The Top MBA Employers in Texas
The Lone Star State, to many, offers a winning combination of nature and culture; business and pleasure. When it comes to contemporary art and live music, Houston, Austin, and Dallas give New York and Los Angeles a run for its money. With its abundant nature reserves, state parks, deserts, and beaches, Texas also offers plenty of bucolic settings to clear one’s head.
Continue reading…Merage Alum Paves New Roads at Toyota, and More – Los Angeles News
We’ve rounded up the biggest stories coming out of business schools in the Los Angeles metro this week.
Zack Hicks: Toyota’s Leader for the Digital Future – UCI Paul Merage Newsroom
Zack Hicks, alumna of the Executive MBA program at the Paul Merage School of Business at University of California, Irvine, is leading the charge for digital intelligence at Toyota Motor North America. Using his experience from Merage’s EMBA program, Hicks charges forward as Toyota’s first-ever Chief Digital Officer, and CEO/president of Toyota Connected, a big data company that looks to use technology for improving the driving experience.
Zack Hicks, Merage EMBA alum and Toyota’s Chief Digital Officer, and CEO/president of Toyota Connected
In 22 years with the company, Hicks has served in a wide variety of departments, from financial services to IT. When deciding to go back for his MBA, he sought a program that would offer a new set of tools to draw from as he advanced in his career.
“I wasn’t interested in just checking the box, and I didn’t want to learn just theoretical aspects of business,” he commented. He also reflected on Merage’s diverse faculty and real-life business education: “I knew that made Merage a much richer learning environment,” he said in a recent interview with the UCI Paul Merage Newsroom.
Read more about Hicks’ work at Toyota and the EMBA program at Merage here.
Six Los Angeles Entrepreneurs Share Why Their City Is So Great For Starting a Business – Forbes
Though it may be better known as a city of dreams for Hollywood hopefuls, Los Angeles is also increasingly becoming a hub for business and entrepreneurship. Forbes recently compiled the insight of six members of the Forbes Los Angeles Business Council, sharing their thoughts on why Los Angeles is a top destination for entrepreneurs.
L.A. business leaders across a variety of industries shared their thoughts on the city as a perfect startup environment, including the city’s strong tech community, influx of startup talent, and its ‘second-mover’ advantage over Silicon Valley. “LA has the second-mover advantage when it comes to the startup scene,” commented Anna Nguyenova of TubeScience. “The office and living rent is significantly cheaper, there is more space to grow, more land to build on and it has one of the highest number of students graduating with a STEM degree.”
You can read more insights from L.A. entrepreneurs here.
G3X Conference Keynote Jan Masaoka to Examine the Challenges and Opportunities of the Nonprofit Sector – Mihaylo Newsroom
This August, the Mihaylo College of Business at California State University, Fullerton will host the weeklong G3X Conference to discuss issues in the social profit and social enterprise fields. The conference will be presented by the Mihaylo College Gianneschi Center.
Among the keynote speakers for the week will be Jan Masaoka, CEO of the California Association of Nonprofits. Masaoka has been in the social sector in California for many years, serving from 2007 to 2015 as editor-in-cheif for Blue Avocado, an e-magazine for philanthropic professionals. In 2003, the Nonprofit Times named her the Nonprofit Executive of the year. In advance of the conference in August, Masaoka shared her thoughts on philanthropy and success in the field with Mihaylo.
“Start and perhaps stay with work that is close to the action,” Mihaylo commented, offering advice to young people looking to join the social profit sector. “Instead of seeking to be an art grantmaker, put in the time as the office manager of a community theater.”
You can read more about Masaoka and the upcoming G3X conference here.
Your Guide to the Most Affordable MBA Programs in Dallas
An MBA provides professionals with increased career flexibility and greater earning potential. Unfortunately, the sizable cost of graduate school can be a hindrance to students motivated to earn an MBA. The shackles of student loan debt can haunt former students well into their professional lives.
Luckily, many schools appreciate the toll a high price tag can take on students, and offer more realistic fees and resources. With this in mind, we’ve laid out three of the most affordable Dallas MBA programs.
Commerce College of Business — Texas A&M University
The Texas A&M Commerce College of Business offers a relatively affordable experience for aspiring MBAs. The school is particularly sensitive to the financial stress pursuing MBA can cause. This is why the school follows the [In]tuition plan. Commerce’s [In]tuition guarantees the cost of commerce students’ educations will not will remain the same from registration until graduation, so that students do not have to worry about rising costs and fees from year to year. According to their tuition calculator, a graduate student who lives off campus and is a Texas resident could pay a tuition as low as $5,775.06 per year. The program averages about two years. Commerce accepts a long list of outside scholarships, and they offer institutional scholarships based on academic achievement.
The cost may also be reduced for students who completed the appropriate undergraduate courses, which could waive six pre-requisite courses. Commerce offers 13 minor options, such as Accounting, Business Analytics, Corporate Management, and Cyber Security. Commerce students benefit from the flexibility of the plethora of online courses offered by the school.
Naveen Jindal School of Management — University of Texas at Dallas
At the Naveen Jindal School of Management, residents pay around $32,998, factoring in tuition and fees, and nonresidents pay about $64,332 for the full-time MBA. In the past few years, the university offered scholarships to 75 percent of their incoming full-time MBA students. There are two types of merit-based scholarships for full-time MBAs in this program: Cohort and Corporate. These are both merit-based and students must apply to be considered.
U.S. News & World Report ranked Naveen Jindal as the 38th best business school in the country, which boasts an impressive 90 percent employment rate for full-time MBA grads. Students have recently gone on to earn high ranking positions at companies like Amazon and Toyota.
University of North Texas College of Business
As of the 2016-17 school year, the total cost of an MBA at University of North Texas College of Business was about $41,780 for residents and $56,468 for non-residents. At UNT, students can apply for a variety scholarships to cut tuition costs for many different types of students. For example, the Lupe Murchison Foundation Graduate Fellowship is a scholarship awarded to students, not based purely on need or academic achievement, but also on the student’s effort and promise.
UNT also offers a prestigious Online MBA for students looks for a more accommodating schedule. The school also offers afternoon, evening, and weekend classes for students looking for schedule flexibility, and who also wish to experience the on-campus community.
For more valuable information about the best MBA programs Dallas has to offer, check out our guide to the metro and which schools don’t require GMAT/GRE scores for admission.
New Book from MIT Sloan Researchers Illuminates Cambrian Explosion in Robotics
MIT Sloan recently discussed a new book from Professors Andrew McAfee and Erik Brynjolfsson entitled Machine Platform Crowd: Harnessing Our Digital Future, which considers where “humans fit in the new world of work.”
Argyros Professor Thomas Turk To Serve As Interim Dean
As of August 1, Thomas Turk will take on the role of Interim Dean at Chapman University’s Argyros School of Business and Economics. Turk is a fitting choice for this role as he has served on the school’s faculty for 15 years and even acted as associate dean for one year. He is currently an associate professor of management at the business school.
