Nevertheless, I still have a lot of take
aways from this stage. The pre-MBA stage not only provide a chance to learn about
those basic theories in the business subjects, which is essential for people
with no business knowledge background at all like me, and most important, a chance to
reflect, to scrutinize my personality from my own as well as from the feed back of
fellow MBAs that worked together for the past few weeks. It is really a precious chance to know not only how you see yourself, but also how other see you as a team member, or as a person. Well, I have to admit that I have fields to develop as well as fields to keep.
Some of the highlights of the Pre-MBA
stage:
1) Launch
of NfP (Not for Profit) Project
115 of us are divided into 23groups with 5
to 6 people in a group to work on the consultancy projects in Not-for-Profit
Organization. The projects cover wide range of business issues like fund
raising, branding and marketing strategy, new service development and launching
etc.
Our group consisted of a Brazilian Finance
Manager, a Peruvian Innovation Office Director, a Korean Banker, a Indian
Healthcare IT Consultant, a Russian Automotive Project Manager, and me, a
Malaysian Civil Engineer. Being a group with such a diversity, the meetings
were always full of argument
The real challenges are how to define the
problems from 6 different perspectives, draw out the best ideas from everyone, and achieve an agreement on
what is the best solution. So far, we were quite ineffective in the meeting as
it was really difficult to come with a conclusion satisfy all 6 people.
Nevertheless, those meeting outcomes are slowly and slowly transforming into
something more tangible, which may be our first piece of deliverable in the
MBA!
2) Skill
for Successful Manager
The so-called soft skill course which cover
courses in consultancy skills, presentation skills in this stage and will be
followed by subjects in project management and negotiation skills in next
stage. There are also 2 psychometric tests (Hogan & SHL) to check the individual
personalities. The results really mirror myself, the weakness that I
knew it for long but never take initiative to improve it. No more excuse to run away from it. Now is the time to fix
it right here, right now!
3) Brathay
The seniors told the excursion in Brathay
will be the best days in the MBA. Can't judge yet as I was only went through
the first month in the MBA. But the memory in Brathay is definitely
unforgettable. At the famous Lake District, beautiful landscape, blessed with
the sunny sky at the last day (raining the other 3 days!), challenging outdoor
activities, reflective group feedback, interesting and funny group performance, really a
perfect temporary run-away from the stressful MBA study. Here we built our
rapport, our team work and our self-confident!
4) Career
Management Service
MBS really put a lot of effort in the
career management. It might due to majority of the students are here to seek a career change. Career related workshops are held regularly just like the
other core course in the MBA. So far, we have the CV workshop, business
etiquette workshop, alumni panels, career safari, guest speaker series. More and more on-campus
company presentation will be held in the near future.
5) Time
Management
Not a subject in the pre-MBA, but really a
essential skill to survive in the MBA. All courses have projects or assignments, case
studies as well as pre-reading for each class. And it is just impossible to do everything
perfectly. Think of your MBA objective, set the priority, and allocate the time
efficiently, you may miss some of the works, but you won't miss your
big objective...this is what being told...
Talk is always easier than do. In fact, I
am still wondering how the hell to go thru this 18 months...
