Financing your MBA

You have a plan and taking an MBA is included in that plan. So the next question would be; how does one finance the MBA? As I have said in my previous posts, the MBA will take a substantial amount of money. One thing unique about AGSB’s business school is that they do not have such a thing as scholarships. Meaning you can never depend on any subsidy from the university even if it is partial. As of the moment the standard program cost around Php 11,000/ subject for 19 subjects in 2 years (You do the math). Each program offered in AGSB has a different fee schedule so just check the AGSB website.

I think that the best rule of thumb to have when planning to take the MBA is to have at least half of the money already at hand (better if you have 2 yrs worth of money already). This will get you through at least half of the program without thinking much of finances. But of course we are not certain if we already have that amount in hand already so here are other options for the prospective student:

Parent’s money

 The set-up here in the Philippines is different than it is in the US or other   parts of the world. In the US for example the obligation of the parents to send you to school is up until high school (you think how to get through college), here you can ask for help up until graduate study. That is of course if your parents are rich. You can do 2 things. One to ask them for money which I do not advice because you are already in grad school (this is your plan remember). It also would give a burden to your parents who are probably thinking of retirement already. Another thing it to borrow from them with a promise to pay back after graduation when you probably are able to get a higher paying job.

Savings

Setting aside a specified amount every payday would be able to help you finance your MBA. Of course this entails sacrifice of letting go of luxuries. It would go on for 2 years.

Employer’s subsidy

You can also resort to having your employer finance your MBA.  This is on a case to case basis depending on your company. Beware however of the catch, you are going to get tied up to your company for several years after graduation. This is fair enough because the employer shouldered the entire MBA. It all depends now on your plan.

Salary loans

If you are still short, you might want to consider taking a loan. When I say taking a loan I do not advice you to borrow from lending companies or loan sharks which charges you an effective interest rate of 20-30% per annum. Don’t be fooled by the flyers. Best way is to borrow from a bank directly (still lower than lending) or take a salary loan to a bank via your HR department. The interest is lower than borrowing directly from a bank because it is a corporate account of HR (10%pa). You can also negotiate the terms if you can pay 12, 24 or 36 months.

Aside from tuition payments you might consider the following in planning your finances:

Laptop – This is not really a requirement in the MBA. This is used only in class presentation which happens most of the time.  You can just ask your classmates to bring their own laptop for your groups use if you cannot afford one. Instead of using a laptop, I use a notebook because it helps me remember if I write things down.  Serious thought should be given on this one because the cost of a laptop can already pay for 4 subjects in the MBA.

Books – This depends on your professor. You can choose to buy books as an investment or you can borrow from other MBA students that already took the subject.

Transportation- This is your cost of going to school for class. You might also spend this when you have group works etc. 

So how will you finance your MBA?

Why I choose to take my MBA

A common question probably lingering in the mind of someone thinking of taking his MBA would be; “Is an MBA a good investment?” A valid and good question because the MBA will not only cost you money but also time and effort.  One of the myth about the MBA is to think of it as a fast way to promotion, raise or success right after taking it. Do not be fooled by this trap because at the end of the day the degree alone is not enough to define your potential for the job. Personality, skills and attitudes also play a factor in the decision of the employer to hire you. There are some people who are probably experiencing quarter life crisis and decides to go back to school as an answer to the pressures surrounding early adulthood.  Just like any other investment, there is a time element to the degree. It will always be a question on what your goals are and what are the steps you’ll do to achieve them. Do you want an immediate return of the money you sent on the degree? Or you are looking at the benefits of the degree for the long-term.

So why did I choose to take my MBA? So let me give you a background about myself. I am a graduate of class 2006 in one of the best business schools in the country. I can say that I am very fortunate because I met wonderful people. The professor i had are big names in business who have established themselves in the corporate world and in entrepreneurship. They taught me the theories standard to what any business student should know. he good thing about my exposure is that I was able to actually be in business when i was in college. I was exposed to the harshest realities of business which is by the way never a walk in the park. An application of real business concepts has been the best experience out of the program. I glad I passed.  A month before graduation we had our strategic audit as a class. This more or less helped me define what to do next and what do i really want. I decided to close my business because I am not contented with what I am getting. I wanted to explore and try my luck in the corporate world.

So fast forward 2 years. I am now working for a holding company engaged in the shipping and logistics business.Currently, my career is well on track with a promotion anytime soon. One of the reason why I took my MBA is that it was part of my career plan in the first place. I could have taken a degree that specializes in finance or marketing but I wanted general management so that it gives me more general options should I choose to  enter another industry. I believe that the general perspective of the MBA allows me to have a bigger view of a business. Good thing that I am enrolled in the part time program at AGSB, it allows me to put into practice what i learn in the classroom in the workplace. Another reason why I took my MBA aside from honing business skills is to be able to know more people. My classmates would be my network later on.

Again, If someone want to decide if he actually wans to take the MBA. Your professional goals should be clear. This investment more than a choice depends heavily on what you want. That way you know if you are making the right choice base on your goals.

Self Learning

One of the things very important during in the MBA is ones eagerness to learn. Professors more than just lecturers are facilitators that bring out the insights of everyone in class. The students with their knowledge and experience shared this in class for others to learn. So maximizing all the subjects in the MBA is all about the student. The more you bring to the table the better. The depth of a students insights and analysis of things is critical. Aside from experience, the student should read the assigned materials and more. It is not enough to read the assigned course material because it limits the view of the student. It is encouraged that the student should read more publication on the topic assigned. Good thing right now there is the internet that adds to the materials seen in the school library. Being in a part-time program one is not in the school most of the time. To prepare for class an MBA student should be a self-driven learner. 

 

With this, I have found 2 web sites that can help the MBA student for more reading. Good thing about the web site is that it is for free.

 

 First is the Website knowledge at Wharton. This is an online bi-weekly publication of the Wharton School of Business at Upenn. It includes articles, interviews and publication from Wharton’s faculty and affiliate experts on current business news and trends. It also contains Podcast of interviews if you want to listen to them in your Ipod. The good thing about this site is that it is free and the subjects are diverse. Only fitting because Wharton has more than 200 elective subjects for MBA students. The largest in the world. The comment section at the end of each article also gives the students insights from other people. 

The other web site is the MIT Course ware. It is an open ware web site that places course materials of the 1800 subjects offered in MIT ranging from history, engineering etc. The MIT Sloan MBA subjects are also here. One will see the course syllabus, readings downloadable in PDF, power point presentation of the professor. One just needs WINZIP to be able to download the materials and view them online. Recommended readings are also in the course outline. One should take advantage of the MIT Open Courseware because it is a very ambitious project of MIT costing them $10,000/subject to compile. If you are satisfied with its services you can make a donation via your credit card. 

 

There are a lot of sites that can help self-learners more about business. Hoping someone can recommend other sites that give out information for free.

Formula for the business of life

One of the things that I learned as a business undergrad is that business is really not that complicated. Business is simple that it can be done by anyone. This is the reason why in this day and age we read about teenagers, college dropouts who make a lot of money in their business ventures.

 As a business undergraduate I have met 3 kinds of people in school. The first kind are the corporate trained guys. They started out as employees where they gained experience and connections. Eventually they go into business with their experiences and became rich and retired before the mandatory retiring age. This first kind are those that went to local or international business schools where they got the leverage to go up the corporate ladder with their knowledge, skills and personality.

 The second kind are those we call COO (Child Of the Owner). This kind are those people who have rich parents who own big business empires. The COO’s invested heavily on education because after college graduation the COO will now become the CEO of the business empire as an inheritance from his father.

 Then the third kind are those who went on to business even with small resources. They are the ones whom we call in school as educated in the UHD (University of Hard Knocks). They took criticism from people who probably wanted them to work in an 8-5 job and have a steady paycheck every 15 days. People told them they will fail. But instead they pursued being in business. Exposure in business has made them strong and persistent. It took them years and a lot of failures before they eventually made it big.

 All different paths but all made it big in business. So here is the question what do the three have in common? They know the basic formula in the business of life. All you need to know about business and applying it in real life is this:

 

REVENUE – EXPENSES = PROFIT

 Business is simplified with the formula. Revenue pertains to the actions we do to make money. This is about selling or marketing a product or a service. The Expenses side of the formula pertains to the Operations side of the business. How do we make things work? What are the costs related to operations? The Profit side of the formula is for Finance. It is the difference between the revenues and expenses will be the profit that will be used and invested again in business for growth. But how will we know we are making money? This is where accounting and records come in.

 The approach to the formula may be simplistic but it is applicable in real life. In the household, the spouses combined take home income is the revenue. While their monthly expenses such as utilities, bills etc is needed for their daily existence. Whatever s left is in placed in savings and investment to grow the family assets given there is an investment goal. For non-profits for example revenues could be in the form of sponsorships, donations, membership fees while expenses are used to carry out the existence of the non- profit. What is left is reserve for the continuity of its life.

 Business may seem complex but the formula makes it simple. All other subjects taken in business school or applied in a corporate setting falls under this formula. It does not matter if you are a corporate guy, COO or a hard-core entrepreneur. If one has common sense, one can make it big in the business of life.

Learning the APA style

In preparation for my MBA this coming July 13, I read through the course materials given before hand to know what to expect from the subjects that I have taken. One thing common to all course materials is the suggested referencing system APA to be used in all footnotes of any research paper required in all subjects. So I researched on what is APA and how is it done.

APA style (also know as Harvard style) originated from the American Psychological Association. The referencing style is widely use in social sciences for research and thesis writing. The rule of the APA style is simple, one has to put the Author and the date of the reference in the body of the written work inside a parenthesis. At the end written work the complete source should be indicated in the bibliography or notes.

The Basic example of this APA style guide is;

According to the strategy of Polarity (Krippendorf, 2005)…..

There are instances however that the author is the subject of the sentence, if this is the case we only put the year inside the parenthesis. In this example we should put the details of the reference at the end of our work. Working with this Example,

Krippendorf, K. (2005). The Art of the Advantage: the 36 strategems to seize competitive edge. Boston, Ma.

I find this system simple. The APA style gets intricate with situations such as multiple authors, multiple publications, online source etc. However, such intricacies should not discourage the researcher in religiously giving detailed references of his/her work because this is essential not only to the professor but also to the other students that might read your work therefore maximizing the understanding on the subject discussed in the paper.

For reference one can research more about APA on the net.

It’s now official

Today, I went to AGSB for my enrollment in the standard MBA program. The enrollment took me around 2 hours max. Just as fast as the enrollment, the MBA is not. I will take on 2 years of coursework, case studies and presentations in order to get this piece of paper at the end of the day.

Honestly, I am very excited. During enrollment, I have met some of my former classmates during my undergrad. I also met new faces who could be my classmates. They are also working students like me who will joggle the 2 years between work and study.

There is also a feeling of uncertainty and anxiety. Can I really manage my time? What if coursework is so hard that i cannot concentrate at work(i have a promotion ahead of me)? Reason why I took only 2 subjects for the first trimester to give me time to adjust to the life of a working student. Financial Accounting on Mondays and Business Communication during Saturdays.

Mixed emotions. But I can only tell when classes start. Things could be uncertain but this is the risk I am willing to take.

The Ateneo MBA blog

After two years of convincing myself while I am in the workforce, here it is. I decided to take my MBA in the Ateneo Graduate School of Business. Attending business school is both a journey and a risk. It is a journey because one will go through the rigors of student life while working during the day (part-time MBA). Taking an MBA also entails risk. An MBA will take alot of your money in tuition fees, books, allowance and projects. It will also entails investing ones time to studying during the wee hours of the night. One will also spend the free time in making groups works with your classmates to prepare for class presentation. All this, without any assurance of a return on the investment in an MBA in the next 3-4 years.

Let me take you to my world in my journey to the MBA standard program of AGSB. one of my problems when i was choosing which MBA school to choose (UP, DLSU and AIM) is that very little is found here on the internet about student blogs of someone attending an MBA to these exclusive schools.  For me  the importance of MBA student blogs is to help people deciding on taking an MBA to have a glimpse of what one goes through in business school. I hope this blog would help people who are in the process of deciding whether or not they should take an MBA. I would wish to give enlightenment to those contemplating of going to Ateneo Graduate School of Business.

I would also like to share in this blog things that i learn in the classroom. I would also like to hear the insights of people who would like to comment on my posts so that i can also learn inputs from other people who are like minded. So please don’t hesitate to comment on my post.

I hope that what I learn in this pursuit is something that I could apply in the business of life.

Welcome to my blog

Welcome to my Blog