Just before going to Cologne last week, I got access to my.wbs, WBS' online learning portal, and my WBS email address. Furthermore, I also got the textbooks for my first three subjects delivered to me at work.
So far, I am quite impressed with my experience with WBS. The online resources that they have for their MBA students are quite extensive. Going through the Student Handbook on my.wbs, I was quite impressed by the wealth of information that they have available. They cover pretty much everything from what an MBA degree covers, to how to study and resources available. And to my surprise, WBS and Warwick University together offers many of the most popular software for its students to download and use at home, including SAS and Mathematica, which I have already downloaded.
I am also impressed by the range of students enrolled in my cohort. WBS encourages students to post Introductions on my.wbs, and from people's postings, I found that my cohort is made up of people with a really diverse range of background and from a diverse range of places. There are scientists, HR managers, investment consultants, entrepreneurs, etc etc, from UK, Nigeria, Europe, US, Canada, Australia, etc etc. Furthermore, the people seemed quite accomplished, with most being managers of teams of people and in positions with some level of decision making authority.
Apart from the uni provided resources, I am also impressed by WBS' embracing of the most popular online resources to assist its students, staff and alumni to network. People say networking is one of the most valuable part of doing an MBA and WBS sure maximises the opportunities for its students and alumni to do that. Being a LinkedIn user, I was able to join the WBS Group, which is only open to students, staff and alumni of the business school. Through this, I was then given the opportunity to help review a book on strategy (The Strategy Book) written by an alumnus and which will be published early next year. Of course, I put my hand up to this and am currently in the process of learning about strategy, an area that I am particularly interested in learning about through my MBA studies.
Although the course has not officially began, I feel I have already benefited a lot from being enrolled as an MBA student with WBS. The wide range of resources offered by WBS will definitely be something that I will be making the most of. One particular resource that I'm already thinking about is their contact list of alumni in different industries who have agreed to let associates of WBS contact them about their industry. One such contact is a head of a retail banking area at NAB in Australia. When I have time, I plan to make the most of this contact to see how I can best use my MBA to land myself a job in banking when I eventually return to Australia.
With my textbooks in hand, laptop at the ready, and my.wbs at my disposal, I am all set to make the most of my MBA experience, and am looking forward to broadening my knowledge of the business world.
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