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Making a decision about graduate school is never easy, but it’s even tougher when you consider things like your job, relationships and family. An MBA is the kind of degree often undertaken by those with some life experience behind them, resulting in students with many commitments and too little time. Yet those who earn an MBA while working full time say it’s worth the juggling. They become better producers, managers and executives, and leave their respective programs with some of the best professional — and personal — friends they ever will have.
San Diego State University offers two MBA degree programs for the fully employed. We asked those who run the programs — and those who enroll — about them.
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The university's part-time MBA program is open to working college graduates, many of whom have had undergraduate business training. The average student is 29 years old and has four years of professional work experience, although Kenneth Marino, director of SDSU's Graduate School of Business and dean of the College of Business, says others come straight out of college. It takes about three years to get through the program.
The two degree options are the MSBA, for those with undergraduate degrees in business, and the MBA, for those without that training. Marino says the required courses are the biggest difference between the two. "There is a series of core courses in the MBA program that students must take. Those courses are taken together, in a cohort (where students are admitted as a group)," says Marino. For the MSBA, those core courses are waived and students do not begin their education in a cohort.
After the first year there are no cohorts in either program, says Marino, because students take classes pertaining to their area of specialization, such as management, marketing or health care delivery. At SDSU 10 specialties are offered.
At least one course also must be taken in each of the four thematic areas: interpersonal skills; legal, ethical, political and economic environment; management of technology and information systems; and globalization. To finish up, students either write a thesis or, more commonly, participate in something called The Culminating Experience.
"That is an integrative business analysis, kind of an MBA consulting program. Students work for a company on a particular project, and make a written and oral presentation. Two faculty members generally supervise each team of student consultants," says Marino. And businesses pay $2,500 for the service, although students have only their expenses paid.
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Kenneth Marino, director of SDSU's
Graduate School of Business and dean
of the College of Business.
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Classes meet two nights a week and occasionally during the day. In addition to running the programs, Marino teaches and, like most other faculty members, uses the case method. "I think most of the faculty here are case-oriented as a rule, but there are some courses that don’t lend themselves to that and have more of a straight lecture format," he says.
Teamwork is emphasized, almost to an extreme, with study groups that meet outside of class and teams within classes working on projects together. Some students wearily comment they are on a different team in every course, says Marino. "But the reality is that many of the decisions made in business are made on a team basis, not by a singular person."
Second-year MBA student Arturo Rico
has learned to balance work, school
and family life.
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Michael Turner, a San Diego Gas & Electric engineer, graduated this summer from the MBA program after three-and-one-half years. The time burden, he says, was substantial. On average, students spend 10 to 12 hours a week outside of class reading and preparing.
"The first three semesters," says Turner, "which wind up being the toughest, are very structured. We were told what classes to take and in what order. Being in a cohort was beneficial because you wind up being in the same classes with the same 30 people. That added a lot of stability and support for me."
Turner's daughter was barely 2 years old when he began the program but luckily, he says, his wife is a stay-at-home mom. "I wasn’t worried about my daughter getting the proper attention, it was more that I was worried about my time with her. I had to compartmentalize my time so I could spend some with my family. It became an assignment for myself to break away from studying."
Arturo Rico, a second-year MBA student in a management training program at Bank of America, has learned how to prioritize. "When I’m at work, I don’t talk to my wife or think about school. And when I’m with my wife, I don’t think about work or school and so on. I spend at least three hours a day studying during the week and four or five a day on the weekends just preparing for class."
As long as he keeps his grades up, Bank of America is footing much of Rico's school tab. SDG&E did the same for Turner — although this isn’t a common occurrence in San Diego. Having just finished up, Turner says he is glad he went through the program, "but I’m also glad to be through with it because of the pressure. I would recommend it to people if this kind of program fits in with their lifestyle. But if they have to rearrange their home life, well, that costs a lot."
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The Executive MBA
The other MBA program offered at SDSU is the executive MBA program, the only official executive program in San Diego, reports Candace Williams, program director. "We are a member institution of the Executive MBA Council, a part of the National Accrediting Agency of Colleges and Schools of Business. Requirements for admission are professional full-time work experience and managerial experience. And we follow those guidelines."
Executive MBA students are a different breed from those in the part-time MBA or MSBA programs. These "students" have an average of 15 years of work experience, between seven and eight in upper management, and are about 38 years old. The program, which takes two years to complete, uses cohorts that remain together throughout.
In putting together each cohort, Williams says the administration looks for diversity of experience. And because each student brings so much work and life experience with them, classroom discussions are dynamic. "They learn as much from each other as they do from the faculty," says Williams.
Ron Cates, an executive MBA student and marketing director at Rockwell Semiconductor Systems, says in his class there were two Ph.D.s, five M.D.s and 11 students with master's degrees in other disciplines. "It was very intimidating to join a class like that. But the alternative for me would have been to go into a class with a bunch of 24-year-olds with milk on their lips. I could have gone that route and I probably could have done a better job of acing courses. But I would have missed out on the more mature interaction we have in the executive program."
Executive MBA students attend classes every other week on Friday and Saturday, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and form study groups. The first year, says Williams, is devoted to the foundations like accounting, finance and marketing. The second year builds on that, with an emphasis on integrative management, strategy, leadership, business ethics and social responsibility.
Nikhil Varaiya, a professor in the executive program and chair of the school's finance department, teaches competitive analysis and strategic financial management, both first-year courses. Varaiya says he uses quite a bit of case material mixed with lectures and short articles drawn from sources like Forbes, Fortune, The Economist and The Wall Street Journal. Those articles are usually read in class and discussed immediately.
"It probably takes students about four hours to prepare a case. I give them a take-home exam in the middle of the course and they turn in write-ups of four cases. In addition, class participation makes up about 15 percent of their grade," says Varaiya.
Dr. Lynne Milgram, medical director of
Sharp Community Medical Group, found
success after completing the executive
MBA program.
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The commitment may be intense, but the dropout rate is very low. "At the minimum I think students considering this program should attend one class. These students are already working 40 to 50 hours a week and the executive program really becomes a major commitment," Varaiya says.
Hal Lenox, director of external affairs for Pacific Bell in San Diego, got his degree from the executive program in 1992. He calls himself a worst-case scenario. While a student, he also was the father of three, had a demanding job as a sales agency manager and taught at Mesa College. On school weekends Lenox got up at 3 a.m. and spent from 4 a.m. until 7 a.m. preparing and studying at a local Denny's restaurant. "It was awful," he says. "There were moments when I questioned my judgment, but those were rare. What the program offered overwhelmingly compensated for any scheduling discomforts."
Lenox says the program forced him to see business from a holistic perspective. His undergraduate degree was in marketing, and his experience was selling — not accounting, finance or international business. "I took away mountains of new information and insight. I learned the way you do things in your own business isn’t necessarily the only way it’s done."
Dr. Lynne Milgram, medical director of Sharp Community Medical Group, graduated from the program in 1997. She says the school did much to help her succeed. "They made it easy by handling the details, everything from bringing us our textbooks to our lunches," she says. "And all of the professors are not only true professors in terms of scholarship, but many have been entrepreneurs and consultants themselves."
Executive MBA student Henry DeVries keeps two notebooks open during classes — one for regular notes and another to jot down ways he can apply what he is learning. "I figured if I wasn’t always applying what I was learning, it would lose relevance," he says. And it has worked. DeVries, who graduated in September, says he feels more productive than ever before. "You don’t realize how much you don’t know until you attend a program like this."
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