Valuable knowledge: Girls about getting an MBA
MBA Business Education there are many opinions: some consider it an indispensable condition for a successful career, others - an unreasonably expensive ticket to a closed party or a heaped personal growth program. At the same time, an MBA (Master's Degree in Business Administration) is not a higher education, but an additional one. Managers, bosses, and just those who stayed in one workplace and want an energetic career spurt or knowledge about how to build their own business from scratch go to it.
During training, students listen to lectures on marketing, auditing, finance, and constantly solve practical business problems (cases) in groups. The first MBA programs appeared in the USA, and then in Europe. The Russian MBA is about 20 years old, and if in the West an MBA is a two-year (US) or one-year (Europe) full-time study, then in Russia it is mostly part-time or evening education for very busy people. To understand how an MBA changes lives, wonderzine talked with five girls about what has changed in their lives after passing an MBA program.
IE Business School
Madrid
Founded in 1973. In the ranking of Financial Times IE Business School - the third in Europe, eighth in the world.
Cost: 59 900 euros
I did not choose a school for an MBA, she chose me. I graduated from the faculty of state administration of Moscow State University and after studying I got a job in the sales department of a large tobacco company, but I soon realized that I wanted something more. I came across a competition organized by Procter & Gamble for girls from Eastern Europe, “Be yourself, be a star” in conjunction with the Spanish business school Instituto de Empresa (IE Business School). The main prize was the International MBA program in Madrid. It was necessary to offer a creative idea, write a business plan and make a presentation for the jury. I entered the top ten finalists and became the winner. Each business school has its own specifics, and IE is focused on entrepreneurship. Every six weeks we were given the task: to invent a new business idea, write a business plan, calculate the results of investments.
I was 23 and I was one of the youngest: the average age on the program is 29 years old. Therefore, it was not easy to study: every day I read 100 pages of business materials, and at the end of each semester I passed five or six exams. After finishing the program, I returned to Moscow, having received an offer to work at Johnson & Johnson. There I spent a wonderful three and a half years working in marketing and strategy departments, after which I left for London. Now I do freelance consulting in marketing and strategy. What is good about a Western MBA - it gives you the opportunity to make an international career, pushes you out of comfort zones, immediately a large number of connections appear all over the world. Of course, if the main thing is financial opportunities and fast career growth, then Moscow is a wonderful place. But the lifestyle is also important to me: to have a cup of coffee with a croissant in the morning, walk past the Thames to work, meet friends in the evening — things are somehow simpler in Europe.
Academy of National Economy under the President of Russia (RANEPA)
Moscow
Programs of the Academy of National Economy are included in the top rating of the magazine "Secret firms", some MBA programs have international accreditation.
Cost: from 120 thousand rubles a year, depending on the program
I had a very difficult period in my life: I broke up with a close friend, with whom we already had big plans. And I understood that I urgently need to change something in my life, and decided to go to study. I do not speak fluent English, so I was looking for a Russian business school with a good reputation in Moscow. I interviewed friends who got MBA, and I was advised by the Academy of National Economy. Then I worked as a manager of advertising on the radio "Seven on seven hills" and wanted to learn marketing and advertising. We had a stream - 60 people, the majority - men. There were also girls who had just graduated from college, who confessed that they had come to look for a husband.
We studied in the evenings five or six times a week. It was like a higher education, plus a large amount of work in groups: inventing business plans, launching steam plants, developing companies. Much was built on games, trainings, we were constantly filmed on camera, so that we could see ourselves from the outside. Some of the items we had were common to the whole flow, and some - by specialization (finance, marketing, management). Taught practices: for example, CEOs of large companies and advertising agencies. In 2006, I received an offer from a business partner to launch two Moscow radio stations, City FM and Relax FM, as the head of the advertising service department. Four years later, I headed the radio advertising department at the Gazprom-Media holding. Then I did not look for work, but only received offers.
MIRBIS
Moscow
The school was founded in 1988, all of its programs are internationally accredited by AMBA.
Cost: from 380 thousand rubles for the program
The decision to go to the MBA program was for me an adult conscious step. I worked as a marketing director at a wine trading company and chose the Strategic Management and Entrepreneurship program at MIRBIS, where I received a second degree at that time. The Russian MBA is very different from the western one: in our country it is mainly evening education for working people, and not full-time study, therefore it is impossible to demand scientific work and complete immersion from people. Therefore, if a student does not apply knowledge in the workplace, it will seem to him that the Russian MBA does nothing.
This is the same study on the cases, only on your own, when you realize that behind your decision is a real business and you have full responsibility. My diploma was market research and the launch of a new company on the market, which I later implemented. Of course, the Western MBA is more prestigious, but not all expats who come here with a Western education are capable of solving elementary management tasks in Russia, we have our own business specifics. Moreover, not everyone can leave everything and go abroad for two years: I have a family, children and work here. The most important thing that my MBA gave me is the freedom of choice, the confidence that I can work in all areas of business. Five years ago, I changed the wine trading business to advertising. Now I head the client service of the creative agency MILK.
Kingston university
Moscow, London
The British program, which Kingston Univerisity conducts in Moscow on the basis of the Academy of National Economy. The program is accredited by the international association AMBA.
Cost: 850 thousand rubles for the program
I thought about business education when I stopped being a journalist and started working as a media manager in a large publishing house. I began to manage a group of brands, and all questions put me at a dead end: how to sell them, how to write business plans? I wanted to get a Western MBA, and in Moscow I didn’t want to leave anywhere. Then I chose Kingston University, the only Western MBA program with training modules in Moscow, London and Amsterdam. The training was long lasting: for six days, the British taught us once every two months, and during the breaks - evening classes with Russian teachers. Every three weeks we wrote an assignment to a new topic. We were given tools, a comprehensive view of the business, concepts, models, strategies for launching new projects on the market.
After receiving an MBA, I realized what I was capable of, what I wanted and what I was able to achieve. This is also a new circle of contacts, a club of like-minded people. Of course, the MBA is expensive, someone pays for the program of the corporation, and someone pays for himself. The cost of education should be for a person a significant amount, then he begins to really invest in it. I paid for my MBA in literally six months due to salary growth: at first I grew inside the ED, and then I was bought up by a large film company, where I was responsible for all publishing. Then I decided that I wanted to work for myself, and I set up a PR-agency I-Consulting with my friends. Now I myself teach on MBA programs in Russia and abroad, I read communications and business development strategies.
INSEAD
Fontainebleau, Singapore, Abu Dhabi
One of the best business schools in the world according to Bloomberg Businessweek and Financial Times.
Program cost: 59 500 euros
After graduating from the Higher School of Economics and working for two years in consulting, I began to realize that something was missing. Studying at the MBA in the consulting world is an opportunity to take a year off and return. I chose one of the oldest entrepreneurial schools in Europe, the French INSEAD. The school has two campuses: in France and in Singapore, and you can live in two countries, and teaching is in English. The school selects students very meticulously. When I entered, we were 400 people from 80 countries of the world. INSEAD - pretty razdolbay school. Students do not go to lectures in jackets and ties, they can walk around a lot, go to parties a lot. I liked it. At work, it was the most difficult thing for me in interpersonal communication. Especially when it was necessary to convincingly convey recommendations to clients, and they often were much older than me and much more confident. Therefore, I attended psychological courses at INSEAD, and I spent a minimum of time on finance and economics.
When I was still preparing for admission, I remembered that I love to cook, and my best job in life was a summer part-time job as an assistant chef at the Gastronome culinary school. And here at INSEAD I made a student culinary club. We organized parties, to which everyone came with a dish from their national cuisine, we went to Paris on a tour of the most famous confectionery. When I arrived in Moscow, I returned to management consulting, but a year later I started to organize cooking classes on weekends. It soon became clear that this is what I want to do, and I quit. Now I earn at times less, but I became much happier: I have time to travel, dance, meet friends. It turned out that after the MBA, I did not advance in my career, but for me it was a way out to another level - I was able to start making decisions myself, without relying on a reliable company that would tell me what to do. And it was my school, my wonderful professors and friends with whom I was fortunate enough to meet, helped me in this.
Photo: mba2u.org