Real advantages of  MBA
… or that is much more important than professors and the Harward cases …
You know, what is the greatest advantage of MBA program? No, neither cases, nor subjects which you will study, nor professors! They are people with whom you will study! No other program unites so interesting people of different nationalities, trades, age, an operational experience and vital sights, as a course international MBA.
And it is simply marvellous! Judge.
In our class there are people from China, the USA, Canada, Australia, Estonia, Argentina, Italy, Spain, Afghanistan, Russia, Sweden and Norway.
The youngest student is 26 years old. To most "elderly" is 46  Middle age - 32 years.

Professional content is the such: bankers, advisers, actors, workers of the governmental organisations, engineers, pharmacists, pilots, lawyers, financiers, experts in marketing, PR-experts, auditors, owners of own companies and managers of average / the top echelon of the companies of the most different profile.

Many MBA programs are constructed so that students received knowledge not only from professors during classes, but also from each other. In BI School of Management it is a key principle.

As I already mentioned, the class is divided into groups - on 4 - 5 persons. In groups 70 % of all tasks, control, presentations, cases are carried out.

Work in international commands is a super-fun, but at the same time, a problem is not simple. Especially when it comes to  decision-making on some question: we are such different, that at times it is impossible to agree! In transfer it is meant by maximum "dissimilarity" - on age, professional experience, formation, a floor and the marital status. It means, that in one group there can not be two engineers either two bankers or all foreigners or all Norwegians, only boys or only the girls, all single or all family students  Our opinion concerning the one who with whom wishes to be, naturally, is not asked. The decision is accepted by program administration.

So, for example, I have appeared in very interesting company:

Ann Ingeborg - the Norwegian, 35 years. The Pharmacist-researcher by education. Works in Pfizer - the world's largest concern making medicines and the goods for health. With its long-term operational experience in the western corporation it differs the system approach to the decision of any problem that is why in our group is the main organizer and the co-ordinator.

Yan Oge -  the Norwegian, too, 38 years. PhD in the theoretical physics. The invaluable intellectual resource of our command, especially when business reaches mathematics, the mathematical logic, the theory of probability, the theory of games, the analysis of figures. Thanks to  Takako, the teacher on micro-economics, we have good-natured nicknamed him as a "professor".

Ulrick - the citizen of a planet, 38 years - the Norwegian by a nationality, has grown in the United States. The native language  is  Eng

lish. Lived practically in all countries: from India and Japan to Ethiopia and Afghanistan. Last years worked in the state Afgano-Norwegian committee, veins in Kabul. Has adopted the girl from Ethiopia. Being the person not from a business environment, he introduces absolutely new measurement in work of our command, involuntarily forcing us to estimate ours idea and decision business on a global scale, rather than within the limits of every minute benefit.

Together we represent huge - as it seems to us  - the mental potential that is reflected in a name of our command (in our class all the groups have their names): Nobel&Abel Consultancy. The name we have thought up together, on one of the first  brain-stormings. It unites the  names of two great people: Alfred Nobel and mathematics Nilsa Abel, this name has the second value. Focus that when you say these names in English, it fonetically corresponds to sounding of English words noble and able, what means noble and capable of something! Captain Vrungel knowingly spoke: "As you name a boat, so it and will float": Nobel&Abel is one of the strongest teams in our class!

Our group is rallied enough and very effective in work. But such happiness is given not to all. Often enough in groups there are the conflicts which ends in bad results. And the reasons can be the different: from personal liking/antipathy to unwillingness to understand cultural distinctions of each other. So, for example, Norwegians are known for the excessive frankness and absolute absence of skills of diplomacy in discussion of different questions. If they consider that your idea is bad, most likely, they will tell to you  directly about it, not strongly worrying about your feelings in this occasion and your touched ambitions. You want it or not, but from them you will hear the most rigid criticism. And then they sincerely are perplexed, why Russian, Estonians, Japanese, Chineses, and  other, more developed in emotional and diplomatic plan of cultures,  take offence for them  To learn each other, grinding in, common language search - language of the general values, priorities and the purposes - months leave!

But by that moment as work in group will be adjusted, safely having passed through crises all put and repeatedly described by psychologists, structure of groups varies. After Christmas the class breaks into new groups in such a manner that you cannot appear again with whom you already "are held down by one chain" - the "fellows" in one team, that is in one boat you appear with new people. And all repeats again -  closer acquaintance, self-affirmation, grindings in, conflicts, negotiations, searches of a consensus, ways of interaction and advantageous strategy of group.

Quite good experience, isn't that so? The program guarantees, that by the training end, having gained a critical weight of the decision and the permission of intragroup interactions, you will be so are trained in a team work that can successfu

lly work in any stuff, in any national environment and any country!

And so, coming back to a question on noegenesis from fellow students: being in constant (18 - 20 hours daily) dialogue with each other, we naturally exchange knowledge and skills got during our individual professional life. So, engineers are traditionally strong in the mathematics which is necessary in the solving of cases on micro-economics. So if you have forgotten the discriminant formula in a quadratic or principles of differentiation for a finding a marginal profits, do not worry! They won't let you fail - they will help to solve the case and mathematics to recollect! And you will help colleagues to understand calculations of  GRP marketing  Auditors and financiers will help you with accounting, and programmers will explain a difference between Oracle and MFG\Pro software - in management of information technologies. So knowledge which you get during MBA programs, increase here in a geometrical progression thanks not only to professors and the Harward cases, and mostly thanks to those professionals who have as the fates decree appeared with you on one student's bench.

So where could it will be possible to sit behind one school desk with the director of safety Norges Bank - the state bank of Norway, the person, responsible for the press of national money?

Or with pilot of SAS Airlines who has been grasped in hostages by terrorists? Or to general managing directors Oslo Boors - the Norwegian national stock exchange?

Still I have understood one thing: MBA programs unite not ordinary people. At all considerable professional achievements, each person in our class is the whole world - surprising and interesting: the hobbies, vital philosophy, culture!
So, my neighbour in a school desk at the left - Stajn-Morten not only occupies one of supervising positions in the largest transport company of Norway, so he also is the champion on bicycle sports: for 4 days, 22 hours, 18 minutes it has crossed on a bicycle all Norway from the north on the south, and these are 2634 km!

Jan-Ruar, the lawyer, the owner of legal firm in the past the sea captain. Even now he does not leave a steering wheel, periodically arranging sea jazz cruises over Oslo-fiord by own steam-ship. It has organised one of such cruises for our class - with the shrimps well-known for the Norwegian sandwiches, bathing - it was super!


Generally, it would be wrong to tell that MBA is only question of  study. People who pass with you through so intensive and in any sense the "difficult" period of your life, become your friends, and even if you want, your "family"! With these people you are connected by something much bigger, rather than cases or work in groups for the short period. And it is more than the communications, new contacts, joint projects business partnership in the future, it is a future.