Gies Business Students Go In-Depth On iMBA Experience

Byrne: Gabrielle, is this your first iConverge?

Gabrielle Young: This is my first iConverge. Last year, when iConverge happened, I was already a semester or so into the program, but the energy on the workplace app that we use for communication was so high post-iConverge that I swore to myself that I would book my ticket to come as soon as they released the dates, And that’s exactly what I did. To Grant’s point, you finally get to see and touch the people that you were up late with. And you don’t have that mask of work on. Yyou’re there when you are your most authentic, and you get to see people in the program when they’re their most authentic.

Byrne: Judy, what has surprised you most about the program?

Judy Safian: The quality of the education I’m getting. The biggest investment is our time. We’re all working. Our time is really valuable, and you just don’t know when you start the program what exactly to expect. It’s a gamble. Showing up to those live sessions, doing the work, you’re in a live session and you’re seeing the professor, you can raise your hand, you’re getting called on, there’s a live chat going on. You’re having a discussion around whatever your topic is, you’re saying hello to each other, you’re saying thank you and goodbye to each other, just during a live session.

And then you have break-outs in the live session, where you’re interacting with people from all over the world. You learn very quickly. You meet people and it’s like a community of colleagues, mentors, and cheerleaders. And we all have things that come up, in our professional lives, in our personal lives. And somebody is always there, with pearls of wisdom. That’s something that I never expected.

Byrne: some of you just came out of a live-class on campus. What was that like after pretty much only having classes online?

Alaa: The class was a very wonderful experience because it’s the first time we saw the professor in a classroom setting. You have the feeling of being back to college, back to school. It’s really a nice feeling. Plus, the interaction in the live-session is exactly the same. It proves to me that what happened in the class, it’s not different than what happens on the live-session when I’m in Dubai. It’s exactly the same.

Byrne: When I sat in on a live session in the studio earlier today, what stuck me was that when the professor asked someone a question, and a student comes into view, he or she is actually more faced-to-face than you would be in an actual classroom. You could see the white of their eyes and their facial expression. Where, if you were in the middle or the back of a classroom, you wouldn’t even get that. Khem what was the biggest surprise for you in the program?

Singh: The biggest surprise for me, and after having completed the program, is how the University has taken an in-classroom experience and re-created that online. During the two and a half years I spent in the program, I felt that experience was not different than what I had experienced in my undergrad studies. So, to me, that’s the biggest differentiator that we have here at Illinois, where you’ve got an online program, and the only online thing about it, is the delivery. But everything else has the exact same rigor that you have to put yourself through if you’re doing that course on campus.

Byrne: Grant, when you first signed up, did you have any reservations about doing an online degree?

Grant: For me, no. Because one of the things that actually attracted me to this program was that it was innovating its teaching model and its delivery model. I work in tech in California, and we do live-video even between floors in a building just to save time or if you can’t get a meeting room. Sometimes, it’s just more efficient.

So, this is not something that’s no longer mainstream. This is extremely mainstream. As a matter of fact, if you don’t have the experience of leveraging video and virtual technologies, this is a great way to actually get it.

And for those of us who travel, it allowed us to kind of suspend time and space. There were times where people would go, ‘hey Grant, where are you this weekend?’ I’d flip my laptop around and say, ‘well here’s the skyline of San Francisco.’ I was actually staying in the city in a hotel, or New York, or Chicago, or Atlanta or whatever. And people are doing that all the time. You could kind of see, you’re in a Hilton, because we’ve seen that picture before, right?

Probably the biggest issue I had in the beginning was over the quality of the academic rigor. Leave no doubt, you’ll be working your you-know-what off. It’s intense. It’s like having a second job. If you’re doing a 40-to-60-hour-a-week job, this could be another 20 to 30. It doesn’t always have to be that way, but you’re going to be working yourself hard.

It’s fun, but its challenging, and that’s part of why you choose to go to business school. Things are not going to be handed to you on a platter. You’re going to have to put in the energy because the whole idea is about growth. And it will test you, and it will stress you, and that’s when you’re forced to have to reach out to your fellow students and say, how do you do this? And it’s not just how do you answer the question, it’s how do you cope with the trade-offs that you’re going through, with your family life, and work, and this, that and the other thing. So, its meant to give you just enough stress to cause that growth, and it definitely does.

Byrne: There are different reasons why people do this. One, just for the learning. Another to accelerate your current career path. Some even do it, even online, to switch careers. Tell me why you decided to get an online MBA.

Young: Well, I actually did it because of the last reason you mentioned: to switch careers. My background was creative, I started my career in advertising. So, I did a lot of commercial and design work. I was in Photoshop all the time. And when it got to the point when I woke up and said, ‘you know what, this isn’t fun anymore,’ I had to sit down and think about what I needed in order to put myself on a different path.

I was okay with not working for, say a Google or an Amazon. If I do, that’s fine too. But I knew I needed to go back to school and get my MBA so I could understand the functionality of the business world. This program has actually afforded me a seat at the table in corporate America, and as an African-American woman, that’s a huge thing. To be able to understand what my leaders are saying, what their concerns are, what their goals are, and be able to steer what I do from the day-to-day to complement those goals, and grow myself is possible now because of the program.

Byrne: Right, because another advantage of an online program is that you are able to apply concepts that you learn at work. Khem, why did you decide to get the MBA?

Singh: So, I’ve been working for a little over fourteen years now, and when I look back at my career, I have enough domain knowledge in my field of expertise. But I was looking for the skills that can take me to the next level. And I realized that the skills I was looking for are all the skills in an MBA degree. I started looking around, that’s when I found Illinois. So, my primary reason is to up my skills, and be on a faster-track to a leadership role.