Hi guys
I am a third semester student in the Manchester Global MBA. I obtained a lot of good information here and I am writing this to give back to the community.
There are many points that I wish to convey. My hope is that you will get some good information about this program and distance learning in general from someone in the trenches.
The MBA seems to emphasize basic and fundamental skills and concepts. It is best you have the basics out of the way first. I assume that the GMAT is the vehicle for such learning. You should know how to write a great research paper, do basic algebra and time management skills. The business school falls under the humanities. Most of your work will be research and theory, not math. If you can write logical papers, you will do well. However, the Manchester program requires many other soft skills.
The soft skills seem to be developed at the workshops. These are intensive 3 day classroom settings that attempt to replace the traditional classroom. They consist of an assignment given at about 4pm on the first day. They are due at about 10 am on day three. Note that during this time, you have class and mini cases from 9am-5pm. I call the workshops ?the meat grinder?. Often you are placed in groups that are difficult mostly due to personality conflicts. You must learn to navigate the workshops, build an effective team and get the job done. About 1/3 of your grade comes from the workshops.
For the most part the quality of the students are high. They hail from all corners of the world. It seems some classes have a heavy African component or Asian component. The older African students (45+) have a reputation for being freeloading, having trouble with English and lacking basic computer skills. The younger ones, mid 20 & 30s (which have been in my groups) have all been brilliant and hard working. The Asian and European students seem to follow a more normal distribution with most hard working with a few bad apples.
The program offers great networking opportunities. However, having such a geographically diverse friend list is not valuable. 95% of people live in places I will never live and in businesses I will never have need of contacts. Sure, you might get lucky and a relationship will pay off in the future but the students are too busy with school, work and family to understand your skills and capabilities. My advice is to concentrate your networking with friends or people who are geographically close. This will become more apparent if you are in the program.
About a month before the semester starts you get a box shipped to you with your course pack. Normally, these consist of a standard popular textbook, a self-published textbook (from your professor, I call them ?professor books?) and a study guide. The study guide is what students follow to get a B+ or ?A. The textbooks are standard and it looks like to me most business schools use them. The ?professor books? are difficult to read and not edited well. They are brilliant but sometimes incomprehensible and looks like they are written for phd students, not MBA students. If you go over the study guide and do your best to hit the books, and can write well, you will do well on the assignments.
Most of the assignments so far have been research papers. Normally, you have one mid paper, one workshop presentation and one final paper. The papers are about 3000 words. The workshop presentation is normally 20 minutes plus q and a. Again, if you can write and research, you will do great.
The content in the books, are brilliant and paradigm shifting. Flat out the professors are amazing and do a fantastic job of presenting and bringing the theories to life. I can 100% recommend the content, books and professors.
There are some negatives, which the administration knows about. First is it takes a long time to get your grade back on the papers, sometimes 8-10 weeks. Many of us are upset with the slowness of the response and have complained. Second, some students seem to not speak English well and you will get penalized in your workshop grade for their poor presentation skills. Many students show up to the workshop not have studied or read much of anything. It is infuriating to have to carry your team or when the professors have to answer basic questions. Manchester needs to develop a mechanism to ensure the students have prepared for the workshop before attending. Your grades hang in the balance.
Third, you are on your own for learning. The IT system, blackbord sucks. It is horrible and is not designed for global classrooms. It is not worth it to log in and attempt to read through all of the questions that other students ask. There is not a way to aggregate questions or information. Often you will have 100 posts relating to the same few topics. Further, a professor seems to write a reply that is fantastic but 24-72h later. Or the professor writes a quick reply within 2 hours but is flippant and doesn?t get to the heart of your mis-understanding. Many of the other students ask basic questions about the assignment and it is a total waste of time to read them.
There are also few videos and few lectures, which are disappointing. You are lucky if you get two in a semester and often just cover the same things in the study guide that you could have read with greater efficiency. You need to make the effort to cobble a study group together.
The value is there if you put the time in. You can do the minimum work and just learn from the study guides and get a B. The global provides a platform for working adults to teach yourself and get the diploma. Don?t expect much help or anyone looking out for you. To the administration, you are a number. The professors genuinely want to interact and help you. The papers, concepts and applications they introduce to you are A+.
In the end, to me it comes down to whether I would recommend the program. If you have a family, a job and you need to learn and get the degree, I can recommend the program. You will get exposed to the same material as the full time. If you really want to dig in, learn, interact with professors, build a network over time you need to join a full time program.
I am a third semester student in the Manchester Global MBA. I obtained a lot of good information here and I am writing this to give back to the community.
There are many points that I wish to convey. My hope is that you will get some good information about this program and distance learning in general from someone in the trenches.
The MBA seems to emphasize basic and fundamental skills and concepts. It is best you have the basics out of the way first. I assume that the GMAT is the vehicle for such learning. You should know how to write a great research paper, do basic algebra and time management skills. The business school falls under the humanities. Most of your work will be research and theory, not math. If you can write logical papers, you will do well. However, the Manchester program requires many other soft skills.
The soft skills seem to be developed at the workshops. These are intensive 3 day classroom settings that attempt to replace the traditional classroom. They consist of an assignment given at about 4pm on the first day. They are due at about 10 am on day three. Note that during this time, you have class and mini cases from 9am-5pm. I call the workshops ?the meat grinder?. Often you are placed in groups that are difficult mostly due to personality conflicts. You must learn to navigate the workshops, build an effective team and get the job done. About 1/3 of your grade comes from the workshops.
For the most part the quality of the students are high. They hail from all corners of the world. It seems some classes have a heavy African component or Asian component. The older African students (45+) have a reputation for being freeloading, having trouble with English and lacking basic computer skills. The younger ones, mid 20 & 30s (which have been in my groups) have all been brilliant and hard working. The Asian and European students seem to follow a more normal distribution with most hard working with a few bad apples.
The program offers great networking opportunities. However, having such a geographically diverse friend list is not valuable. 95% of people live in places I will never live and in businesses I will never have need of contacts. Sure, you might get lucky and a relationship will pay off in the future but the students are too busy with school, work and family to understand your skills and capabilities. My advice is to concentrate your networking with friends or people who are geographically close. This will become more apparent if you are in the program.
About a month before the semester starts you get a box shipped to you with your course pack. Normally, these consist of a standard popular textbook, a self-published textbook (from your professor, I call them ?professor books?) and a study guide. The study guide is what students follow to get a B+ or ?A. The textbooks are standard and it looks like to me most business schools use them. The ?professor books? are difficult to read and not edited well. They are brilliant but sometimes incomprehensible and looks like they are written for phd students, not MBA students. If you go over the study guide and do your best to hit the books, and can write well, you will do well on the assignments.
Most of the assignments so far have been research papers. Normally, you have one mid paper, one workshop presentation and one final paper. The papers are about 3000 words. The workshop presentation is normally 20 minutes plus q and a. Again, if you can write and research, you will do great.
The content in the books, are brilliant and paradigm shifting. Flat out the professors are amazing and do a fantastic job of presenting and bringing the theories to life. I can 100% recommend the content, books and professors.
There are some negatives, which the administration knows about. First is it takes a long time to get your grade back on the papers, sometimes 8-10 weeks. Many of us are upset with the slowness of the response and have complained. Second, some students seem to not speak English well and you will get penalized in your workshop grade for their poor presentation skills. Many students show up to the workshop not have studied or read much of anything. It is infuriating to have to carry your team or when the professors have to answer basic questions. Manchester needs to develop a mechanism to ensure the students have prepared for the workshop before attending. Your grades hang in the balance.
Third, you are on your own for learning. The IT system, blackbord sucks. It is horrible and is not designed for global classrooms. It is not worth it to log in and attempt to read through all of the questions that other students ask. There is not a way to aggregate questions or information. Often you will have 100 posts relating to the same few topics. Further, a professor seems to write a reply that is fantastic but 24-72h later. Or the professor writes a quick reply within 2 hours but is flippant and doesn?t get to the heart of your mis-understanding. Many of the other students ask basic questions about the assignment and it is a total waste of time to read them.
There are also few videos and few lectures, which are disappointing. You are lucky if you get two in a semester and often just cover the same things in the study guide that you could have read with greater efficiency. You need to make the effort to cobble a study group together.
The value is there if you put the time in. You can do the minimum work and just learn from the study guides and get a B. The global provides a platform for working adults to teach yourself and get the diploma. Don?t expect much help or anyone looking out for you. To the administration, you are a number. The professors genuinely want to interact and help you. The papers, concepts and applications they introduce to you are A+.
In the end, to me it comes down to whether I would recommend the program. If you have a family, a job and you need to learn and get the degree, I can recommend the program. You will get exposed to the same material as the full time. If you really want to dig in, learn, interact with professors, build a network over time you need to join a full time program.
