My MBA Journey So far and the Road Ahead

Master of Business Administration or MBA for short. I have always known that I will be doing an MBA program but the feeling seems different in it now. Taking courses, meeting group members, doing cases studies, assignments and balancing all this with full-time job seems strange. Taking professional exams is abit straight forward as you read towards exam dates and that is it. With the MBA program and a full-time job, it is still hard to think that I am back in school again.

While I attended little of the Brush up classes, the corporate financial accounting class was the major part I was able to participate in and even with my finance background, I still learned a lot from the lecturer cause of the level of simplicity and approach the he took to the course.

Reading through the curriculum and seeing that case studies, class participation and assignments make up most of the course evaluation was a bit strange to me and I thought it will be very hard not to be engaged weekly with marks forming almost 70% to be earned before final exams.

At the Beginning, I rarely asked questions and participate in class but it’s beginning to be natural to ask questions especially as I find areas of interest to ask questions and learn new things or contribute to the class.

From Analysis of business problems to corporate financial accounting, Management communications and Data Analytics classes; All of which forms the foundation of the MBA program.

The Analysis of business problem class is as overwhelming as it is interesting. One of the reasons for enrolling in the MBA program is to learn how to solve business problems faster and more appropriately. The approach of the facilitator and the group case study discussion gives different insights to how the course will help shape my thought process and make me better at problem solving.

I use to love writing but stopped for sometime and it’s interesting to see the management communication course bringing back days I loved to write and share my thoughts.

In the corporate financial accounting class, while very relatable to accountants in the class, not so foreign to finance professionals like myself as we analyse reports prepared by accountants to make analysis for intending investors.

In the data analytics class, I’m mostly familiar with Microsoft excel but with lack of use for some time, the familiarity has reduced. Through this course, I’m seeing myself learning different analytics tools and taking it as an opportunity to learn and use them to solve business problems.

While going through all this, balancing work and school seems to be the biggest issue I’m yet to address. The Time management and discipline all will require will mean my transformation to be a better manager.

The journey seems still early, one would wonder if weeks are not running very fast with the depth of activities to deal with on a weekly basis. As the journey continues, the rigour of the work keeps increasing and the program keeps reminding me the reason I started which is to embrace the journey by learning, re-learning, unlearning and most importantly, to Grow.