Monday 22 September 2014

MBA for Happiness ? Introducing the 2014 Royal Holloway cohort

Royal Holloway MBA 2014 Speed Networking during induction

An innovative induction session saw eager new candidates on the brand new Royal Holloway MBA programme commence today. Following a general Q&A session, rapid fire speed dating was the first active exercise, with newly minted MBA candidates keen to introduce themselves to fellow course mates.  



Chalk emphasising Holloway's history

The Royal Holloway MBA programme is renowned for being truly international and the deliberately nostalgic use of a chalk board (picture right) reinforcing the College's Victorian origins, gives a visual representation of the centre of geographic gravity of the programme participants this year.  


Students hail from Canada, UK, Russia, Norway, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Jordan, Kuwait, Ghana, India, Singapore, Malaysia and Pakistan this year, offering exciting opportunities for a wide range of cross-cultural learning experiences.  



Reasons to study for an MBA ?

The MBA group embark on a year long journey that sees them keen to develop a blend of intellectual, professional and soft skills.  

Challenged, as a piece of group buzz work, to identify their (common shared ?) motivations for joining the programme , they produced the following spider gram /  brain map (picture left) that describes the various factors that have drawn the group of 23 together.

The central factors, that are often used in MBA marketing blurb often refer to; personal growth, career change, theoretical learning, industry exposure and financial enhancement and these were all identified.  

Doorway to MBA transformation ?



Perhaps some of the less common motivations were also brought forwards and helped underscore why the Royal Holloway MBA continues to be very popular.  The School of Management's distinctive character that incorporates stand out dimensions of criticality, a stronger societal view of business and a highly international orientation.  

Factors such as making a difference, happiness, innovation and learning to think differently were also cited by an energised group who were working together for the first time.  


MBA Director, Justin O'Brien, was able to indicate that the newly revised curriculum would offer plenty of the right kinds of opportunities that will expose students to learning and growth in all of these areas.  

Interested & want to learn more ?


email: justin.obrien@royalholloway.ac.uk