From their very first subject, MBA students at the University of Sydney Business School are able to apply the things they learn to their work.
"In each of the subjects there are a number of things I've applied. It's changed the way I deal with my fellow employees and the way I give feedback to people that report to me," says Samantha Cook, the 2016 BOSS Emerging Leaders MBA scholarship winner.
Cook, who is a senior associate at the Pacific Legal Network, is more than halfway through the $60,000 course. It's been a challenge fitting in the demands of university with a full-time job but she says it's been worth it.
"It's knowing you can't commit to everything in life and knowing that sometimes things have to give. Sometimes that means a bit on your social life," she says.
Time management
Peter Giurissevich, the BOSS MBA scholarship winner for 2017, is also learning to juggle his commitments.
"It's really a time management thing more than anything else," he says. "You have your day at work then you go home and put the kids to bed and then find some time to do reading and catch up on any uni work."
The senior counsel for the National Rugby League has the C-suite in his sights.
"I'm doing the MBA to move into a more commercial role," he says.
"I want to end up a chief executive or a chief operating officer. I can see myself getting a CEO role at one of the NRL clubs or the A-League clubs; cut my teeth as a CEO at that level and then one day having a CEO role with one of the governing bodies: AFL, NRL, soccer or rugby union."
Social enterprise
Cook is more circumspect about what she'll do when she completes the course.
"I'm keeping an open mind and seeing what opportunities present themselves," she says. "You realise with the MBA there are so many opportunities and many people have said, 'I thought I wanted to do this so I could get a promotion', but having done this it's widened my view of the world and I think I might want to do something entirely different."
Cook will be off to China and India later this year. The overseas elective subjects involve working with companies in each country on real business problems. In India, students will be helping set up a social enterprise.
"It goes so quickly," says Cook. "Other people have said to me, you need to make as much time as possible for the MBA and the extra curricular things you do; that might be making friends of people in your cohort and seeing them outside of school."
To apply for the BOSS Emerging Leaders MBA Scholarship 2018, visit mba.sydney.edu.au/emergingleaders.
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