One Year MBA Programs: How Do They Work?

By siliconindia   |   Wednesday, 11 February, 2015
In today’s times, the focus of the corporate world is to recruit employees who can deliver creative solutions in high pressure environments using their people skills. Most MBA programs groom their students for exactly these leadership qualities.
Seen from the students’ perspective, there numerous MBA programs in the world today and the choice for aspirants can become a tough one. Aspirants must be clear about what they want to achieve out of this post-graduation and accordingly evaluate the MBA schools.

A one year MBA program is one of the best options available for students seeking higher education followed by a corporate career. It presents an opportunity for students to gain knowledge from classroom interaction with excellent faculty as well as interaction with achievers from the industry. This format attracts excellent visiting faculty from international colleges because the course design is able to incorporate one week learning interventions and this is attractive to them.  The industry mentors are also able to visit the one year programs because of the flexibility that they provide in their scheduling.

The program is designed in a manner to match the number of classroom hours that are delivered in a two hour program. Twelve months are adequate to include subjects in all the disciplines including economics, finance, marketing and OB. Besides the classroom engagement the program one year MBA also gives students the opportunity to participate in internships, conferences and mentoring sessions. Typically students join the program in the month of April and graduate the following March. In this 12 month period they sometimes have an option of choosing a specialization as well. This could be in the area of analytics, HR or marketing.
 
MBA programs seek students who have the makings of a leader. This is gauged through psychometric assessments, personal interviews and case study analysis. While some MBA programs mandate work experience as a pre-requisite, there are others who invite excellent graduates to apply as well. The class setting in a one year program is generally quite diverse and has people from across industries. This makes for meaningful peer to peer learning. Team work is not just encouraged, but it becomes a way of life for the students because of the extreme deadlines and work pressure that falls on them. Teaching faculty believe that this is merely a simulation of the real world and is essential to develop leadership qualities in the students.

Since the programs begin in April, "SOIL, the School of Inspired Leadership, is co-created by 32 leading companies and is a new paradigm in higher education to create leaders with character, competence and enthusiasm." the application deadlines are often in the month of February, which this year is 16th February, 2015 and hence the time to decide is now. Clearly the one year MBA is here to stay and brings much to the table for young graduates and executives who are seeking to further their career graph.
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