Imperial Mba

Hi there,

I am interested in doing an MBA at Univ of London and was considering Imperial as one of the options. Doing a part time (Exec) MBA at Imperial is way too expensive and the only other option left is a Distance Learning MBA. I am aware that Imperial is a well reputed school but am concerned about the DL mode at Univ of London. Also there are few other options for DL MBA like Warwick, Aston and Durham all in similiar price range..

My main concern is that that How much is the Imperial degree "Do it yourself" and how much support and real interaction is provided by Imperial staff...
So here a few questions, which i would like to ask:

1) How do u study?
Acc to Imperial they provide "Study Maetrial" and a virtual environment for interaction with other students and teachers. What exactly is this provided "study material".

2) Do u you have to cramm the stuff all by yourself(which i think is a difficult thing to do with a Fulltime job) and sit an exam at the end of the semester or is the assesment done by Course assignments, Discussion participation .....?

3) Given the choice Will u do pick course again? and will u suggest it to others?

4) How difficult and tough are the exams and other assignments and How much time do u need to do the course work per week?

Thanks for ur valuable time and answers.

WH

 

Two thoughts, just generally:

1. When you ask others for their take on any given school or program, it's probably a good idea to include a link to the school's or program's web site in your post so that those from whom you're soliciting opinions will not have to do a bunch of work Googling it to figure out how to get to its web site; and also so that the precise school (and its web site) is, in fact, the web site to which they go.
   
2. We're not text messaging here; and we don't charge by the character. You can spell-out "you," and "according," etc.[/list=1]Let's hope someone chimes-in and helps you out. Thanks for the post! Good luck in your quest.

 

Re: Re: Imperial Mba

1. 
   
   Hi:
   
   As DesEslms pointed out, including a link helps others help you.
   
   To speed the process, I'm including the link:
   
   www.londonexternal.ac.uk
   
   I participated in a thread in which Imperial was discussed, along other options you mention in your opening post. There's some useful info there.
   
   
   http://forums.degreeinfo.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=22245
   
   
   Also. there's a fellow forum member, tcmak, completing the MBA you're interested in. You could pm him to ask for his advice, either directly or through this thread.
   
   Good luck,
   
   Joi

 

NO privately, please. The whole purpose of the fora is to share info.

 

Since people have posted from Germany, Cuba, the West-oesterreichische Diwan, and the Netherlands, I though someone from the US should say hello. Hello.

 

And I thought that it might be a good idea to point out that our colleague Jonathan, has assembled a collection of over 200 DL MBA programs (why are you focused solely on the University of London?)
Please find them here:
http://www.geocities.com/liu_jonathan/distance.html
In any case, good luck.
Jack

 

Dear Deselms,

you are absolutely right abt the prog links. I should ve posted them before. Anyway here they are:

1) http://www.londonexternal.ac.uk/prospective_students/postgraduate/imperial/mba/index.shtml

2) http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/portal/page?_pageid=58,81111&_dad=portallive&_schema=PORTALLIVE

However i dont agree with ur 2nd point. Whats wrong with shortening the words on a discussion forum like this if doing so doesnt change the content? English isnt my first language, so cant avoid small mistakes. Did you find it difficult to understand the post because of that?

Anyway thanks for your input.

WH

@ JOI:

Thanks for the Thread link, i looked at it but didnt find the insider "information". I hope Tcmak will give us some insight..

Since i am moving to london in couple of months, i might go to Imperial for a chat with DL Admission counsellors there..

Have a nice weekend everyone..

WH

 

Hi,

It's time rushing assignments. Hope I am not replying too late. Referring to the original questions:

Sorry that my first language is not English too, particular to the abbreviations, and I try my best to understand and answer this question, please kindly correct me if my understanding is not correct.

1) Study material....

Typically consists of the followings:
- Text books (the tutors seems to have a preference of using books written by themselves or written by their colleagues)
- Couse notes (it's almost like a text book, but written in a way it's like the tutor is talking to you. Some of them are very well written)
- Sample exam paper
- Assignments (Yes, you can start the assignments right in the start of the academic year)
- Referece papers and case studies
- CDs, video captured during discussion in the full time programme
- headset, for taking online virtual tutorials

A further note on Student-Tutor interaction:

It is quite depending what topic and tutor. From my experience, the managing people and organisation module has the most discussion and the tutor is pretty good at faciliate and induce online discussion. Unfortunately, there are some tutors in some modules induce less discussions.

In some places, e.g. London, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Greece, students would meet up from time to time. As I know of, there are gatherings at the end of each month held in London. If you can arrange some time there, you may want to talk to them and see how they think about the programme.

I think the amount of interaction can be more intense within the programme. However, it is also obvious that many of the students are busy with the work. Also some of the tutors do not seem to be very familar with online discussions. There are rooms for them to improve and hope this would not be a studying-alone experience.

Alternatively, it is about self-discipline too, typically among distance learning programmes. The more you participate in the discussions, the more you can gain and the least probable that you would feel alone in the study.

2) I believe this is a question on assessments.
Assessment is done by 80% of examination and 20% of assignments. No discussion participation would take into account to the assessment.

3) I believe you are asking whether I would choose IC again for DL MBA....and whether I would recommend to others

Why not? I believe I've made the best option among those possible, in terms of time constraint, budget, programme content.... and I am quite happy with the programme so far.

Whether I would recommend to others.. certainly I would ... However, there are some points to note:

- I said that IC is one possible option to me. But to others, there may be other options too. Factors that limits me from choosing the others may not be limiting others.

- Interest and career focus would be another important factor. I may not recommend IC to someone who wants to focus in China business in the MBA programme, for obivious reasons (there're a lot better ones in Hong Kong)....But techno-enterpreuership is one thing that I would encourage people to take IC DL MBA (that's why I am not choosing among those in Hong Kong).

4) How difficult it is....
It is not easy at all, both the exams and assignments. Some assignments are difficult, given the fact that some topics are pretty "open" and no absolute answer, and can involve a pretty broad scope. These can be pretty common among MBA programmes though. I spent around two weeks (part time effort) to finish one assignments. There are also times two assignment deadlines are close. Good time management is certainly a must.

It is an examination that covers everything learnt in a year. Some are more essay like while some are maths-intensive.
Also, all exams are done in a week. It you are taking 3 modules in a year, then you would have to finish 3 exams in just one week. There's also a possibility that there could be two exams in the same day. Another thing that makes examination difficult is the low passing rate in some subjects. It seems that the teachers do not care if the passing rate is low as far as students are meeting their requirement.

Like other UK schools, it is very difficult to get high marks. Don't expect this would be an easy MBA to take.

Good Luck!

 

Its a little weird..

Thank You Tcmak for your valueable Input.

I did my under grad at a B&M School, so distance learning associated with a "lot of" self dicipline and "Do it yourself aspect' is something unknown and a "weird" concept to me. But unfortunately being a working professional (Consultant with alot of traveling), i dont have many other options than DL.

Here in Germany we have a semester system, where exams take place at the end of every semester and if you fail you can resit them next semester. But seemingly at University of London-external programms incl. Imperial,LSE, Royal Holloway exams are offered only once a year in May.

What happens if for some reason you cant appear in the exam at the end of the year or fail it. Do you have to wait for another complete year or what?

regards

WH

 

Re: Its a little weird..

I did my first degree in a B&M school too. I would be happy to uncover the issues about DL that are unknown to you, as far as I can.

Picking up books to read and taking part in online discussions are like what most people have been doing. I believe you can get used to this easily. This is not that weird as you might believe. Don't worry.

As far I heard of, many of the DL MBAs from UK requires quite a lot of self-discipline or "Do it yourself" as you mentioned. This is not specific to Imperial, I believe. Getting along with local students and actively participate in discussions are probably good ways to eliminate the isolation and support your study too.

BTW, as I remember, there are some classmates from Germany too.

About re-sitting an exam, you would have to wait for another year for the exam. Exam is opened yearly basis and it covers material learnt in the whole year. However, you can carry the marks from the assignments to the next year, and of course you can choose to do the assignments all over again.

 

Ultimately? No, of course not. The question insults.

But did I find it difficult to understand the post because of that in the time I normally allot to read a mere 49 words? Yes, absolutely. The reader's time is valuable. You don't get to slow him/her down by so deviating from norms that it becomes distracting -- and, especially, impeding -- to educated people...

...or so they feel, but may not have the courage to blurt out as I am now doing.

This subject has been discussed here before. You might want to hunt down some of those threads and see the conclusions to which the participants ultimately came.

The tragic trend toward the bastardization of the English language by young people who have decided to allow Internet chat room norms to supersede both their better judgement, and whatever they probably should have learned in school but apparently didn't, is lazy, immature and inconsiderate. It shows a kind of palpable disrespect for the reader... and, I dare say, these forums... though that's just my opinion.

Language's rules are there for a reason. It isn't that language shouldn't grow and evolve through change. It's that some change is not growth; and is, instead, devolution and, worse, bastardization. We use the precision that's possible in the English language to convey a vast array of subtlety and meaning. We are only able to do so by means of the rich collection of words now available to us... each of which has paid its dues to be part of the collection.

"u" instead of "you" has paid no dues; and is disrespectful and distracting... and is, therefore, and impediment to one's ability to quickly read and understand so that one can equally-quickly respond and move on.

"i" instead of "I" has paid no dues; and is disrespectful and distracting... and is, therefore, and impediment to one's ability to quickly read and understand so that one can equally-quickly respond and move on.

"dont" instead of "don't" has paid no dues; and is disrespectful and distracting... and is, therefore, and impediment to one's ability to quickly read and understand so that one can equally-quickly respond and move on.

"Whats" instead of "What's" has paid no dues; and is disrespectful and distracting... and is, therefore, and impediment to one's ability to quickly read and understand so that one can equally-quickly respond and move on.

"doesnt" instead of "doesn't" has paid no dues; and is disrespectful and distracting... and is, therefore, and impediment to one's ability to quickly read and understand so that one can equally-quickly respond and move on.

"isnt" instead of "isn't" has paid no dues; and is disrespectful and distracting... and is, therefore, and impediment to one's ability to quickly read and understand so that one can equally-quickly respond and move on.

"cant" instead of "can't" has paid no dues; and is disrespectful and distracting... and is, therefore, and impediment to one's ability to quickly read and understand so that one can equally-quickly respond and move on.

These are not "small" mistakes. You only wrote 49 words, and seven of them were wrong. That's a nearly 15% error rate. Educated people find that appalling.

And the tragedy of it is that in an attempt to be cool and trendy, you made yourself look immature and subculture conformist... and to save having to make a lousy 7 letter keystrokes, and one Shift-keystroke.

That English isn't your first language is not an excuse. The errors you made had nothing to do with that. They were just lazy, childish chat room behavior. We have all sorts of people here for whom English is a second language; and who struggle to get it right, but don't. We say nothing about that. It's tolerated because it's unreasonable to expect speakers/writers for whom English is a second language to be so painstakingly perfect. None of us are that, anyway. Everyone makes mistakes.

Yours are not mistakes. They're deliberate, hipster silliness... and don't think I didn't notice you injecting even more of it into your 49-word paragraph just to yank my chain.

You've come to a place where education is the second word of the two word thing (that thing being "distance education") that is this forum's principle subject. As a member here you have two choices:

1. You can choose to be a hipster doofus and make the kind of intentional mistakes that you've made in your posts here; and, by so doing, betray to the reader your immaturity and maybe even lack of education; or,
   
2. you can use your activity here as a way of strengthening your English writing skills, ridding yourself of the nasty chat-room habits into which you've apparently fallen, and demonstrating to other members that, like most educated persons, you take language seriously because you know it makes you and your points more clear, concise and easily understood; and, by so doing, you demonstrate that you understand the importance of not distracting your reader with trendy bullsh_t... and so you convey a respect for the reader, and for the English language, that you are not not conveying.[/list=1]Having apparently completed a bachelors degree, you must know, in your heart, that I am right about the need to use language in a way that both honors and respects it... along with the native speakers of it who don't like to see it bastardized. You did not, I am quite certain, get away with making the kind of mistakes I have herein itemized in any of your college papers. You seem to be considerin an MBA from a university in the land where the English language was born, and to which it has been raised to an elegant artform. I dare say you won't be able to get away with the kind of writing there that you've foist upon us here. And, if so, I can't wait to know how your first memo to staff as a new manager with a shiny, new MBA will be received it it contains "u" instead of "you," or "i" instead of "I," abbreviates in non-standard, lazy ways; or defiantly (and lazily) refuses to use the apostrophe in contractions.
   
   These are just my opinions, mind you. It's not a violation of the DegreeInfo TOS to look stupid. You're free to look as stupid, here, as you'd like. Several of our members do it here every single day. But just know that that's the result of such behavior. Others will disagree with me, of course; but don't let that mislead you into believing that most reading in this place would not prefer that you use English in the correct manner.

 

Funny thing. This character wants a graduate degree and refuses to use standard English. If he did this in German he'd be regarded as more than a bit silly.

How do I know this? In frequent correspondence with Germans (in German), I include an apology/disclaimer about my sometimes rather odd ad-hoc German. I don't deliberately choose strange words or deliberately ignore German grammar or orthography. I get unsolicited German composition hints all the time--and I'm glad to get them. My correspondents aren't being picky, they're being helpful. I believe that they would consider me a worse idiot than I am by nature if they could tell that I was being deliberately stupid in my abuse of German.

Now before someone says that all this is some sort of refusal to appreciate difficulties with English as an additional language, I note that there are many, many posters here for whom English is obviously a foreign language. It's clear that when they make mistakes they are just that--mistakes--not adolescent posturing. (Well, OK, one crushingly obvious counterexample comes to mind, but let THAT go...) No one here minds. Why would we? But this is different. This shows a lack of respect for others that is unbecoming here, and will prove most inopportune in more serious contexts.

I wish the poster well, and that in whole words.

 

Not being a native speaker and using the Internet as the prime tool for communicating with the english-speaking world can very well lead one into believing that abbreviations like those are acceptable and well established, even among educated people. I am very suprised by the fierceness of your reaction. English is not my first language either, and I had no idea that using a few abbreviations would be considered "nasty", "silly", "immature", "disrespectful"... To be quite honest, it seems to me that your attacks are a bit over the top, and "wh431" had no bad intentions at all. He just didn't know better.

 

I agree. I have a lot of respect for Gregg and his intellect, but humbly feel on this occasion he over-reacted. From the 'DI' side of the fence I can understand it more, but to wh431 I am sure this is just another internet chat forum, on which using 'text message' style English is the norm. It so happens that in reality 'DI' is something of an exception to the norm, and Queens (forgive me!) English is expected of participants. wh431 wasn't to know this, but should perhaps of checked Gregg's status as moderator before responding in a slightly aggressive way which Gregg had to respond to in like manner.

Enough said, wh431 I welcome you, us Europeans (presuming you are one!) are sorely outnumbered here, so please stay and contribute.

I have just applied to Henley Management College's DL MBA program, which incidently also runs in Germany. My second choice was Warwick, I didn't look at Imperial too closely as by reputation it is very 'Finance' based. tcmak may correct me on that.

There is several members of this forum currently taking UK based DL MBAs and several more about to start.
tcmak as one of these makes good points, of course the DL study mode will take time to get used to, but that is the same of anything new. You will need to discipline yourself and find a work pattern that suits you best. There was an interesting thread on that very topic on this forum, some people prefer to get up before work and do a few hours, others prefer evening study, some prefer to call Saturday or Sunday a 'work' day and carry out assignment work then. You should also consider whether or not you want an exam based program and many other points, which Dr. John Bear nicely categorises here:
MBA's by Distance Leaning (Dr. J. Bear)

Good luck!

Dave C.

 

Imperial College Finance based? I guess you mean you gotta* be a finance expert to pay that fee. Just kidding. That’s truly a nice program, but way, way over my budget. I lurk every once in a while over their site, but their price tag crudely awakens me.










* I hope it´s OK

 

Ha!

I quote Dictionary.com

got·ta ( P ) Pronunciation Key (gt)
Informal
Contraction of got to: I gotta go home.

We will give you that!..

 

Good points Dave. I read study notes when I take train to work.

Imperial's MBA is a general MBA...like many of the MBA programmes in UK.. it consists of core + electives + project. You have the option not to take elective in investment and risk. I would agree that finance, innovation, enterpreueurship, and healthcare management are major specialities with the school.

Instead of complaining on being finance-focused, my classmates are more afraid of the "quant" oriented subjects. Perharps this is something that put people off.

BTW, Warwick and Henley are very good schools too and less "quant" I believe. Actually I did applied Warwick during my applications period.... but I later choose Imperial....

Good Luck to your applications!

 

Interestingly enough, a friend of mine who has contacts at Imperial has been told that they are severing their association with the University of London.

 

Yup. Imperial has finally bolted (not that it's a surprise, it's been widely expected for a couple of years now). Several pages of comment in the Grauniad this week about whether this presages the complete breakup of the federal university.

http://education.guardian.co.uk/administration/story/0,9860,1665571,00.html is the most recent article and has links to the rest.

Angela

 

When I was living in London in the 90´s, the rumor was that the LSE was trying to break its "assymetric" relationship with the University of London for good. After reading that news by the Guardian, I suspect other institutions may follow suit.

Regards