The New, Virtual Reality Of MBA Networking
The New, Virtual Reality of MBA Networking
One of the biggest benefits of an MBA is the network it provides.
For many, the experience offers an opportunity to connect with a community of bright thinkers and future leaders. In the era of COVID-19 and virtual learning, that element of networking and connecting has changed.
Chris Stokel-Waler, of Bloomberg Businessweek, recently reported on how online learning has changed networking and how B-schools are exploring new ways for students to connect.
A NEW CAMPUS
At NEOMA Business School in France, school officials have created a new virtual campus of sorts. From their laptop, students can enter 80 virtual rooms, lecture halls, and workspaces dedicated to a variety of actives – from casual coffee meets to debates about critical issues.
“We provide the context for people to be together at the same time, in the same place, and do what happens on the real campus,” Alain Goudey, NEOMA’s chief digital officer, tells Bloomberg Businessweek.
ONLINE GAMES AND VIRTUAL TRIPS
Across the world at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, students are utilizing a Slack channel, where they can connect and chat about anything and everything. On some days, students connect and network. On others, they play virtual mafia.
For many B-school students, in-person networking opportunities with business professionals were one of the biggest assets to the MBA experience. COVID-19 caused those to disappear overnight.
Rashveena Rajaram, an HBS class of 2022 student, decided to replicate those opportunities through a virtual “trip” around the world, allowing students to virtually connect with tech companies and VC firms based in Silicon Valley and even Europe and Asia. The biggest benefit of this virtual experience – and something that the in-person counterpart lacked – is the global breadth of connections that students are able to make. And they can do it all from their laptop screen.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if some components of the virtual trips stay,” Rajaram tells Bloomberg Businessweek, “especially when it comes to being able to expand our footprint.”
Over a year has passed since COVID-19 caused the world to go into lockdown. And, while business schools have adapted, only time will tell what the future of networking will look like.
Sources: Bloomberg Businessweek, Harvard Business Review
Why The MBA Needs To Change
Back in February 2020, a majority of B-school leaders said they expected fundamental change to the MBA in the next five years. Few likely knew just how fast a global health pandemic could accelerate that need for change. Nearly a month later, MBA programs across the world would be forced to close up campus, adopt virtual learning, and ensure the proper technologies and systems to handle such a large transition.
COVID-19 has not only changed the MBA, but according to Paulina Karpis, cofounder and CEO of brunchwork it has also changed the meaning behind the MBA. In a Forbes piece, Karpis breaks areas where the MBA is lacking and what an MBA could mean in a post-COVID world.
“Covid-19 has changed not only the MBA’s meaning, but it has also upended many professionals’ career ambitions,” Karpis writes. “And hiring managers’ needs.”
A NEED FOR REAL-TIME
Karpis argues that too often the MBA focuses on analyzing the past through its use of case studies. Students look back to history and study a challenge that a company faced and analyze the solutions that dealt with that problem.
“But as leaders around the world learned this year, nothing we’ve done in the past could have prepared us to deal with a global pandemic,” Karpis writes. “For years, I’ve heard hiring managers say they don’t want a team member who’s been out of the workforce studying old solutions to old problems; they want someone who’s been actively solving current problems in real time.”
A NEED FOR DIVERSITY
The MBA has long had a diversity issue. And while minority numbers have gradually increased in recent years, B-schools as a whole still lack equal representation.
“MBA programs are notoriously male, wealthy, and white. So, while business schools like to say that their curriculum teaches students to work well with others—in most cases, that means a pretty homogenous group,” Karpis writes. “For companies that care about diversity, equity, and inclusion (which is, increasingly, all of them), MBA programs haven’t historically been the breeding grounds of the inclusive, forward-thinking leaders they’re looking for.”
WHAT’S NEXT
Karpis says that the MBA needs to change. When exactly that change is coming, nobody can predict. What we do know, however, is that a global pandemic most definitely can accelerate the need for something new.
“My hope is that modern business education will focus on real-time learning and application of that knowledge; allow students to build more diverse and inclusive networks; and—crucially—not plunge them into a mountain of debt,” Karpis writes.
How COVID-19 Helped Online MBAs
Flexibility and cost are two of the biggest advantages of the online MBA.
While the online degree was already growing in popularity, the COVID-19 pandemic forced nearly every b-school to adopt online learning in some way, shape, or form. Amy Bell, of Financial Times, recently reported how students have fared with the online degree and what kind of challenges the pandemic has placed on their MBA experience.
PRESSURES OF A PANDEMIC
One of the advantages of the online MBA is the ability to earn a degree without having to halt working. For many, especially those on the front lines, the pandemic added more pressure to daily life.
“Being on the front line — and having the anxiety of possibly catching it, having to go to work and use full PPE — it was very fatiguing, very difficult,” Jane Pearson, an emergency room physician and online MBA student at the University of Massachusetts’ Isenberg School of Management, tells FT.
Add to that the economic impact of a pandemic and it’s safe to say that each and every student faced challenges in 2020.
POSITIVE OUTCOMES
While in-person events are no longer possible in a COVID world, students say that the virtual environment has surprisingly fostered an engaging atmosphere of community and learning.
“Having to study on your own and then have guided discussion afforded a deeper dive into the material,” Pearson tells FT. “I feel I had more personal engagement with professors than I ever did [on previous courses] in person.”
Valeria Sava, an online MBA student at the Politecnico di Milano School of Management, says that while virtual learning takes careful time management, it’s worth it.
“It’s intense but we really want to engage with each other, and ask questions, because it’s our time,” she tells FT.
While COVID-19 stripped away many aspects of life that people took for granted, it’s also shown many the importance and benefit of work-life balance: something that the online MBA was designed to offer.
“People want more time for themselves,” Jorge Lengler, online MBA program director at Durham Business School, tells FT. “Rather than travelling long distances, they can stay and still have an excellent education.”
Sources: Financial Times, P&Q, P&Q
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