In your career, you will likely face uncertain scenarios at different stages where the future is unclear. Be it complex projects, challenging workplaces, or stagnant careers, people around the globe have wrestled with ‘graves of FUD,’ or, fear, uncertainty, and doubt – which can lead to feeling stuck. Doubts about a lack of career advancement opportunities, fears of being passed over for promotions, and envy from witnessing peers move ahead in their careers are potential graves you can fall into.
Sometimes, uncertainty can involve not knowing what steps to take to advance in your career, fill existing knowledge gaps, or figure out how to pivot industries, companies, or countries. The pandemic has sparked an explosion in FUD globally, as billions grappled with unprecedented change and had to adapt in rapid fashion to survive. In this uncertain landscape, can an MBA help professionals upskill and position themselves to ride the waves of change?
If you are an experienced working professional or an entrepreneur wanting to upgrade yourself, the right question isn’t “if” but “which” MBA you should pursue. Which MBA program will equip you to hone your skills and rise to meet global demands? Read on to learn more about ASB’s MBA program and how our graduates are well-positioned to thrive in a post-pandemic world.
Hands-on learning opportunities to gain accelerated real-world experience
Traditional MBA programs are heavily classroom-centric and based primarily on a theoretical curriculum. As the work landscape changes, the right MBA program for you must be in tune with these changed realities. In the ASB MBA program, students spend a significant portion of their time outside the classroom working on real-world, hands-on Action Learning projects in companies across Asia and the global, gaining practical experiences and applying their classroom learnings in an iterative fashion.
Gabrielle Barnette (MBA Class of 2022), an international relations professional from the US whose Mandarin language proficiency landed her a job in Hong Kong, decided to pursue an MBA after discovering a lack of management skills when she became the head of office operations in her company. “There were lots of gaps that I had to fill in terms of management. I thought the next logical step would be to do an MBA.
I am someone who learns through action and experience, and I only looked at MBA programs with lots of experiential learning. I came across the ASB MBA and learned about the Action Learning projects and how integrated the experiential learning component is in the curriculum and the entire MBA experience, and realized it was exactly what I needed!”
ASB’s MBA curriculum includes multiple Action Learning consultancy-type projects with five different company placements, giving students a wide range of experiences across companies, industries, and functions in an accelerated time frame.
An MBA curriculum designed to hone the skills desired by employers
As the world changes, the skills required to adapt to and thrive in it evolves too. And as sustainable development becomes a growing concern for the world, equipping the workforce with the right skills to solve sustainability challenges is also of rising importance. A 2021 report by Quacquarelli Symonds on the relationship between graduate skills and employer expectations found that the graduate skills gap is a global and widespread issue across industries and firms of all sizes.
For MBA employers, the top 5 most important skills valued by employers are: communication, strategic thinking, interpersonal skills, management, data skills, and leadership. Yet these skills had the lowest satisfaction scores among employers, while skills like academic achievement and finance had the highest satisfaction scores. Considering what your future employer might value is an important factor in deciding which MBA program to select.
Through its highly-experiential, application-driven curriculum, the ASB MBA is designed to help students cultivate the skills most valued by employers globally.The ASB MBA full-time and working professionals boasts an award-winning curriculum with an innovative mix of rigorous classroom learning and Action Learning projects in leading companies across Asia while learning from a diverse student body of peers.
Combining the best of MIT Sloan’s rigor with hands-on perspectives from Asia, the world’s fastest-growing region, the ASB MBA is an excellent choice for ambitious, capable professionals looking to future-proof and take their careers to the next level.