If you have already studied at university, it can often be a daunting process if you want to go back. Your material circumstances have likely changed, and the allure of university life — such as living on campus, meeting fellow young students, and partying — have changed in favor of simply finding the exact skills needed in order to further your career. This is especially true when it comes to a master’s in business administration. This is a step in further education that more and more people see as a necessary step in order to get ahead in the corporate world.
This is where an online MBA course can be of great advantage to you. An MBA can be obtained remotely and at a reasonable price while still offering all the benefits — such as in-depth, high-quality learning, and valuable networking — you would expect from a traditional MBA.
This article looks at eight advantages of an MBA course as a means to get ahead in the world of business administration. Additionally, it will explore the power of obtaining an online MBA as opposed to studying in person, showing both how it can help you with your career goals and how it can be done without ever having to leave your own house or flat.
Read on below for eight positives of an MBA degree as well as seven reasons why an online MBA might be the best career decision you can ever make.
Wide Variety of Skills
The different types of skills you can expect to learn during your master’s in business administration differ wildly, creating a holistic overview of every aspect of professional life. The different types of topics one can expect to learn about in a degree include:
- Management
- Accounting
- Finance
- Organizational Behavior
- Business Policy
- Business Analytics
- Marketing
- Business Ethics
- Data Visualization
- Investments
- Consumer Behavior
As a result of this diverse skillset, students will be able to advance their knowledge base, learn more about every aspect of the business chain, understand effective leadership skills, make better decisions and simply think differently about business in general.
You will become an effective business co-ordinator, be able to work between different industries, effectively communicate different challenges and wear many different hats at the same time, something that is becoming more in-demand in more and more corporate environments.
This, in turn, naturally leads to:
Diverse and Fascinating Career Opportunities
The career opportunities involved with a master’s in business administration are almost endless, as the skills learned within this type of degree can be translated to almost any part of the corporate sphere. Nonetheless, the types of jobs you might expect to take on after studying for this type of degree include, but are not limited to:
- Public Information Officer
- Chief Marketing Officer
- Chief Communications Officer
- Business Consultant
- Corporate Communications Manager
- Senior Marketing Strategist
- Business Development Executive
- Auditing Manager
- Budget Analyst
- Creative Director
- Customer Analytics Manager
- Director of Marketing and Communications
- Financial Advisor
- HR Manager
- Chief Data Officer
- Chief Financial Officer
- Investment Banker
- Tax Consultant
- Digital Marketing Manager
- Director of IT
Of course, this is just a small flavor of the different types of jobs that you can get into. While for a lot of them an MBA is not strictly necessary, it is highly recommended if you want to get a competitive edge. Additionally, you can always start your own company.
An online MBA can help you:
Build an Entrepreneur Mindset
If you are looking to found your own start-up like Steve Jobs, then an online MBA might be the right decision for you. As the degree gives you such a broad understanding of so many different aspects of a business environment, this will translate well into the diverse and often demanding expectations that are imposed upon a CEO of a new company.
Additionally, when looking for employees for your first company, it helps to hire people that you know, which means that an MBA is great in order to:
Create Key Business Contacts
It’s always great to hire people you know who can tell you what to do, especially when you are just starting a business. This is especially true in the start-up world as its fast-paced nature requires people who are able to take on dynamic and fluid roles. With an MBA, you will be able to really identify and learn about other people taking the course, finding potential co-founders as well as employees. Additionally, these courses often have guest talks and seminars led by business leaders, important contacts to lean on later in life.
High Salaries
The salary expectations of someone who has just graduated with a master’s in business administration are much higher than those who haven’t. In fact, according to the Wall Street Journal, an MBA could even double your salary, more than recouping the cost of studying for it. Therefore, if you are stuck in one career and want to retrain and enter a different career at a higher salary, an MBA is one of the best ways of achieving this.
Bridge the Gap Between Business Practices
Due to the various skillsets involved with such a degree, you will find that you are able to speak more than one corporate language. Not only is this good business practice in general, as often hiring managers will want you to prove that you don’t have a good one-track mind, but it will come in handy if you are looking to start your own business.
Additionally, due to the fact that an MBA teaches a lot of ‘real world’ examples, you can learn from some of the most extraordinary business successes, such as Amazon’s rise to success, as well as see where other companies have failed — like the fascinating demise of WeWork. By learning about the ways in which other companies have navigated both success and failure, the latter of which is still far more common in the world of Silicon Valley, you can make sure to avoid the pitfalls and emulate victory in the future.
Increase Your Trust Rating
With so many people wanting to work in the business world, it can be hard to stand out. What an MBA gives you is a high level of trust, meaning that it will be easier for you to be employed. It will also transform how you are viewed within a business environment. An MBA comes with a lot of respect, something that you can leverage in a business situation to your advantage. This is true on a global level, with basically every advanced country in the world recognizing the power of an MBA degree.
Become a Skilful Communicator
As this type of work bridges the gap between so many different elements of the business world, it also teaches the power of communication, allowing these different industries to talk to one another well and respectfully. Communication is key in business, whether you are working on behalf of a company or are trying to gain funding for your own start-up. It is also simply a useful skill to have in life and will prove useful in all your relationships, both professional and personal.
Advantages of an Online MBA Compared to an In-Person MBA
In the above points, we looked at why an online MBA can be advantageous to have in general. The next points examine why studying online is often a far better choice than studying in person.
No Disruption Due to Events Outside your Control
The coronavirus pandemic has changed the fabric of university forever. It shows that no matter what you plan for in life, you can never know the future. Yet, as a few people have learned when making the switch to online learning, it can actually be a blessing in disguise. This also means that when you learn online, if there is any disruption that is outside your control — such as a pandemic or natural disaster, or political instability — then the learning curve simply isn’t disturbed at all. Or, at least, the disturbance is more minimal, allowing you to get your degree without any unnecessary delays.
Lower Fees
On average, an online MBA is significantly cheaper than a traditional master’s, meaning that you can take out a smaller student loan or even find a way to afford the money outright. Additionally, as you are not confined by geographical location, you can always scour the whole world in order to find a degree that sits within your price range, making it far more flexible than having to think about which place you can attend in person. This also means that you can:
Save Money on Other Costs
Going to university is not only expensive in terms of tuition fees, with the average student debt around $133,000, but also in terms of literally everything else. Whether it is commuting to campus, paying for course books, paying for accommodation, or simply keeping up with university life, you can often find yourself out-of-pocket quite often. This is especially true in areas with prestigious universities, which are likely to be more expensive than where you live now.
An online MBA reduces all of these additional costs, allowing you to save far more money in the process. This is while still technically being classified as a student, meaning that you can still claim student discounts on a whole host of different products.
Learn at Your Own Pace
We all live busy lives, making it harder and harder for more people to simply drop everything and trot off to university for one or two years. This is why the number of people studying an online MBA has skyrocketed, as the course’s flexibility allows you to learn at your own pace. While there will be a minimum number of credits that a student will be expected to learn, they can set their own calendars and work around their own hours. This means that you will be able to:
Balance Your Degree Alongside Your Other Duties
In order to make studying for an MBA feasible, it helps to know that you can balance your degree alongside your other duties. For example, if you are taking care of a child at the same time, then you will be able to balance both your duties as a parent with your degree. It also allows more flexibility if you have a second job or are trying to found or manage your company at the same time. There is also more potential to get a deferment or postponement as well, for whatever life might throw at you.
Access to Cutting Edge Technologies
One misconception about an online MBA is that it is simply using Zoom to access lectures and seminars. While there is this component to studying online, they use cutting-edge technologies to transmit their knowledge to students. This is why they are actually considered to be far more advanced than a traditional MBA and soon considered to overtake them in enrolment over the next few years. This is especially helpful if you are looking to create inroads in the tech industry, where you will need to be very savvy with online tools anyway.
Global Diversity and Opportunities
While a physical location is going to translate into a large proportion of candidates coming from a particular place, an online MBA means that anyone in the entire world — whether it’s Belize or Bolivia, South Arica or South Korea — can take part in the joys of learning. This means that you will be able to gather contacts from all over the world, which may come in handy in either your local market or if you are looking to expand to different international markets.
With this diversity in experiences and students, you will find that you can learn more about the different business practices of different countries, giving you better cross-cultural knowledge that can be extremely useful when navigating future global job scenarios. Additionally, this may come in handy for your own market if you are looking to obtain an MBA from a more remote location without access to high-quality traditional education.
