UNC’s $10 Million Online MBA Program

FOUR WEEKEND IMMERSIONS: TWO GLOBAL, TWO DOMESTIC

The San Francisco experience—which runs from a Thursday night to Sunday night—is one of four in-person immersions in the program. Another one is devoted to leadership development and held at the school’s Chapel Hill campus in North Carolina. Two more will be global, with an immersion in San Paulo, Brazil, focused on managing in a high-growth environment, and one in London centered on global markets. Each student is required to do two immersions during the two-year program.

Other than a few minor technical glitches, says Shackelford, the professors teaching the online courses are receiving the highest possible scores on their evaluations from the students. “We are scoring almost straight fives on a five-point scale for everything we’re doing,” boasts Shackelford. “I’m waiting for all hell to break loose.”

That seems unlikely. Students say the program is exceeding their expectations. Hunt, 29, says she enrolled in the program because she didn’t want to quit her job as an internal auditor for a biotech firm in Boston and yet wanted an MBA for her career. Her husband is in a doctoral program, and she travels 40% of the time so an online degree seemed like a good option. “It’s better than I expected,” she says, “and this is how I do business now, with video chats and Adobe Connect.”

Her make-believe business partner, Walker, 25, agrees. “I was a little worried about the online interface and the perception at work that an online program isn’t quite the same as an on-campus experience,” says Walker, who is in a leadership development program at Lockheed Martin in Washington, D.C. “But this is not the traditional kind of online program. The quality of the professors and their willingness to help you is great. I’ve taken marketing strategy and financial accounting and I’ve used both of those courses already at work.”

‘IT’S LIKE WATCHING A TV SHOW AND THEN SEEING THE ACTORS BEHIND IT’

The immersion, adds Walker, helps to “cement” the relationships that are forming among students online. “It’s like watching a TV show and then seeing the actors behind it in person,” says Walker, describing the immersion experience.

While in San Francisco, the students were brought to Google for a half-day series of presentations on how to create and sustain a culture of innovation. They also heard Pandora CEO Joe Kennedy speak on disruptive business models. Kenan-Flagler profs Sridhar Balasubramanian and Brad Staats lectured on “Innovation and Consumer Insight” and “Disruption and Accelerating the Curve of Innovation,” respectively. A panel of four venture capitalists spoke about “Turning a Great Idea Into A Great Business” and also heard presentations from students on their product ideas.

“We run them hard and it’s intentional,” says Susan Cates, executive director of MBA@UNC. “They are all working professionals. We want to maximize what we’re doing with them while they are here. Today is all about practicing—ideation, prototyping, having to sell an idea and put it out into the market.”

At the end of the day, Hunt and Walker didn’t do nearly as well as some of their fellow students. But the experience of working with four other students to develop the product and then pitch it to fellow students seemed like a worthwhile exercise.

DON’T MISS: BRINGING PRESTIGE AND STATUS TO THE ONLINE MBA or SHOULD YOU GET AN ONLINE MBA?