ATTUNED TO INDUSTRY
She is also keenly attuned to industry and a firm believer in the importance of practical real-world projects to the MBA. “We always want to offer opportunities and encourage a diverse class—that is one of the things that is most attractive about the Cambridge MBA program, the diversity of initiatives that draw together the expertise and resources we have within the business school,” she says.
The school has been developing diverse career pathways for its students by delivering a mix of technical and practical skills both in the classroom and beyond. “There are opportunities for students to apply classroom learning on live real business issues from the very start,” she says. In the first term, students take a course on management practice, where they learn about team behaviors and get to experience the pressures and challenges of working on a team. This is followed by a global consulting project in which students apply their learning to a real issue for an international organization.
Through the MBA program’s eight concentration pathways—which include traditional tracks such as finance and strategy and consulting, as well as others like entrepreneurship, social innovation and culture, and arts and media management—students can also choose an area or industry that they are particularly interested in and work on projects supported by coaches. “At each point we are trying to link what they learn in the classroom and apply it to work in the real world.”
Unlike two-year MBA programs in which students spend the summer in an internship putting things they’ve learned in the classroom to work, Judge’s one-year program ensures that its students are not waiting until the end of the first year to be able to apply things. “At every turn they get an opportunity to put into practice the technical and theoretical experience they have been developing,” she says.
“THEY KNEW IT WOULD BE GOOD, BUT THEY DIDN’T ANTICIPATE HOW GOOD”
Though students coming into Judge are aware of the practical real-world projects, Davies finds that many are surprised by how much of an impact they have on their learning and personal experience. “I hear so many students say that the global consulting experience was the highlight of their MBA—they knew it would be good, but they didn’t anticipate how good,” she says.
Alumni also often say it is the one area that has contributed most to their post-MBA success. “They comment about how it consolidates their technical management learning and their team-working skills, all while providing access to an outside organization that is internationally based where they are working with leaders of industry.”
