Tag Archives: postgraduate
The gold price crash of 2013 was a dramatic wakeup call to many of the resource sectors prolific gold miners. Their ride of historically high prices had come to a sudden halt and the need to trim the fat (so to speak) had become the number one priority. While the term ‘cost reduction’ was nothing new to my vocabulary, I had never seemed to take a full appreciation of the term – that is until, I was part of a wider team entrusted to pull my organisation back to profitability. After months of working alongside business improvement teams and external consultants, I began to develop a keen interest in how business’s solved complex problems, especially in difficult economic conditions. This interest (and a little inspiration from some consultants) is what led me to the UWA MBA program.
Now, due to some previous study, I elected to pursue UWA’s MBA Flexible program on a full time basis. The flexible programs greatest appeal was that it offered a range of leadership and resource focused units. This allowed me to tailor my MBA to the area of greatest value to me and also helped me to keep in touch with the industry. Another key appeal was the abundance of scholarships. For someone who has left their job and has no steady stream of income, you could understand my enthusiasm towards this.
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My name is Sam Jarman and I am in my first year of my Masters in Marketing at the University of Western Australia. After I completed my Undergraduate Arts Degree in Communications & Media and English & Cultural Studies at UWA, I spent the following year undertaking first hand experience in a marketing role at a land development company. After pursuing this for a year, I began to realise that I was lacking in some of the key marketing principles. I stand by this decision wholeheartedly, as although I am only just completing my first semester of my Masters degree at the UWA Business School, the information I have gained has been extremely useful in my work life
At present, I am working two jobs while studying full time – a bit of a hand full I know. Over the past semester I have learnt a lot from my time at university, and have since developed my own study techniques to keep a healthy balance between work, study and social life.
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Since starting my MBA at the University of Western Australia (UWA) Business School last year, I’ve been asked many times why I’ve decided to go back to study. Is it for a promotion? Or to pursue a change in career? It feels there is a common perception that a decision to undertake an MBA is a deliberate step towards achieving a defined professional goal, or a calculated move towards a business-oriented career in management consulting or similar. But for me, the decision to study for an MBA is less a decision to ‘get’ somewhere, but rather an opportunity to better understand the different paradigms that drive the business world in whichever environment I find myself.
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With the final grades having been released, I can officially say that I survived the inaugural MBA Full Time program at the University of Western Australia. Completing 12 units in 11 months is certainly no mean feat. In fact, it has been the most challenging and exhausting experience of my career to date. Fortunately, it has been equally exciting and transformative. Having just crossed the finish line, I feel I am in a unique position to offer some advice to prospective or current students as to how to make the most of their MBA journey. And with the second full-time cohort having just begun their studies, I hope that this advice is timely. Please note that, while my recommendations stem from my own experience in a full time MBA, I think they are applicable to a flexible MBA schedule.
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It was almost a year to the day that I started the MBA Full Time at UWA Business School. On the first day, Mark Barnaba, the Chairman of the UWA Business School Board promised that the experience would be transformational, and he was absolutely right. I came in to the MBA as a 33 year old former athlete with no business experience and unsure of exactly what the future holds and I leave with the opportunity to work for one of the world’s leading companies in management consulting. That’s the power of a UWA MBA.
My motivation for doing an MBA at the University of Western Australia was to hone my managerial, analytical and problem solving skills, broaden my education and thinking, and improve my professional opportunities. I’ve achieved all of this thanks to the diversity of classes, lots of hard work, quality teaching and an amazing cohort; in fact it’s what I’ve learnt from my fellow classmates that have perhaps been most beneficial. The cohort was so diverse and so experienced that there was something to learn from everyone.
