More Students Get MBAs Online
from the is-it-worth-it? dept
When friends of mine are debating whether to do a part-time or a full-time MBA program, I always suggest they go for the full-time program. The most valuable part of business school isn’t always what you learn or the degree you get – it’s often the people you meet. That’s much more difficult when you’re not there very often. However, not everyone wants to give up 21 months of their working lives to experience business school, and having the degree on your resume certainly can help (and, depending on the school, some of what you learn may help as well…). So, I guess it’s no surprise that online MBA programs are doing quite well, even if none of the top universities will go near them. While many top schools offer executive MBA programs, these still require the students to get together every once in a while.
Comments on “More Students Get MBAs Online”
No Subject Given
I did my MBA part time at night. I think a big advantage is the ability to use what you are learning in your job immediately. The whole “who you meet” thing really only applies if you are matriculating at Harvard or some other stop tier school. Also, if you go part time you may be able to pull off what I did and get your employer to pick up the tab.
Re: No Subject Given
I agree with Chris. For the past 4 years, I have been going part-time in the evenings to earn my MBA. I think the benefits of going to school while working full-time are three-fold.1)Hardly any tuition has come out of my pocket. Most businesses have some sort of education reimbursement benefit. Why go full-time and end up with even more student loans on top of undergrad loans? 2)Much easier to retain and understand what you learn when you see things discussed in class in your place of work everyday. 3)By continually keeping my bosses updated on where I am at in school and what I am learning, it has made it easier to set myself up for opportunities, promotions and make my image in my boss’s eye as a “valuable asset” to the company. I have survived two cutbacks because of that.
Distance MBA
I did about half of an MBA using an online program. The problem that I ran into was that they wanted to simulate the “people you meet” aspect in an asynchronous environment. You couldn’t just do your own work and be done, rather you had to work in teams. Normally I have nothing against this, but in the asynch world the inherent time lag became a real problem. Coordination amongst the team members added so much overhead to the process that the subject matter took a back seat. I got frustrated and quit. I think if they had not had the team concept I would have seen the program through to completion.