Queen's School of Business

-The team-based approach of Queens gives students a risk free way of developing their leadership skills. It allowed each of us to learn and adapt to each teammate's work style and respond in a manner that brought out the best in each of them. This would not have been possible if students worked with different people for each assignment/class. It took approximately 6 months to really get a feel for each teammate.

-This is an A+ school in every respect except its career services center and diversity of the students.

-The Tri color venture fund allows students to be real venture capitalists with part of the endowment fund - this program is not advertised enough but is probably the most unique in the world.

-I would have liked more opportunities for consulting projects with existing businesses. The best lessons learned were outside of the textbook, when we got to work hands on with local companies facing business problems.

-The team and coaching aspects to all elements of the Queen's MBA help to make it unique. All programs can offer academics. It is the soft skills that make or break great managers and business leaders. In addition, students are provided with personal trainers and fitness classes to ensure that they learn personal stress management habits.

-I believe that the career center is doing a good by working with the students from the beginning. But they can certainly improve on building a more international network. They can also bring companies to recruit for international assignments and not just for Canada.

-Queen's offered a very unique program. The students become very good friends very quickly. Everyone helps each other succeed academically and professionally. There is a feeling that everyone will continue to be friends long after the program is over. This includes the contingent that will live abroad.

-Perhaps this may be somewhat related to the current economic environment, but I feel that one area of improvement is the career center. Although career coaching, interview practice and job postings were abundant, one area I felt lacking was support from individual counselors, in terms of developing personal relationships with students, as other faculty had done. They were always accessible, but could have made the program stronger by actively reaching out to students.

-The team based environment and small class size (116 students) helped me develop personal relationships with every student and this was what made the Queen's MBA unique. I've built life long friendships with other students and I know that without the personal touch, it would have been impossible. Other schools I visited came off as being too "corporate" and lacking in student support whereas the culture at Queen's was welcoming from day one.

-It would be ideal if the program can look deeper into practical business issues, such as legal issues, cross border investment, etc. My personal feeling is that currently the teaching focus weights a little more on e-commerce and consumer product area. We are put into teams of 6-7 for the first 8 months and do at least 50% of the work for each course with this team. This aspect of the program really taught me how to work efficiently as a team/team member, how to communicate in different situations with a diverse group of people and how to lead a team of very different individuals. I also gained valuable experience and insight working with and learning from my teammates from all over the world with extremely diverse backgrounds. The program's emphasis on teamwork will be crucial to my future career success as the ability to lead and work efficiently as a member of a team are required in most jobs/industries today.

-Revamp the career center. It is an absolute shame for a quality program like Queen's to have the current career center associated with it. We need a dedicated MBA career team - not a generic one for all business programs including undergraduate. We need dedicated MBA on campus recruitment, instead of tagging along the MBAs to the undergrad on campus recruitment event. The career center was not only ineffective; they were absolutely ridiculous in some of the policies they implemented. One particular practice - secretly promoting a handful of students to top employers - caused a huge drama in our program. The manner in which this practice was conducted was absolutely shameful and left a bitter taste with most of us. Once confronted, the career center got defensive and promised to change the practice however that is useless for our batch since the damage was already done.

-We are a group of intelligent, driven professionals who are humble. It is no secret that Queen's one of the top MBA programs in the country - we don't need to tell everyone that each time we meet new people. Our approach is to be focused on our teammates and elevating their leadership skills. We do not sacrifice the success of our teammates for individual gain. If more MBA programs approached business leadership this way, the world would be a much better place.

-Career coaching is great but we also need industry connections for our job search. The career center needs to revamp its strategy to connect students with the industry and alumni network.

-It is incredible that the program packs so much in to such a tight schedule. For a one-year program, Queen's incorporates more leadership development, career guidance, academics and community involvement than I would have ever thought possible. There is so much going on, but it is all so exciting that you forget to do things like sleep and eat!