Friday, June 15, 2007

More US students go abroad for their MBAs

When Christine Chang was looking to get her MBA, she wanted to take as little time away from her family-run business in Florida and at as little cost as possible. That brought her all the way to London. "I could do it in a year instead of two in the United States," says Chang, 26, of Fort Lauderdale. Plus, she says, "You get an international flavor of business." And the bonus: "You go to school, and you get a vacation." Chang is among a growing number of Americans crossing the Atlantic to get postgraduate business degrees, as the global economy continues to erase borders and as the demand for the degrees and graduates who earn them explodes.

"You're seeing more and more students from the United States studying overseas," says Robert Ludwig of the Graduate Management Admission Council, a McLean, Va.-based organization that tracks business school admissions and enrollments. The reasons for the growth, Ludwig says, are what brought Chang here:

* A master's in business administration usually takes half of the two-year time it traditionally takes at U.S. business schools. One-year programs compress courses into intense quarters or trimesters.

* The compressed study time usually means less cost, despite a higher cost of living aggravated by a weak dollar on international currency exchanges. However, one-year programs can reduce a student's ability to work while going to school.

* Students gain a broader perspective of foreign business culture, not just from professors but from fellow students who come from a more diverse international background.

And if you want a career in a particular country, then getting the degree there is a plus, says Arthur Francis, dean of the Bradford School of Management in northern England.

The number of students around the globe who are applying to schools outside their native country is growing, according to figures from the Graduate Management Admission Council. Three-quarters of the 147 business schools across the world responding to the council's survey last year reported that international admission applications were up. That compares with 33% of the 129 schools that said applications from foreign students were up in 2005.....

Adding to the attraction for U.S. students, he says, is business programs at big foreign schools are offered in the international language of business: English. Well-known U.S. schools have tapped into students' demand for international experience. The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, for instance, offers students programs through an alliance with Insead, a leading business school in France, and through exchange programs with schools in Beijing and Israel. The University of Chicago Graduate School of Business offers an executive MBA program in London. Even the stodgy English institutions of Oxford and Cambridge now offer programs. "They didn't exist 10 years ago," says Francis, a former chairman of Britain's Association of Business Schools.

Americans like Chang aren't the biggest foreign contingent studying at British business schools. The ranks of students from China, India and even Greece way outnumber Americans studying here now. "If you go to a (British) business school, you will discover that 75% to 90% of the other students are from international backgrounds," Francis says. The international makeup of her classes was a big part of the learning experience for Chang, who attended Huron University of London all of last year. "I could get the German perspective, the Asian perspective and the British perspective from my classmates," she says.

The different backgrounds really came out when the class worked on business models, says Chang, vice president of Florida Engineering and Testing, a firm her mother started about 30 years ago to provide pre-construction testing to builders. "The Germans expect a return on investment in seven years, the Asians 15 to 30 years," she says. "The Americans want it in two or three."

Chang, who largely runs the company now, says that had she not come to London for her MBA, she'd still probably be studying for it - having to take courses part time while continuing to work. She returned here last month to pick up her degree, which she says cost about $30,000, not including the cost of living, which is high in London. The average cost of an MBA in Britain is 16,000 pounds, just less than $32,000 at current exchange rates, according to Association of MBAs (AMBA) in London. But, she says, that's less than the $70,000 to $120,000 she would have spent on tuition if she had gotten it over two or more years in the USA. "And," she says, "you do get all the advantages of London."

Source




BRITISH SCHOOL CURRICULUM CORRUPTED BY POLITICS

The school curriculum has been corrupted by political interference, according to a new report from independent think-tank Civitas. The traditional subject areas have been hi-jacked to promote fashionable causes such as gender awareness, the environment and anti-racism, while teachers are expected to help to achieve the government's social goals instead of imparting a body of academic knowledge to their students.

The contributors to The Corruption of the Curriculum show that no major subject area has escaped the blight of political interference. Michele Ledda shows how issues of race and gender ('external criteria that have more to do with biology than literature') trump the love of language in the works of literature that students are given to study.

The anthology of poetry produced by the Assessment and Qualifications Alliance (AQA) divides poetry into two groups: poetry from different cultures (16 poems) and a further 48 poems from British poets, of which 32 are post-1950: 'The whole tradition of English poetry from its origins to 1914 is represented by 16 poems while modern poetry has three times as many... A British pupil can go through the school system and get the top marks in English and English Literature without knowing that Spenser, Milton or Pope ever existed, but having studied Carol Ann Duffy twice, both at GCSE and A-level. With all due respect to Carol Ann Duffy, she is on the syllabus, not because she is a greater poet than Milton, but because she is more "relevant", dealing as she does with very contemporary issues such as disaffected learners.' (p.18)

Educational apartheid: David Perks reveals, in his chapter 'What Is Science Education For?', that, whilst professing to want to encourage more pupils to study science, the DfES has introduced a new science curriculum that will probably have the opposite effect. The new approach, introduced last September, conflates the three disciplines of chemistry, physics and biology into 'scientific literacy', which has more to do with media studies than hard science. Students are asked to discuss issues such as global warming and GM crops, based on media coverage, and to consider whether or not scientists can be trusted: 'We don't need to flatter young people by asking them what they think about these issues. We do need to help them learn as much as they can about science, so that they can understand what science tells them about the natural world and their place in it... Asking teenagers to make up their minds about anything is pretty daunting. But if you try to ask them to decide if we need to replace the UK's nuclear power stations, you are far more likely to get the question: "Sir, what is nuclear power?"' (p.121)

FULL STORY here

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL schools should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the poor and minimal regulation.

The NEA and similar unions worldwide believe that children should be thoroughly indoctrinated with Green/Left, feminist/homosexual ideology but the "3 R's" are something that kids should just be allowed to "discover"


For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.

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