Starting the Distance learning MBA

Simon Anderson and Beate Bruske, Distance learning MBA candidates shares why they chose to study the Warwick MBA and thier first impressions of the programme.

Simon Anderson

"After a number of years of internal dialogue in November 2016 I finally decided to take the plunge and commit to an MBA.  The first major challenge was convincing my wife that the logical choice was to not apply to an Australian university (where I have been living for the last six years) but rather apply for the distance learning programme at WBS.

Related course: Distance learning MBA

Surprisingly enough, after an evening of honest discussions we were in agreement that the prospect of flying half way around the world was actually the best option available to me. One of the key factors in my decision making process was finding a programme where I was in control of my own time, committing time to my studies when it suits me as opposed to the University.  With three children under four years old and a job that requires me to travel frequently being able to honour my existing home and work commitments was a necessity and the on-line structure allows me to do this extremely effectively.

Four months in and the programme has not disappointed – the online content is delivered with minimal fuss and the my.wbs learning environment allows you to easily manage your own progress depending on your current commitments. Given the time difference to Australia I am required to watch playbacks of all of the lectures but with the video and commentary feeds being maintained in these recordings you don’t even notice the fact that you can be watching a day or two later.

I am finding that discipline and planning are key skills to ensure you stay on track through the programme (things I am having to master quickly!). That is what makes the Warwick Week concept so important to the learning process, but that is a discussion for another day…"

Beate Bruske

"Starting the MBA is an amazing journey. It’s really great to be part of such a big multicultural group; 196 students from more than 50 countries, with different backgrounds and careers and a lot of things to learn from each other.

For a working mother who has recently started a new career path the online learning MBA is the right choice; it’s absolutely flexible and the learning platform is really clear, making it easy to set up the priorities and organize the calendar.

Before meeting my colleagues I was a little sceptical about how I would get on with people coming from a totally different environment; to my imagination I thought of these people as being classical business people, really professional and no humanity as often portrayed in Hollywood films. Honestly, I was quite scared because as the first graduate of my family coming from an agriculture environment I felt like a fish out of water. Surprisingly, during my first Warwick Week I only met nice people with high ethical and business values, a lot of them working for charity, with the aim of bringing business also to the charity world in order to make more efficient investments for humanitarian needs.

My group was really mixed in terms of multicultural members: we were from Kenya, England, Poland, Spain, Malesia and Germany. We immediately started to work together using a really democratic approach by collecting ideas from each other and putting them together as our work with no tensions but only positive collaboration and sharing of experiences.

Even after Warwick Week we have remained in contact and they are helping me to stay on track with my studies, because they know that I’m facing personal and professional problems and really support me by sharing their knowledge with me. I feel like being in a rugby team where we bring the MBA ball together to the goal."