Cranfield Australian Alumni Scholarship Foundation > Why choose Cranfield
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Why choose CranfieldThere are two separate but interlinked decisions that you must make – firstly is the MBA programme something that would benefit you at this point in your life, career and personal development and secondly is Cranfield the right business school for you. In deciding the answer to the first question – would the MBA programme be of benefit – you will need to weigh up the costs, both time and money, of taking a year off from work, dislocating yourself to the other side of the world (where – the average Aussie would say – the weather is not that good) to undertake a year long intensive learning experience at the professional and personal level. At the end of that year – there must be a payoff for the investment. It is interesting to note that before people make the decision, they worry about things such as: “Will I be able to afford it or will I get a job that pays well enough to justify the investment or will it increase my long term career prospects?” That is, the focus is on the professional financial payoff. But post Cranfield, what alumni talk about is the difference in perspective that they have gained, the increased personal confidence, lifelong friendships that they made and the job opportunities that simply would never have been within reach before they undertook their studies, that is, the personal payoff. All those worries that loomed so large about learning something useful or the financial aspects simply become irrelevant after you have actually completed your year of study. Choosing the right MBA Programme The second question to consider is that, having decided to do the MBA, you must choose the right business school as not all business schools are the same. This excellent article, written by Sean Rickard, outlines some of these key differences. Different schools have different areas of focus—some are oriented to M&A actiivities, some to financial engineering and so forth. Cranfield’s strength is in the practical application of “knowledge into action”. A topic that Sean R’s article does not highlight however, is that the one of the big differentiators in business schools is between the one year MBA programmes and the two year ones. Many of the MBA programmes offered around the world are two year programmes, simply because they accept students who do not have work experience and therefore need to cover more introductory material in the syllabus. For example, Harvard B-school is a two year programme where students can go straight from an undergraduate course onto the MBA. The WSJ Survey—”Fast Track to the Fast Path“—shows how highly Cranfield ranks compared to all the other one year MBA programmes. The one year MBA programme covers more content in a intensive form than the two year programmes simply because students are older and have more work experience and secondly because the teaching year for the one year programme is one long calendar year with no breaks rather than two shorter academic years. The teaching pace is thus faster and longer, which allows these programmes to cover more material even though the elapsed time period is less. The Cranfield Experience You will hear alumni talk about the Cranfield Experience and it is mentioned extensively in the material on the Cranfield website. One of the things that contributes greatly is the location of the campus itself. Cranfield University is situated just 75km northwest of London on an old WWII airfield, in the British countryside. It has easy access by road M1, rail from nearby Milton Keynes and has a local airstrip for those who want to fly in! So when you do get a spare time at the end of term, you can then do some traveling to the rest of the UK and Europe. But what does that really mean? The unofficial version is this. Whilst Cranfield is set in beautiful countryside just 10 minutes from the major town of Milton Keynes, for all intents and purposes it is remote “on another planet” and there are no distractions. As most students live on campus, pretty much all your time revolves around the course work and your fellow students. As an intensive saturation into the world of business it creates a hugely accelerated learning experience which simply cannot be matched by doing an MBA in a “normal” university environment. You talk, eat and sleep the course for 7 days a week, 15 to 18 hours a day. There is simply no escape! You can watch some of our past scholars talk about their experience.
Investment v’s return When you do an MBA, you are investing:
The return on that investment comes from;
The AFR BOSS MBA Rankings Survey summarises the costs, time and contact hours for all the Australian MBA programmes most of which are delivered over 2 elapsed years. When you do the comparisons against the Australian business schools, you’ll find that the investment in the Cranfield MBA is very cost comparative considering the much shorter time out of the workforce for Cranfield compared to the longer Australian programmes. Cranfield salary survey data shows that increases of 36%-372% in salary for MBA are achievable. Cranfield MBA graduates typically earn high salaries upon graduation – reflecting both increased skills plus their age and work experience prior to study. Occasional surveys conducted by Forbes, The Wall Street Journal and other leading business magazines consistently place Cranfield in the top rankings on a range of categories including employer satisfaction and alumni satisfaction Course content and emphasis Cranfield has a very practical managerial focus with an emphasis on case-study learning in learning teams, personal development and leadership development. If you want to become a rocket scientist in financial engineering tools, you may be better off at MIT or Wharton. The course structure is shown here. The teaching programme is designed to bring all students with up to speed on core topics in the first half of the course and then allow personal areas of interest to come into play for the choice of second half electives. The Cranfield course content handles the usual basics to be expected from a masters course and adds a fine blend of “eye opening”, “influential” and “at times life changing” personal development. Many Cranfield Alumni will tell you that their time at Cranfield was very influential on their personal development, so that when they left Cranfield they were able to successfully take on new challenges. John McFarlane talks here about the MBA programme.
Friendships and Alumni Network The value of gaining like-minded friends and associates is immense. You will develop some very close friendships which last many years – some MBAs even get married to partner they meet on the course. The Cranfield name will allow you to join the world-wide network which will give you access to a wide range of like minded individuals. The Australian Alumni comprises a mix of Australians who have returned home, as well as individuals from overseas who have made Australia their home. Further reading You will need to read a lot about the MBA itself, the selection process, and what happens after. We suggest you do the usual Google trawl for appropriate sites. We have listed some of them below. They are a valuable source of information that will guide you.
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