Jun 24 2011 11:00AM
MBA| students in their final year at UCS have returned from a highly successful residential study week in the USA where they undertook an assessed consultancy project for a leading edge, hi-tech company based just outside Boston, Massachusetts.
The Postgraduate students were given the brief as part of a week long visit to the Sawyer Business School, Suffolk University| in Boston. Their brief was to devise a new product development and international marketing plan for some technical wizardry, the nature of which is of such commercial sensitivity that everyone involved had to sign non-disclosure agreements. Representatives for the international organisation were so impressed with their work that it is very possible that the students' research, analysis and recommended marketing strategy could end up with a radical new product entering a global market.
Sue Carpendale, Senior Business Lecturer at UCS, said: “The benefits of this style of study and assignment are both the challenge of a real-time business problem, for which students use the skills and knowledge built up during the previous 18 months, and the exposure to the New England business culture and environment. As soon as the plane lands at Logan International, they realise that this is for real, and the pressure kicks in.”
Working in small groups, the Boston consultancy projects are annually regarded by the MBA students as the highlight of their MBA programme, embedding their learning in a manner that cannot be experienced in a classroom.
Sue Carpendale continued: “As well as visits to the companies issuing the business challenges, the visit includes half a day at the British Consulate, hosted by the Consul and Head of Trade and Investment, and a series of classes run by Boston Faculty at the Sawyer Business School. The students are also able to integrate with the local Executive MBA cohort, sampling the US teaching, learning and business styles in yet another context.”
The MBA at UCS runs as a part-time or full-time programme and has collaborated with the Sawyer Business School at Suffolk University in Boston for several years. The part-time programme is aimed at practising managers - likely to be graduates with at least three years' work experience, or senior managers looking to formalise their business experience.
The part-time programme takes just over two years; the full time MBA is designed for recent graduates looking to develop a business career. The School of Business, Leadership and Enterprise offers a range of postgraduate and professional programmes in Marketing, Human Resource Management and Finance, as well as first degrees in Business Management, Event, Tourism, Hospitality or Leisure Management.