MBA blog

With his great analytical mind, would Sherlock Holmes have made a good MBA candidate  © Image by Getty

Heading to the City of London’s Old Billingsgate Market on my first day as a London Business School MBA, many thoughts ran through my mind. What would the students there be like? Was I skilled and experienced enough to bring valuable insight? If so, how would I be able to adapt my unusual background to business situations? I went over my time in the military and tried to convince myself that all the soft skills I acquired would help me contribute to the LBS community. Read more

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When I first moved to Sydney, I was amazed at how particular people were about their coffee, and everyone had their favourite barista. The simple process of ordering a coffee was complex – do you have a flat white, cappuccino, piccolo, short black, soya latte etc? But what I found most surprising was how much money people spent on coffee. Read more

Was I mad to start an executive MBA in the exact same week as a new job? After the first five days running marketing at a PLC, I definitely needed a lie-in. Instead, my alarm attacked me at 5am, set at that ungodly hour so I would have time to get to Surrey for the degree’s induction weekend.

By the time the evening lecture took place on the Saturday, I was struggling to stay awake. And so I committed an act that any self-respecting student would consider shameful on their first Saturday: I slipped off to bed at 9pm. Read more

MBA students at Imperial will use a Fitbit Zip to record the steps it takes to get to Hanoi and back before their MBA is over

Then we heard something a little unexpected: “So we thought it would be really nice if you, as a class, ran to Hanoi.” Read more

Rockclimbing is just one of the activities used to test Durham's new MBAs

After months of anticipation, my MBA programme at Durham University is finally underway. With an intensive week-long induction, the class of 2017 started to make the transition from the business world to the classroom. Read more

Small change can come from coaching sessions  © Image by Getty

I have just finished an intensive unit on coaching and performance management and it has been a revelation. Hands on from the start, students were required to have a “live coachee” for the six weeks of the course. Read more

Facebook and WhatsApp are good for group conversations among students  © Image by Getty

Our personal lives are more digital than ever before. I am reminded every day when I look at how both my daughters – two and four years old – intuitively and naturally engage with my smart phone and iPad. This is the technology that has become part of our lives, and my children do not know a world without it. Read more

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One question I get more often than any other is why I chose an online programme over on-campus. Read more

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This summer I got the ball rolling in preparation for my MBA at Copenhagen Business School with a little inspirational book reading. Read more

Serendipitous innovation: Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin by accident   © Image by Getty

Often referred to as a ‘happy surprise’, serendipity has formed the basis of many movies, novels and stories. However, in recent research about the innovation process in organisations, serendipity is used to describe innovation as “the act of finding answers to questions not yet posed”. Read more

Although many business schools require one or more essays to be submitted with an application for an MBA or other course, entry to the USyd MBA is by interview only. But candidates are shortlisted for interview following submission of a one-page statement on the expected professional and personal benefits of doing the MBA. Having been on the programme for a year now, I am often asked what to include in the statement. My advice is always to be honest. And get someone to proof read what you write. Based on my experience here are 10 tips for writing a successful statement:

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I recently downloaded a neat productivity app called Clear, whose £3.99 price-tag seemed pretty steep for a simple, stripped-back and user-friendly list tool. Given my MBA workload, it turns out it is a bargain. What’s more, you also get an enlightening quote after each list you clear. My first was “an ant on the move does more than a dozing ox”, which was said by Lao Tzu, an ancient Chinese philosopher and writer. Read more