We are gradually coming to the end of the first semester of the first year of our MBA program. How time flies! I still remember my first day at Lagos Business School. The events of that first day are still very fresh in my memory. It was the 5th day of October. On account of the traffic congestion in Lagos, I had woken up at 4:30am to prepare for school. I did not want to be late for lectures on the very first day in school. I was so excited to begin the program. My excitement was not borne out of the fact that I knew all that the MBA had to offer me. My excitement was motivated by curiosity; curiosity to discover what the MBA would offer me giving my unique background.
As someone with little or no background in accounting, when we started the program about two months ago, I found so many things strange. I struggled to cope (the struggles still continue though). During lectures, I was constantly going to google to check the meaning of the concepts that our teacher kept mentioning in our Corporate Financial Accounting class. Concepts like account receivables, account payables, going concern, accrual concept, and so on were all strange to me.
In the first semester of the first year, we had a total of six courses outside the courses that were done during the brush-up sessions. These six courses include: Corporate Financial Accounting (CFA), Analysis of Financial Problems (ABP), Data Analysis (DA), Management Communication (MC), Business Ethics (BE) and the Nature of Human Beings (NHB). I have personal stories to share about each of these courses but that will be in our next post.
Initially, I saw these courses as independent and unconnected courses. But as we progressed in the program, I had a different understanding. I noticed that the courses are not independent; they are related and interconnected. The knowledge got from one course is needed in the other course. If you do not understand any of the courses, there is a high likelihood that you will not have a better understanding of the other courses.
Going by example, in Management Communication, we learn the art of communication- writing, public speaking, and presentation. The speaking and writing skills we learn from our course on Management Communication will help us in making presentations in other courses and writing business reports at the end of our analysis in CFA, DA, and ABP courses. In the course, Analysis of Financial Problems, we learn how to critically analyze business problems and make decisions that will be helpful for the growth of our business. In our decision-making process, we need to be guided by the ethics of business. Ethics is about doing good and avoiding evil. In Corporate Financial Accounting for instance, we learn that the goal of every business is to make profit. Business Ethics will tell us that inasmuch as profit-making is the main objective of every business, business owners must ensure that profit is made responsibly.
In addition, the course, Nature of Human Beings exposes us to the understanding of the human person especially from the Christian perspective. The human person is unlike other animals; the human person is created in the image of God. Ethics centers around the fact that the human person created in the image of God possesses an innate dignity which must be respected. In our workplaces and in decision-making processes in our business, we must always bear in mind that the human person possesses a certain dignity which must not be abused or exploited. The human person must never be used as a means to an end nor should the human person be sacrificed on the altar of profit.
Lastly, in order to make good business decisions, we need the tools of logical thinking which we gained from our Management Communication and Analysis of Financial Problem courses. As managers and future business owners, our decision must never be based on emotion and feelings but on rational thought and logic. Logic is about right reason. The regression analysis we learn in Data Analytics is what we use in analyzing financial data in Corporate Financial Accounting. The list of interconnectedness is endless. The principles you learn from one course will guide you in solving a problem or carrying out an activity in another course. The important lesson to learn from this is that if you study MBA courses as independent and unconnected courses, you may run the risk of not reaping the full benefit of the entire program.
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