Gies Business Students Go In-Depth On iMBA Experience

Byrne: Alaa, what about you?

Elhawwari: I’m the technical guy. So, I’m the guy everybody goes back to if they have a technical problem, and they need to test something, and need to know the numbers. I’m a mechanical engineer. So, I got promoted and I started to manage a team. And when I sit in a management meeting, I always hear the finance guy talking and I actually don’t understand what he’s saying. I started to feel left out. They just refer to me when they need to talk about something technical. When it comes to decision making, it’s like they’re speaking another language, I didn’t want to be like that. So I decided to do my MBA to understand all the disciplines in business. I need to understand why the finance people do what they do, why the marketing people decide to cancel a brand from the market. So now I can see and understand the bigger picture. As Gabrielle has said, you get the ten thousand view of a little bit of everything. I was promoted at work by the way, so, that’s why I did my MBA and it already paid off.

Safian: When you learn something practical every week, you can apply it in the real world every week.

Byrne: Give me an example.

Safian: So I work with large, Fortune 500 companies on new, strategic initiatives. And I’m part of the core team, so there’s always something new. It’s always something challenging, and you don’t know what it might be. Last week, I used a quote from an article that I read for a class in a presentation. I take notes from how things go in the live session and I use that when I’m facilitating webinars and meetings. It’s really helpful. I know what questions to ask and now I ask really good questions, and it helps move the business forward.

Byrne:: That’s a game changer. Grant, you decided to get the MBA for what purpose?

Miller: Well, I’m later on in my career, and I’ve had a very successful career, but one of the things that I really firmly believe in, is you always have to be challenging yourself. You always have to be growing. The MBA was on my bucket list.

I had been able to hold my own toe-to-toe with both men and women who had gone to prestigious business schools. They have turned to me to say, ‘where did you go to school?’ And I would say, ‘well I haven’t,’ and there’s a bit of shock and surprise. So, I had a little bit of the imposter complex. I wanted to go ahead and see what do I actually really know. But you want to broaden your horizons, you want to gain additional perspectives. And to Judy’s point, there is pretty much not a week that goes by that you don’t find something in class that you can apply, or it comes back to you six months or a year later when you turn around and apply it.

And in my role, it’s everything from the coaching to the concept of process strategy. How are you thinking about how you’re going to solve the problem, and getting people in an organization on the same page. Everybody wants to go to PowerPoint and start creating a deck. Well, let’s figure out what we actually want to accomplish, first, right? So it’s having had those experiences, and being able to also bounce ideas, going back to the networking side of things, that was a big part of the motivation.

Safian: And it’s fun. It’s really fun, it’s challenging-

Byrne:: Didn’t you say earlier it’s really hard work? How can it be fun at the same time?

Safian: It’s both.

Elhawwari: It’s a strange mix of fun, and a lot of work, a lot of learning, a lot of emotions. A lot of family feeling. We are everywhere, seriously. Last month I was in the Philippines, and asked do we have anyone there? Three people showed up to a meet up. It was my first time to Philippines, it didn’t feel not home anymore. So, it’s a mix of a lot of things. This is the iMBA.

Byrne:: Let’s talk a little bit about the quality of the faculty. What’s your impression?

Young: Every time I’m introduced to a new instructor, I’m impressed by their background. I had one class where my instructor was part of running analytics for Google. He’s teaching me how to do things, and you brag about it a little bit. You brag on all your professors, because you have professors that walk on water and cure cancer, and do all these wonderful things in the real world. They don’t just talk about it. The Illinois College of Business has some very notable alumni, too, and they keep cranking them out.

Byrne:: Have you had a favorite professor?

Elhawwari: Professor Larry DeBrock, our microeconomics professor.

Byrne:: What makes him special?

Elhawwari: It’s the climate that he creates in his lectures. You can feel that he really is willing to teach you, he is really willing to make you better. It’s not a job for him. He was my first professor when I joined, and he’s the guy who changed my perspective regarding online education. I was a little afraid about the quality before I joined the program. And I ask a lot of others about online education, and everyone was reluctant regarding my decision. But I said I’m going to do it. The reviews looked great, and my first class was with Professor Larry, and the guy really wants you to be better. He loves what he’s doing, and the quality of his teaching is superb. And then, after Professor Larry, there are many other professors that make you feel, ‘oh my god, that’s more than I expected. Much more than I expected.’

Byrne:: Judith, can you pick a favorite?

Safian: I have multiple favorites. Hayden Noel is great, but he’s not the only one who’s incredibly great and incredibly animated. I will say the Jeff and Jack show has been really fun. That’s Jeff Loewenstein and Jack Goncalo. There are two classes that they teach together. One is in the leadership core, and the other is a part of the strategic innovation core. They bring a lot to the table. They bounce things off of each other from different perspectives. They’re having fun, and they make us feel like they’re learning. It’s like being at work, and being part of a great team, and you’re collaborating to make something happen. And you’re all learning and growing, and that’s really fun.

Elhawwari: I got promoted because of both of them, by the way, because of their class.

Byrne:: How so?

Elhawwari: I was doing a very important presentation at work, proposing a project costing a couple of millions of dollars. And that same week we were having their pitching class. And I did exactly what they said, exactly. I just followed the steps. And, with no comments, we got the project. We were celebrating at work for a week, because of that. This will show you how we can apply what we learn at work and what’s the consequence of it. This is the reason I chose an American University. By the way, in Dubai, we have the British way of learning. And I chose an American University because I know the American way of teaching is practical. You practice a lot. It’s not just theory.