HW EBS MBA - why only 9 classes ?

HW EBS MBA - why only 9 classes ?
Most people in the world take 50 plus courses to get an MBA. HW requires 9 + 2. I looked at description of their classes and can't tell if they are harder or contain more material than US classes
Is it fair to say that Scottish masters degrees are intro degrees that suitably fool many North Americans?

I remeber time when ECE credential evaluation service evaluated this MBA as Glorified Associate degree.

Some one replied this way

Learner

 

The required number of classes, at nine, and the granted graduate quarter credit hours, at 36, is squarely within the range of most MBA programs in the USA and UK. What many programs such as EBS do, is to have one course, say Accounting, that covers both managerial accounting and cost accounting. Some other programs split this into two courses.

And anyone who thinks that number of classes in a program is a reliable indicator of either difficulty or academic rigor has some very basic misunderstandings of academics. Was my bachelors in chemistry, at 180 undergraduate quarter credit hours more intellectually difficult than my master's in chemistry, at 35 graduate quarter credit hours? No, it was not.

Perhaps the best way to assure yourself of the difficulty or lack thereof of the EBS program would be to take a class and write the exam. We will all be interested to hear how you performed.

 

I see your point and tried to compare the classes.

The exams have noting to do in this case, I'm interested to know if the material covered in such a program is comparable to US MBA lets say at Wharton.

I think a person who replied also had a point about that no BBA or similar required in order to earn MBA.

In my field I can't jump to Masters degree in Engineering without having all the foundation and advanced classes that BS degree in Engineering.

And if I do get accepted in to RA ABET Engineering graduate school with BS in Business I would have to take most of the engineering undergraduate classes as prerequisite.

As far as sitting for EBS test well its not fair analogy because ]
one would have to seat for the same test at Wharton or another US University MBA class in order to compare.

Are all EBS MBA courses combined as suggested earlier, I took time to compare and the ratio is 7 classes cover what 11 US classes would cover - my opinion.

I'm familiar with European graduate degrees that have no classes and based on research so its really not the issue.
The issue is that it appears that MBA from EBS is not covering the same amount as US ABA, BBA and MBA would from respected university.

 

I personaly highly respect UK educational system and have UK qualifications and memberships in UK chartered institutions etc.

At this time I'm comparing only one program from Scottland HWU EBS MBA.

 

I know a lawyer who started the EBS MBA. We're talking a guy with a law degree from a top Canadian school, great undergrad grades, great LSAT etc etc.

He dropped out of the EBS MBA, said it was an absolute freakin' killer.

Personally, I did an undergraduate business degree and it kind of always pulls my chain that guys with undergraduate degrees in chemistry are running out and getting an MBA with significantly less business credit hours and becoming instantly more (academically) qualified. On the other hand I assume that the work they have to do is at a higher level.

 

I am very interested in knowing how the comparion and conclusion of EBS MBA covering "less" than most of the US MBA programmes.

I will take an example from Wharton...

Here's the core courses:
http://mba.wharton.upenn.edu/mba/academics/curriculum/core.php

However, in most UK MBA programmes, like EBS MBA, you only have a few courses to take. An "Accounting" course already covering financial accounting and management accounting.... while only one course in Quantitative skills covering from decision model and statistics.

In the Wharton MBA core course page... you can see some headings like "Accounting", "Analytical Foundations", "Operations"... I think these map into more or less 1 course in EBS MBA programme.

This is only a very rough idea on how you can compare them. Afterall, they are different programmes. They have different focus. It would not be surprising to find EBS MBA covering more in one topic than the other but less in other topics.

This is not about the number of classes you take. But also the amount of effort you need in a class.

However, another thing to mention about the comparison is that... typical US MBAs, like Wharton, is a two-year MBA programme.... while typical UK ones are around one year. The full time version of the EBS MBA programme is one year.

On one hand you can say that Wharton is providing more to study, but the problem is whether students are willing to spend that much time/effort to get the degree.

 

A point has been raised about MBA programs requiring an undergrad business degree for admission. Generally speaking, this is no longer the case. Indeed, many years ago, most USA MBA programs required an undergrad degree in business, accounting or economics. This has now pretty much gone the way of the dodo and now most USA MBA programs require an undergrad degree in any discipline or an equivalent amount of business experience.

Interestingly enough, I ran into this very problem when I first started looking into a MBA program back in the early 90's. I was a National Merit scholar in high school and graduated with honors from the UW, with a bachelor's and a master's in analytical chemistry. When I applied to the UW evening MBA program, they would not accept me insofar as my undergrad was in a physical science, not a business discipline. That policy subsequently changed and they now require an undergrad degree in any subject. But this was one of the reasons that I went with EBS instead.

And if the original poster truly thinks that EBS does not provide the same skillset as other MBA programs, he needs to do further research on MBA programs in general. MBA programs, by their very nature, provide a more high-level or strategic overview of business disciplines than a focused undergrad education in some of those disciplines. Does the holder of a MBA degree know more about accounting than someone with an undergrad degree in acccounting or a certified public accountant/chartered accountant? No, they don't. But that is not the intent of any MBA class in accounting. It is how to use accounting information as part of an overall business strategy or to achieve your business goals. As a business executive and MBA holder, I hire accountants to do the actual accounting work and provide me with the necessary information for me to make decisions.

As to the merits of a USA BBA vs. a USA MBA, I once dated a business professor for a while. She taught in both the BBA and MBA programs at her university. She personally was of the opinion that a BBA student learned very little additional by going through a MBA program. In her experience, most MBA students were either professionals like me looking for additional business training, or someone with a focused undergrad business-related degree, such as accounting, who was looking for more general additional business training.

 

MBAs are all over the board in terms of cr hr requirements.

They range from 30 to 60 cr hr. In the US, the AACSB accredits programs that range all over this spectrum, yet all are called "MBA". The average is probably in the mid to upper 40s.

As for H-W, it may be international, and is not an AACSB program, but in the respect of only requiring 9 classes, it's not much different from many US distance MBA programs, such as Mississippi State, which requires only 10 classes for one who has a UG degree in business. My program, UMass, requires 12 classes plus an intro class for one who has no UG degree in business. This isn't out of the ordinary at all.

I personally think it's absurd that there can be such a wide range covering what the AACSB calls an "MBA". I think there should be different designations, maybe with the cut off guidelines being 30-45 cr hr and 46-60 cr hr. Call the former one thing, the latter something else--what, I don't know. If I had a 60 cr hr MBA, I'd resent the fact that a fellow with a 30 cr hr one got to put the same designation on his resume.

 

My alma mater (AACSB, Canadian school) has a 60 credit MBA, 45 credits if you have a recent business undergraduate degree. I have to agree that if I picked up a 60 credit MBA I'd be annoyed by the guy who got his from Bellevue for 36 credit hours.

 

Interestingly enough, I just checked the UW website, and found that the full-time day, the part-time evening and the executive MBA programs all had different numbers of graduate quarter credit hours granted. And yet they all grant the same degree. I wonder if other schools have variations within their own business schools.

I can tell you from personal knowledge, however, that in the USA, medical schools and law schools also have different amounts of credits required to award the same degree. So one could get a medical or law degree and do more or less work, or take more or less classes, than someone in the medical or law school right across town.

 

The reason why MBA degrees range from 30-60 semester hours (45-90 quarter hours) is that some are simply 30 semester hours/45 quarter hours, just like any other master's degree, while the others, which range up to 60 semester hours/90 quarter hours have what are known as "levelling courses" or "bridge courses" or other sorts of pre-requisites for the liberal arts majors. Hence, some MBAs are 60sh/90qh no matter what, others are 60sh/90qh with 30sh/45qh waiveable if you come in with an undergraduate business degree, while others are the "standard" 30sh/45qh which almost any other master's degree would require and the liberal artsy types can test their ability to get thrown in the pool and sink or swim.

 

Yes, very comparable.

I was a DL and on-campus student at EBS.

The EBS MBA is not 9+2 classes but 9+2 modules. For example, the economics module would cover the material in a US micro and macro economics class. The accounting module covers financial and managerial accounting, etc.

Currently I'm in a PhD program at UF. UF has a top ranked MBA program, AACSB and Equis. UF accepted 30 credits (the max allowable by state regulations) from EBS into my PhD program. I have taken courses with MBA students here, and have even TA'ed business courses at UF. I work with faculty not only from UF, but from Wharton, Harvard, Michigan, and other top schools, and I can tell you, what they teach, is very comperable to what EBS teaches. After all, the EBS program had it's start in management education research done at Stanford.

Your confusion between US and UK curriculum is not uncommon. I had a phone call the other day from a confused friend who was accepted into University of Edinburgh's Vet program. Their program is accredited by the American Vet Association, so graduates from that program can practice in the US. However, whereas in a US vet school, there might be many courses to take, such as Embryology, Parasitology, Toxicology, etc, at Edinburgh, they might lump all that together and call it "Small Animals" or something vague like that. It's a difference in packaging.

 

I note from the EBS website that they estimate about 200 hours of study per course (or module). What is the rule of thumb for number of hours of study for a 3 credit graduate course?

 

EBS's "200 hours" is only a rough average. Some modules, such as Marketing, cover a lot of material and you will need much more than 200 hours. Others, like Accounting, you can probably get by with less than 200.

UF's rough rule is 2 hours of study for each hour in class. For some courses, that is overkill. For others, nowhere near enough.

 

Michael, that is an interesting point. I'm currently an MBA student at the University of Southern Queensland(Australia); I've also an undergraduate degree in business from an US school. Recentlly completed my first MBA course "Economics for Managers". In my experience the course covered around 80 percent of stuff I had learned during my bachelor's. However, the perspective was different: the MBA Economics course was more prescriptive, while the undergraduate micro and macro courses had a more descriptive emphasis.

 

Regarding EBS/HW MBA, I discovered that Excelsior will accept completed courses in tranfer to its MBA program. I sent Excelsior an email asking if they would and they said yes.

I don't know if this was covered elswhere on this board but I figured it might be of help.