Online Education Never Felt So Real

mmallari: What is the online experience like? What is the student collaboration like?
CChanIE: The online experience is like a real-life session. Students also collaborate with each other through live streaming after class. It's sometimes tough in terms of our different time zones, but it's just like in real life. One interesting thing about the student collaboration is that, unlike in a regular MBA program where we would meet often, we assign different people to lead the groups each week, so we all get a chance to lead a session.
DavidStanden: From my side, one of the places we've seen a big difference is in the level of networking after graduation. In a traditional program, students are used to seeing each other every morning, so when they disperse around the world, they don't maintain close contact because they're not used to the daily Internet communication.

mmallari: Is English the only required language?
DavidStanden: Yes. But keep in mind that we offer the same program in Spanish. It's not a bilingual program; you can do it in either English or Spanish.

FrancescaBW: What is your top advice for students about how they should approach the application?
DavidStanden: Applicants need to be open and honest in their applications. Our decision is not only based on choosing the best applicants, but choosing those who fit with what we offer and who we are. I don't want to tell people we're looking for one specific thing because I don't want anything artificial.
CChanIE: One piece of advice I received from my friends when applying was to show the admissions staff your entire self; don't just focus on your job experience. You need to be able to share with them your personality, interests, dreams, and why IE would be a good fit for you and vice versa.

FrancescaBW: Who is your ideal candidate?
DavidStanden: My ideal candidate is someone I haven't seen before. If I find an ideal candidate one day, then the next day the criteria will have changed, because we're looking for diversity.
CChanIE: And I know -- my class is extremely diverse. There are different nationalities, careers, and languages represented. It's awesome.

FrancescaBW: Catherine, what is the workload like? And how difficult is it to balance work and school?
CChanIE:It's challenging. During the first week, I was barely surviving. All my classmates were such overachievers. I was working about 15 hours to 20 hours a week preparing cases, attending classes, meeting with classmates, and balancing my real job as a market research analyst at Visteon, a spin-off of Ford Motor Company that produces automotive components. I have lots of responsibilities already, but eventually my classmates and I got the hang of balancing our work and the demands of the program. We're understanding toward one another. If I have to travel for work one week, then my classmates might help me lead that week's session. But it does require some art to balance your life. I still have a social life, but less so than before.

JohnK: Do you think other schools will do the same thing?
DavidStanden: They're more than welcome to try to copy us. Yes, of course, this is the way education is going. This is the way business has gone, and education is catching up to business. IE does its best to react as quickly as we can to the demands of business, which is likely why we're the first top-ranked school to come out with this type of program. This is the result of many years of research and experience in online education.
CChanIE: My personal feeling is that eventually some schools will try to imitate IE's program as more and more people (a lot of my friends) want to get an MBA but not forsake their jobs. But IE will always be ahead of its game.

deepesh9: What areas of specialization do you offer? Do students have the ability to choose their courses according to their needs?
DavidStanden: Instead of specializations, our students benefit from global communities, which are internationally networked communities of people who are interested in specific business functions, sectors, and/or geographic regions. Once students join our program, they are introduced to the global communities and decide what communities they want to join. These communities take the place of a traditional business-school concentration. Students can then choose any subject, and they continue to interact with their communities long after they graduate.

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