The Best Business Schools for a Career in Project Management
Broadly defined by the Project Management Institute, project management is “the application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques … to meet a project’s requirements.”
A successful project comes to fruition only with the leadership of someone who is trained in time management, resource allocation, negotiation, conflict resolution, and budget planning. These are all skills one can acquire with a project management focused MBA. Continue reading…
Drexel LeBow MBA Admissions Answers 5 Questions
In our latest installment of the MetroMBA “5 Questions” series, we speak with Kate Sonstein, Associate Director of Graduate Recruitment & Admissions at the Drexel University Lebow College of Business. Sonstein discusses the importance of experiential learning and the quality of the students, staff, and faculty at LeBow.
1. What advice would you give an MBA candidate interested in Drexel LeBow?
“There are so many great things to think about when coming back to get your MBA, and sometimes it can be overwhelming. My best advice includes two simple things: be yourself and put your best foot forward on your application.
It’s important that you’re true to your personality and qualities in the admissions process because you are looking for an MBA that is the best fit for you, not your friend or colleague. You are on a search to find a home for the next 1.5-2 years of your life, and it is important that the MBA you select meets your individual needs at an academic, personal, and professional level. Otherwise, you could end up with a program that does not provide the type of interaction that is the best fit for you.
You also need to gain an understanding of the program and school where you are applying and demonstrate that in your essay and communications. Don’t just Google a few classes and stick them in your essay—believe me, we can tell. Big tip: spell check everything! And make sure your recommenders know why you are applying so they can write you an impactful letter. The best applications are those that are unique and showcase your strongest qualities, but also those that are genuine.”
2. What is Drexel LeBow’s greatest asset and what do you wish MBA students knew more about?
“Drexel LeBow is a community of ambitious, hard-working people who are striving to be the brightest and the best in their field. At Drexel LeBow, we are your greatest asset—our faculty, both with high impact research and industry collaboration; our staff, including our experienced career services team and involved college leadership; our advisors, guiding you through your experience every step of the way; and our students, go-getters always striving to be the best in every aspect of their experience.
I think our MBAs are still learning more about our newest feature in the curriculum: graduate minors. Graduate minors at Drexel are an opportunity to build an additional functional area of study at the graduate level through courses offered in other subject areas. Minors are offered across the university in over 50 different disciplines including data science, health administration, project management, and business analytics management. Minors can be built into the Drexel LeBow MBA plan of study without any additional courses—students simply put their 18 free elective credits towards their minor.”
3. What opportunities, outside of the classroom, does LeBow offer MBA students to get hands-on experience?
“Hands-on experience is crucial to the graduate experience, particularly in an MBA program. At LeBow, both our full-time and part-time students have the opportunity to participate in experiential learning opportunities, regardless of what other commitments they manage outside the classroom.
Consulting courses and projects are a key aspect of experiential learning at LeBow. Our students work with many industry partners through our Business Solutions Institute to solve complex business problems, working with decision makers and company leadership alike. Students can opt to work with a for-profit or not-for-profit company in a consulting course, or work on a consulting project through the Institute.
LeBow also offers the opportunity for residency-based courses, both domestically at one of our two Pennsylvania campuses or internationally. Domestic residencies are offered based on topical learning, such as Six Sigma or Negotiations for Leaders, or as a consulting course option. Our international residency course includes 10 weeks of study about a specific foreign market, and then concludes with a trip to that country (or countries) in the last week of term.”
4. How does LeBow support its MBA students for post-graduation?
“Throughout the MBA experience, our Graduate Career Services Team works closely with all our MBAs, regardless of their specific career goals. Opportunities including workshops, one-on-one coaching, and industry engagement events are integral to the MBA experience.
As an alumnus, we also strongly encourage involvement and engagement with the College and our current students. In addition to our University and College level alumni groups, we have the Drexel LeBow Graduate Alumni Association for our MS and MBA alumni that is quite active. The group hosts a number of events each year, including our signature night of Alumni Networking each April.
Alumni also have lifetime access to our Graduate Career Services Team. The team consists of a variety of professionals with different backgrounds and expertise who are available as they transition to multiple roles throughout their career, or simply for professional development advice and feedback. We encourage our alumni to be as involved as possible—it’s all about who you know!”
5. What’s your favorite online blog that you would recommend for students?
Overlooking the Schuylkill River, between West and Center City Philadelphia.
“I’m not originally from Philadelphia, so some of my favorite blogs are about Philly and all the amazing things it has to offer. My [number one] choice is always Uwishunu.com (if you say it out loud it sounds like “You wish you knew”) and it always delivers. They do weekly and monthly city happenings and highlight some of the best events and food spots in the city.
Our main campus is also located in the University City area of Philadelphia, and they have a great blog that I love to use to keep up with our neighborhood. Philly is a city filled with culture, history, art, and some of the best food you will eat so there is always something to explore!”
Wharton Talks Marketing Lessons Learned from Payless Publicity Stunt
What would you do and what would you think if you paid hundreds of dollars for shoes that sell for less than $20? That’s the dilemma that faced a select group of social media influencers who were invited to a private launch party for Italian shoe designer Bruno Palessi. What they found out later was that the hundreds of dollars they thought they spent on fancy footwear was just a ruse by Payless ShoeSource.
It was all part of a marketing ploy by Payless to highlight their new shoes and inexpensive designs. The question that’s on everyone’s minds now is, “Did the stunt work?” According to Wharton Marketing Professor Barbara Kahn and Lehigh University Assistant Marketing Professor Ludovica Cesareo, it was an elaborate ploy that paid off big time.
In the most recent Knowledge@Wharton radio show podcast on Sirius XM, the professors discussed what marketers could learn from the success of Payless.
Plan Ahead
A prank like the one Payless pulled off takes lots of planning of every single detail. The marketing team had to make sure nothing was missed if they were going to dupe their influencers, and they got it right.
“They did an incredible execution,” Kahn said. “The location they picked, the way the store was set up, the way they filmed it, the way they highlighted the shoes themselves while hiding the original brand and [adding] this very clean black-and-white logo. They did a fantastic job, from Payless’s perspective.”
Perception Frames Reality
The Payless shoes that the influencers were presented were no different than you’d find in any of their other stores, but by changing their location, packaging, and environmental clues, they made the influencers think that what they were getting was luxury. Payless proved that fancy packaging and clouding the judgment of a consumer can impact how they evaluate quality. The reality is that shoe quality won’t be revealed until weeks of wearing them.
Social Media is Powerful
Payless utilized the power of social media to get their stunt out to a huge audience and generate buzz. They realized that social media influencers could be just as powerful if not more powerful than retail marketers, fashion journalists, and designers in getting the word out to consumers. Social media is also why the prank worked so well. “They made something surprising and emotional, and therefore it’s much more likely to be posted,” Kahn said.
Publicity is Priceless
Payless has had poor publicity for a while now, but the stunt helped to turn things around and garner the company good press that they’d severely lacked in recent months.
“There are two things you want to get” from this kind of stunt, Kahn said. “The first thing is to build [positive brand] awareness. Payless has been in the news for very bad reasons recently — a lot of stores are closing down; it’s facing bankruptcy. It’s all been negative press. This is really turning the press around.”
Don’t Expect Long-Term Change
However, in the end, both Kahn and Cesareo don’t think that the stunt will impact Payless stores in the long term. While it might help bring in young customers who may not have shopped there before, Payless stores are still cluttered and unappealing compared to the fake store, so the long-term customer experience won’t impact sales.
Still, both Kahn and Cesareo agree that Payless got a lot of “bang for their buck” with the stunt.
This Wharton marketing article has been edited and republished from its original source, Clear Admit.
Working in Healthcare? Rutgers Dishes New Advice – New York News
Let’s explore some of the most interesting stories that have emerged from New York business schools this week.
Working In Healthcare? Here’s How to Stay Relevant – Rutgers Business School News
The Rutgers Business School recently shared five reasons its Masters in Healthcare Services Management is the “answer for professionals … who want to up their game with analytic skills, leadership development and business knowledge.”
- Analytical skills are a necessity: “Data provides critical insights needed to inform better decision-making and improve operational efficiencies.”
- It’s all about delivering value: Stay “up-to-date about changes in health care and…value-based practices that ensure quality services.”
- Empowered to bring about change: “Students learn what it takes to change practices, make operational improvements, and be effective leaders.”
- It’s not as hard as you think: “Many courses can be taken online to supplement time in the classroom. And students are able to waive up to six credits for eligible work experience.”
- Hands-on learning: “Students in the program are required to complete a capstone project that gives them a chance to work with a real healthcare provider on an actual problem.”
You can read more from the recent RBS article here.
Answering the Call for AT&T: Interns’ Insights Add Value at Company’s Indian Operations – Stevens Institute of Technology School of Business News
The Stevens Institute of Technology SOB blog recently highlighted some positive accolades from AT&T Business’s senior VP of Service Excellence Paul Rosenbaum, specifically regarding the company’s longstanding history with Stevens.
Rosenbaum expressed his pleasure with the Business Intelligence & Analytics students who interned at the company’s office in Hyderabad, India this past summer. “We know the quality of the students, and many of our executives are Stevens alumni. My team in India and my team in the U.S. were really impressed with these students’ capabilities,” he says.
He explains that because “Stevens business students are bilingual in business and analytics [they are] well suited to leading technical teams.”
Five Stevens School of Business interns, alongside several colleagues and AT&T employees, from the company’s Hyderabad office / Photo via stevens.edu
Of the experience in Hyderabad, Sanjay Pattanayak, ’18, writes, “This is the first place I’ve worked where equal opportunity is given to individuals to bring ideas to the table or suggest solutions, rather than just top-down leadership.”
“Having that independence, and being encouraged to put your ideas into action, enables the development of you as an individual and strengthens the organization.”
You can read more about the school’s program and Rosenbaum’s observations here.
Lehigh Announces New Philly Focus for Flex MBA – MetroMBA
Next Spring, Lehigh’s Flex MBA program will unveil two non-degree courses developed by the MBA Test Drive Program for prospective students at the school’s Center City Philadelphia location (1800 JFK Blvd).
“From Plan to Action: Strategy and Organization” will investigate “business model development in today’s competitive environment as well as the use of disruptive innovation in strategy development” while “From Private to Public Company: A Path to Exit” will survey the “considerations involved” in taking a company public.
You can learn more about the new Lehigh Flex MBA course offerings here.
Lehigh Announces New Philly Focus for Flex MBA
In early 2019, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania’s Lehigh University College of Business and Economics will roll out its brand new Philadelphia-focused coursework for those interested in the Flex MBA program.
The Muddled World of Leadership Cliches, and More – Philadelphia News
As November draws to a close, let’s take a look at some of the biggest business school stories coming out of Philadelphia business schools this week.
Three Big Leadership Clichés – and How to Rethink Them – LinkedIn
Geoffrey Garrett, Dean of The Wharton School and official LinkedIn “Influencer,” recently took to the social media site to talk about the gamut of leadership cliches that dominate the conversation around those roles.
In a conversation with a group of upper-level executives at the Wharton CEO Academy in New York, Garrett pivoted away from the following three cliches, turning them into something more modern, useful, and promising:
1.) Stick to your guns
2.) Question everything
3.) It’s a marathon, not a sprint
On sticking to one’s guns, Garrett emphasizes certain elements of 1980s corporate and political culture that found esteeming value when a leader does not waver on their principles. “Sticking to your guns is valued because it signals strength, courage and commitment under adversity, which is why we so often think about war heroes in this way,” he says.
He notes, however, that there is value in knowing when to “fold ’em” with a key Kenny Rogers reference in tow. “There is no simple score sheet to tell you when the positives from sticking to your guns become outweighed by the negatives. But the world is littered with examples where leaders wait too long to make the switch. Think General Lee’s historic defeat at Gettysburg in the American Civil War, Jeff Immelt at GE or John Chambers at Cisco,” Garrett continues.
“Most leaders will change course eventually because there is not much valor in heroic defeats. But the best leaders will change course long before the writing is on the wall. Compare the demise of Kodak with the transformation of IBM. But how do you know when the writing is on the wall? The answer is judgment, arguably the most valuable trait in a leader. It’s easy to recognize in hindsight, because good leaders make good decisions—the definition of good judgment.”
To see the rest of Garrett’s advice on leadership cliches, head over to LinkedIn.
Drexel Students Win Second Annual Diversity Case Competition – Drexel LeBow News
Students from the Drexel University LeBow College of Business brought home a brand new title as winners of the second annual Diversity and Inclusion Business Case Competition.
Drexel LeBow defeated 11 other local challenging universities in a competition with a goal to “help create a diversity training protocol for Home Away From Home, a global hotel chain,” according to the business school.
Winners from the LeBow College of Business at the second annual Diversity and Inclusion Business Case Competition / Photo via lebow.drexel.edu
The LeBow team of “Johnny Zhu, Kimberly Gain, Stephanie Arredondo, and Rachael Wright” nabbed first place with their curiously-titled “Raising Our One Family (ROOF)” strategy. Zhu explains, “ROOF stands for the overall company-wide training, which is rolled out in the form of top-down management and tailored to individual locations, corporate level, and field level. This proposal is not a mold, but a 360-integrated training approach where as a family, employees are living out the mindset of diversity and inclusion, not only to guests but to each other as well.”
To learn more about the Drexel LeBow team and the case competition, click here.
The Bizarre Bias That Affects How You Shop – BBC
The work of Beth Vallen, a researcher at the Villanova School of Business, was recently highlighted by author Martha Henriques in the BBC regarding just how pervasive “anti-fat” bias can be.
Henriques notes that overweight people tend to statistically suffer when it comes to things like job offerings, and even get less eye-contact than people of average weight and size. It is perhaps not so surprising to find that business models are often altered for overweight people.
In “Shape and Trait‐Congruency: Using Appearance‐based Cues as a Basis for Product Recommendations,” a new study authored by Vallen and colleagues Karthik Sridhar, Dan Rubin, Veronika Ilyuk, Lauren G. Block, and Jennifer J. Argo—published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology—found that overweight customers were offered more products that resembled their body types, even if the products, such as bottles of perfume, were not wearable.
Speaking with Henriques, Vallen says, “Our thinking was these subtle prejudices that lead to these effects are based on something more than superficial shape-matching.”
“We wanted to show that this was a bias that reflects the thoughts and decisions processes of all people, not just sales people.”
To read more about the study, head over to the BBC website and the Journal of Consumer Psychology.
