Think carefully before you decide!
A frequent complaint we receive from our MBA students is that the MBA course has lots of theory and very little practical application. Frustrated students question how they will utilise value of their degree. Some MBA students feel that they do not have much flexibility in the course and they have to just ‘get on with it’.
Following from several comments we decided to focus this newsletter on HOW you can make a better use of your assignments in order to prepare for the future. This is only the first newsletter of which several more are going to come. We believe that the main issue that you need to start thinking is BREXIT. Whether we like it or not it is a hot potato which is already affecting lots of different industries.
MBA Assignments on BREXIT
Some tutors are less flexible than others in terms of the specific assignment topics MBA students are able to explore. Some MBA modules provide you with the opportunity to choose a topic of your choice and others just do not. Clearly, the dissertation project is a great opportunity to explore what you want to study in depth. However, the dissertation only takes place at the end of the academic year and you would have covered several modules by then. Surely you cannot wait until you need to do the dissertation!
Our suggestion is to engage with your tutors as early as you join the module. You need to develop good rapport and meet frequent with your tutor. This will give you the opportunity to get to know him/her in a more personal level and to understand how they think. Do not focus just on writing the assignment. Spend time understand the tutor and what he/she is like as a personality. Some of your conversations can focus on Brexit and what the implications are going to be for the UK economy. Every MBA tutor is interested in this topic. Every tutor will have some kind of reaction to the topic. It is an opportunity to develop a more personalised and friendly rapport through discussing about it. If the assignment topic is set for you and you do not have much flexibility with changing it, then ask whether you can take a direction in terms of ‘focus’. You do not have to deviate from the topic but you can specifically pay greater attention onto the ‘implications’.
Remember that the academic literature is broad and tutors are interested in students who identify topics which are current and concern recent developments in the economy.
As a student you might be thinking that ALL that matters is how well you have done in the assignment. However this is NOT the case. Tutors are particularly sensitive to their interposal interaction with the students. They remember the type of students that are interested or not interested in the subject area. You might be asking yourself “is this going to make a difference in the way I get graded for my assignment?”. The answer is YES! Of course you are not going to be directly making a difference to your grade by asking lots of questions! However, your behaviour is one of the key ingredients that can work to your favour among your actual effort to tackle the topic well.
It is surprising how the image of a student suddenly comes back to the the tutor at the time of grading an assignment. All previous conversations and the advice offered actually becomes something that the tutor remembers!
Whether it is being acknowledged openly or not there is a hidden emotion of satisfaction in the tutor when seeing that the student has actually taken into consideration the conversations held. You probably thought that the grading of your assignment is as objective as it can be and there is no trace of subjectivity in it! However, this is not the case! It is important to remember that grading an assignment is an ‘experience’ where tutors bring to mind all prior conversations and are influenced by prior student engagement.
So what is the big deal with BREXIT for me then?
The big deal is that whether you like it or not, whether you realise it or not, it is an event that is going to have implications for the UK economy and not only for the UK!
With this newsletter we would like to suggest that a study of the ‘implications’ can remain a useful topic that can be incorporated in your studies but also for what you want to do after you graduate.
The rate of volatility is going to increase and the shipment of goods and services is likely to be affected. Hence, apart from your MBA studies think about the industry in which you believe that you can make a difference with mobilising your skills and experience. If you believe that you do not have enough knowledge about it then start thinking about your immediate job and how this is going to be affected. Try to do a SWOT analysis on yourself and identify the critical areas that need to be improved. Regardless of the job you are doing or want to be doing employers will be looking for people that demonstrate a strong level of resilience and proactivity. This means that you need to demonstrate that you are able to plan ahead and that you are creative in the way you interpret social events.
We suggest that you start by learning more about the labour market and how Brexit might influence it. There are so many issues that someone can explore in this territory. For example:
- Think about the population of workers currently situated in the UK. Think about the new barriers to entry that might come up if the UK government if they fail to reach an agreement with the European Union.
- Think about the competition between employees for fewer jobs and which industries are going to be affected more than others. Jobs that are low-skilled are likely to be more affected than jobs that are high-skilled. However, high-skilled jobs for which there is not great demand means that such individuals will be competing with people who are less-skilled.
One of the sectors that has been severely affected in the HR industry includes the case of external recruitment agencies.
Even though companies used to outsource their recruitment to such organizations they are now moving such practices internally. However, they are experiencing a severe skills-gap with not having the in-house expertise and resources in order to design and develop the relevant activities. Thus, this is good be a potential area of interest for you. If you are interested in HRM you can focus on how corporations are able to overcome problems associated with developing in-house expertise and with maintaining a strong level of output in terms of their recruitment selection, training and development practices.
MBA Winner is the leading MBA Essay Service Provider in the UK www.mbawinner.com support@mbawinner.com
In a nutshell we will help you:
- Identify a suitable research topic appropriate of an MBA dissertation
- Provide you with the relevant academic sources so that you obtain the information you need
- Develop a methodology approach for collecting and analysing primary data
- Structure a well-supported argument that contains strong analysis and discussion that tackles a well-defined research question
