mind already.

PS Since the DL MBAs are aimed at working executives, I doubt the assumption that the students they will put you in touch with will be scholarship holders: they are not many scholarships for those programmes. Of course I have suggested to you that you should contact students directly. However, I invite you to reconsider the other assumption that scholarship holders will lie to you. If you think that MBAs at these schools don't have integrity, perhaps you should consider other schools?

<blockquote>I did not mean that you will not learn anything at MBS. Obviously there will be course content which must be mastered but from the video positing on YouTube and written articles about these induction workshops it seems that this is what is being focused on. I want to find out if people are being challenged in this course rather than going out for dinner and just networking.

I have done my research but what inside opinions from current and past students. I have reviewed all public information good and bad about the programs so your statement regarding my lack of research is false.

From my experience, admission offices connect you with students that have received scholarships and are usually obliged to provide postiive feedback.

In terms of fresh perspectives, I mean decision criteria or recent news about either school. Since you are neither an MBS or WBS student your input does not help. You have already posted your thoughts on other forums and they have been read. So please do not interfere with my post.</blockquote>

We all owe respect to Mr. Duncan for his invaluable contribution to this forum.

Regards
David

It seems that you have a misunderstanding about the workshops at MBS. They are in fact the highlight of each course and they are quite intense. Studying from books is one thing, but it becomes more interesting when a lecturer explains the theory and gives his/her own insights. The real added value of these workshops is that you get the opportunity to put the theory into practice in the presentations that you need to develop.

The quality of the workshops depends of course on the course itself and the lecturer that is teaching it, but overall I'm quite happy with the experience. I would consider the workshops one of the key reasons to choose the MBA at Manchester over another program.

Dear Optidorf,

Thank you very much for the isightful comments you made! This is the type of useful feedback I was looking for!

Can you tell me a little more about the workshops? Did you visit all the global centres? Also would you be able to share the course syllabus for managerial economics and marketing?

Thanks again!

Hi double J,

If you want to find more info about ME and Marketing, please check my posts on http://www.find-mba.com/board/33488

Regarding the workshops, I can tell that some of them are very rewarding. I'm thinking right now at Operations management one and I can tell you that I have learned more from the games we played at this workshop than reading the entire Slack book given as a a study prerequisite.

I'll detail later about OpM and accounting modules.

regards,

Hey cvm,

Thanks for your update! Really useful! Cant wait for your operations management update! By chance which international centres have you attended? Did you find any difference in the quality of workshops depending on the location?

By chance can you share the syllabus of OM with me just so can see schedule, topics etc?

Here it is:

The reading book is "Operations and Process Management" by Slack et. al.

http://www.amazon.com/Operations-Process-Management-EText-Principles/dp/0273768808/ref=la_B001HMOU5Q_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1369985504&sr=1-3

The study guide is made of 4 comprehensive units, like follows:
1. operations, processes and their strategy
2. planning and controlling the operations
3. supply networks
4. process and operations improvement

There is an additional supplement to Slack's book related to service operations.

The rest, they request you to study additional academic papers available in their online library.

Regards,

<blockquote>Dear Optidorf,

Thank you very much for the isightful comments you made! This is the type of useful feedback I was looking for!

Can you tell me a little more about the workshops? Did you visit all the global centres? Also would you be able to share the course syllabus for managerial economics and marketing?

Thanks again!</blockquote>

I attended my workshops only at Manchester, but the school encourages you to attend other centres. It will pay for your stay of five nights two times. Lecturers travel as well meaning that a lecturer teaching in Manchester can also teach in another centre. Students who have visited other centres certainly recommend it.

For the workshops I'll give a brief overview of my opinion:

- Global events & leadership: Here you need to analyze a business case and give recommendations to a client. The concepts of map reading, map testing and map making are explained here. Most opinions about this course are divided. It depends on you what you get out of it.
- Managerial economics: one of the best workshops in the curriculum. The course itself is very interesting as well as the (many) cases. The presentation is about applying game theory to a company and setting its course of action for the future.
- Marketing: The course itself is a little bit dry, but the topic for the presentation is quite interesting. Here you need to develop a marketing plan for developing a male grooming product. It's a good opportunity to apply all the marketing concepts that you have learned.
- Operations management: One of the easier courses. The presentation is about visiting a store and evaluating its operations. The course content concentrates on a few areas such as quality and lean. In the beer distrubtion game you learn the concept of the bullwhip effect.
- Accountancy: One of the courses that I enjoyed less, but this was mainly due to the lecturer. The content itself is quite interesting and focuses on the managerial aspect of accounting. Here you develop two presentation. One on the second day about ratios (financial accounting) and another about a concept used in management accounting. Most people use the balanced scorecard. The course wasn't graded very good and recently the content has been revised (less intense from what I have heared)
- Managing internationally across business systems: A sociological course that studies the importance of business systems and how people act in these business systems. It's not a a course that you expect in an MBA, but it tells how people do business in their daily lives. The workshop is pretty intense with five cases that have to be presented. It made me appreciate the content of the course more, but others found it boring.
- Corporate finance: Just as marketing a pretty dry course, but in the presentation everything came together and it's quite interesting to see how all the material is combined to evaluate an investment project. It's also pretty surprising to see that each group comes up with different results and recommendations for the case (Laurentian Bakeries)
- Business simulation: This is mainly an online course, but there's one day where you sit together with your group to discuss the start of a business where you take control of management. I really enjoyed this one, because it's quite practical and you apply the skills that you have learned.
- Strategic management: A very interesting course, but unfortunately the lecturer wasn't very good which made the workshop a little bit dull. Here you're divided into five groups and each group presents an aspect of strategy (external analysis, corporate strategy, resources & skills, business strategy, implementation) in a roleplay.
- International business strategy (elective): For this course time is divided 50/50 over lecturing and practice. In the workshop three case studies are presented that go about companies negotiating their foreign direct investments in a country abroad. A very practical course with a lot of input of the lecturer. In my case she was barely older than me, so she wasn't very experienced.

Optidorf excellent summary of the workshops! Which were the other two electives that you took?

Can you or anyone else also comment on the support WBS and MBS provided in the job hunt? Have graduates of either program found a new job quickly or did the school have any role in helping you obtain a new (and hopefully higher paying) job? Please feel free to comment about this

I don't know about Manchester, but I know that the career support for the Warwick distance learning program is fairly robust: There are, of course, the online resources (workshops, Skype support, etc.) but the real kicker is that you can attend face-to-face recruitment events.

It's my opinion that the in-person career fairs are where the magic happens - and many online MBA programs don't offer these kinds of services.

My guess is that Warwick will have the edge on Manchester for careers support.

The career support at MBS is one of their points of attention which they are trying to improve. MBS' career services consists of webinars (consultancy, banking), network events at the workshops, search engines at their careers site, job flashes that are regularly sent by mail and three hours of face-to-face with someone from the careers team.

There's no such thing as a face-to-face recruitment event and I don't see that happening anytime soon. They do refer however to online recruitment events held at http://www.mba-exchange.com/ but they are only held a few times a year.

Hmmm. Well that does remind me that I recently wrote something about an event I attended for MBA MBA students, alumni and friends in London. I didn't notice many Global MBA students there.

I wasn't aware of that and I don't think MBS has sent a mail for promoting such an event.

The problem with these mails is that there are so many mails sent that it's easy to overlook an interesting mail for a webinar or a job flash. Students have complained about the number of mails sent, but on the other hand students will do the same if there aren't enough mails sent.

Due to the global character of the distance learning MBA at MBS it will always prove to be difficult to organize a face-to-face event that students will attend. I think that online events are more convenient for distance learning MBA students. I attended one organized by Philips at http://www.mba-exchange.com/ and the quality was quite good. The problem is however that these events are organized by the companies themselves and not the school.

Hi Double J
Did you then decide which one you want to go for? Also, could you please give any tips on writing essays for WBS and MBS?

Cheers
Gati