MBA (Master of Business Administration) is Postgraduate program of Business Administration, conductive to the degree of master, intending the opportunity of further intellectual work or practical activities. There are more than one hundred various courses in Great Britain, which may help you to take a degree.
There are different modes of study, duration and mode of attendance of MBA Programs, also there is online learning. Intensive yearly program with full-time education is very popular in Great Britain.
MBA Program as distinct from the other study programs, which lead to taking master’s degree in the same major for which the bachelor’s degree was taken, provides for the opportunity that access qualification may not be related to the business and the bachelor’s degree which is usually an exclusive requirement for entry onto the MBA Program can be taken in any other qualification. MBA course includes wide range of new and unknown subjects and demands extensive effort of a student (up to 70 hours of lessons per week).
Common MBA Program in Business Administration includes common compulsory course, which is preceded by an introductory course and optional course. For example, if a student lacks basic knowledge in statistics or computer knowledge, he should choose the MBA Program, which has elective courses of statistics, accountancy and computer processing of data.
Introductive course or orientation usually takes place in the beginning of a school year. This program introduces students to the special aspects and topics of MBA program and gives the opportunity to get acquainted with fellow students and personnel of the department. It lasts one week in the beginning of first half-year and in spite of the fact that it is considered to be facultative, it is strongly encouraged to be attended.
Main subjects
The basic studies come after the end of introductive course; this course introduces the students to foundations, general concepts and theories required for the study of eight major functional disciplines. It lasts ten weeks of first half-year and ten weeks of second half-year. Main subjects must be attended, though some schools allow the student to refuse the discipline in which he already has the necessary qualification.
The basic studies of MBA must include such disciplines as: Financial Statements, economics, human resource management, information management, the behavior of organizations (groups), quantitative methods (decision-making), marketing, business administration. The names of the courses may vary in different schools.
After completing the basic studies, students study main subjects under grade, what makes more profound background knowledge. It starts in the beginning of the second half-year and lasts for the third semester.
MBA Programs take into account the growing importance of so-called “delicate Sciences”. During lectures and seminars students study the skills of team building, negotiating, making presentations, mastery of being a leader, motivation techniques and the ability to defend their point of view.
Optional courses
Optional subjects come after basic courses (sometimes they go hand in hand) and a student can choose subjects he needs for specialization in the field he is interested in. Usually all schools offer optional subjects but number and the choice of these subjects can vary each year depending on demands and available teachers. All in all, the smaller the school is, the less optional subjects will be offered. Usually students can choose from 3 to 8 optional courses out of 10 -40 offered courses depending on the structure of the course. For example, optional courses may be follows: international law, macro strategy, analysis of the industrial market, chaos theory, international finances and management of small business.
Dissertation or class project
During the third semester students have practical training or so-called business administration project, which lasts from 2 to 4 months and includes 400 hours of partially-paid work in the capacity of advisor in one of companies and study of the main subjects, for example, cable television market, risk management in international banks and advertising strategy on the Internet.
Upon completing the practice, a student has to write a dissertation (10000-15000 words). Thus the student has an opportunity to show his capability to reduce to practice all information he was given during the lectures and seminars.
You can work on the dissertation individually or in the group of 2-4 people under the supervision of school teacher. Group work may be more preferable than individual work because it nurtures necessary skills of teamwork.
Teaching methodology
The basic methods of teaching during MBA courses are conventional lectures, teamwork, case studies and project work. Presentations (public speech with slides and charts), role plays and computerized modeling also can be used during trainings. Lectures take around 16 hours per week. Some of MBA Programs combine the subjects, showing the connection between different subjects and their cooperation in the real world of business.
At the beginning of a lesson the headmaster of the program can divide the students into small (from 3 to 10 people) independent groups for work on the projects, preparation of presentations and so on. Sometimes students can be divided into the groups by themselves, but usually most of the schools prefer to mix students with different qualifications and professional background, students of different cultures and nationalities in order to allow the students to learn from each other. About as complete as in real life the students can’t choose people they have to work with, it depends on students only whether their group can work fine as a team or not.
During the lessons a student can be asked to analyze the concrete situation, problem, which the company was faced, to make recommendations about solution of this problem to the whole class and be able to espouse his own view during panel discussion.
In addition to a lot of hours of work in the classroom, students have to spend a lot of time reading the books and preparing individual and group tasks. For example, the analysis and case study of one concrete situation takes up to 30 pages and it can be only a part of everyday homework assignment.
Assessment
Most of the schools use traditional exams and also course assessment for student evaluation. But some of the schools do not set any formal exams at all. Every subject of the basic course consists of several units, which are marked by essays, reports and the final exam. As a rule, examinations are conducted at the end of first semester or the first stage of MBA Program and almost completely (70%) depend on marks of each subject.
The students can also take exams in optional subject, which can be conducted individually or for a group of students. If the work was performed by a group of students, the mark of every student depends on the mark of other students of the group.
Depending on the school, the exams can be conducted on the principle of “open book variety”, it means that the students can use special educational material for this subject to prepare the answer and he doesn’t have to answer from memory.
Special MBA Programs
Most of MBA Programs are of general nature and offer the students to choose optional subjects with certain specialization. However, there are some international MBA Programs, which specialize in the study of a certain region, for example, North-West Asia, Europe or Japan or of a certain field as education, health service, agribusiness and so on. Main subjects here are the same but their content is more focused on the area of specialization.
Cost of educating
Cost of MBA Program is from 10 000 to 25 000 pounds sterling per year and depends on the school and academic program. Also you need around 500 pounds sterling per year for food, accommodation expense, tickets and other expenses.
GMAT
The students probably have to pass GMAT (Graduate Management Admission Test) it is specially developed examination on analytical abilities and communication skills of the student, knowledge of the English language.
AMBA
Full details about MBA qualification and academic programs can be found in Association of MBA
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