Online MBA Forum

Saturday - the weekend, and a good time to recoup. But it's also a time when you can get some online MBA reflection in. One good study tip that a friend gave me is that he does a summary of many of the lesson notes - just a few words to give the essence of the topic.

At the weekends, when he goes out with his family, he takes a walk by himself - maybe just ten minutes out of the day. He reads his summaries, and then he can take time during the day to turn over the subjects in his head, in between the times he is involved with his family. His family don't miss this down time, and they find his company good. He gets reflection time, so is able to contribute to his study time without withholding time from his family. Neat, I think.

I had a long conversation with my colleague who is studying on a Masters along side some online MBA students. We were talking about how effective using chat rooms can be, especially when the numbers of students were large. His comments were illuminating. He said that it really was not so very different from being in a classroom, as everybody did not always want to comment all the time. And in the same way that only one person can speak at once in the classroom situation, so also in the chatroom situation.

His only real objection to the process was one that could not be avoided. He's studying with the University of Liverpool in the UK, but he is actually situated in New Zealand, so the time difference is 13 hours, and he's getting short on sleep.

My Russian friend who studied an MBA last year told me that the hardest part of the process for him was passing the GMAT with a sufficiently high score that he could get into the school of his choice. He did well on the quantitive part of the test, but getting his English sentence construction up to scratch was really difficult.

He also commented that he really needed those skills when he came to do much of the work on his MBA. And for an online MBA these skills are even more important, as you need to be able to communicate so well on "paper".

A couple of days ago I wrote about the GMAT. I've been asked to explain a little about it, so here goes.

The GMAT (Graduate Management Admission Test) helps graduate management schools to work out the abilities of candidates for their graduate programs - in particular MBA programs. It consists of three parts:

1. Analytical Writing Assessment - 30 minutes to cover 2 areas, the analysis of a given issue and tna analysis of an argument.

2. Quantitative section - 37 multiple choice questions on data sufficiency and problem solving, with 75 minutes to complete.

3. Verbal section - 75 minutes to complete 41 multiple choice questions on grammer, reading comprehension and reasoning.

The test is in English, and it gives some basic information about your ability to handle the data crunching, analytical and reporting activities you will undertake while you are studying for your online MBA.

A colleague of mine is studying an online Masters degree in Information Science. Interestingly some of the early modules are shared with the online MBA that the university offers. These early modules are about some simple study techniques, such as vocabulary, report and assignment writing, research and academic writing including referencing research.

It's interesting that when you study a subject, you learn so much more than just the subjects that you elect to study. Past programs have taught me things like report writing, how to write well in an academic environment, presentation skills and even how to lecture. All from a degree in Computer Science.

Arrhh, the dreaded GMAT. I'm lucky enough that I've never had to pass this particular hurdle, and I hope I never have to. I have to say that I've talked to several people who have taken it for whom English is a second language, and they tell me that this makes it particularly hard to handle.

However, it is a hurdle that you can really practice for, and it is really necessary to gain a good score to be able to choose which MBA or online MBA program you would like to study. So learning how to get good scores is a first step to being able to make sure you gain entry to the right MBA program for you.