PPD on the Smurfit MBA – What is it?
In order to maximise a Smurfit MBA’s student experience, we designed a Personal and Professional Development (PPD) programme which runs in parallel to the academic curriculum. It starts during the Foundation Programme and continues right up until the end of the MBA. Most of our MBA students participate actively and we believe it may prove to be perhaps the most valuable learning experience and will stand in good stead to graduates years after they complete the MBA.
The purpose of PPD is to broaden each student’s set of soft skills to give them the edge in becoming the most effective leaders they can be.
These are some of latest events we have run.
On 8th Jan, we held the kick-off event for Semester 2. It was a PPD one day workshop held before the academic term began called Career Detection. Brian McIvor, the esteemed careers guru, facilitated this for us.
You will be able to read more about the students’ perspective in these blog posts.
Do I know exactly where my career is going?
These are all very existential questions, which for a thirty-year-old person to be pondering may seem a littlebelated! However, in the context of career path planning, they are fundamental to an MBA’s post-academic professional life. The importance of addressing these questions is underlined by the fact that our full time MBA class spend up to 20% of each week’s lecture time on personal and professional development.
Often we know what we are good at, what are our values and strengths, and how we interact with others, but it can be very difficult to articulate these succinctly and to tie it all into a package which aligns with a specific future career path. In my opinion, this is the most important output of my MBA experience: clarifying my future career wants.
Continue reading Do I know exactly where my career is going?
Just to give some background on myself so you know where I’m coming from….
I’m 33 years old and have worked as an engineer in the construction industry here in Ireland for ten years. I studied civil engineering in UCC in Cork and graduated in 2000. That’s more than 10 years ago now and makes me feel very old.
As you may be aware, the construction industry here in Ireland has collapsed in the last two years, so I was faced with a choice; either travel outside the country to find work or else take a year off. What better way to take a year off than to do an MBA; you don’t feel as if you’re completely wasting your time and hey I might even learn a thing or two along the way.
My name is Nargiza and I am from Kyrgyzstan. You may not have heard of it but it is a beautiful country in Central Asia. In fact, the flight from the capital Bishkek to Dublin takes eleven hours so you can imagine how far these two countries from each other, both in geographical and cultural sense. As far as I know, I am the first person from Kyrgyzstan studying at UCD Smurfit Graduate Business School. So, whenever I meet someone in Ireland first question they ask is why someone from Kyrgyzstan would decide to do MBA in Ireland?
“It’s all about the knowledge economy, the tech industry, -no the food industry, – sorry I disagree, it will be the pharma industry”. These are the statements we hear as we look for a glimmer of hope in the current economic climate. Who are the Entrepreneurs who will offer the spark for the future? This is the $64 million question (or should that be €85 billion). At the Smurfit School the MBA Class has started the Entrepreneurship Club to allow students both to bring ideas to the table or just for the interested spectator to hear where their future might lie.
At the inaugural meeting of the 2010/2011 Entrepreneurship Club, a number of enthusiastic students from both the Full-time and Executive MBA classes came together to design an outline for the year. There was common consensus to try and move it away from a lecture style modus operandi to more practical implementation (the mere mention of lecture had some quaking as they feared the 75 books they would need to prepare in a week for the next lecture).
A common theme was developed for the year based on the process of bringing a company to success or as the brand has become known ‘ Conception To Fruition’. Nights of trading ideas and more recently lunch time (hunger seems to bring a keenness to people’s mind), visits to UCD Nova to see the latest offerings for the future, and exchanges with recent Entrepreneurs has shown the potential that exists. Unfortunately the weather got the better of us (what a surprise in Ireland) so the Entrepreneurship Club has had to postpone its recent big event ‘How To Finance Your Business’ (and no, this was not because we needed clearance by the IMF). We will be following up this blog with regular slots keeping everyone posted on the progress of the Club.
Walking into a class full of 47 people and walking in a week late (thanks to the Visa process!), I was excited and nervous at the same time. More than anything else, I was curious to know if my class was as diverse as the school claimed! As I entered the class, a positive vibe welcomed me into the room full of smiling faces. Looking around and after talking to a few people, I was so enthralled by the range of nationalities and experiences we had in a batch of 47. From Irish engineers to American sales managers, from Vietnamese bankers to a Canadian telecommunications expert, there was so many to learn from in the coming year.
The MBA team here in UCD Smurfit wishes you and your family a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year !
– Orla, Mary, Rikke, Roisin, Brian, Elaine & Michael.
Click here to view card animation!
Over the holiday period, you may be able to give more time to the thought of doing an MBA.
Dave Lawton is a Process and Chemical Engineer from Cork. He has worked in the pharmaceutical industry for seven years, prior to starting his full-time MBA in UCD Smurfit Graduate School of Business. In writing this blog, he thought he would answer the more common questions out there about an MBA.
I was in this situation six months ago, and despite some extreme environmental conditions the exit from full time employment and entry back into education has been and continues to be a rewarding decision (hmm, something tells me the transition may not be so smooth – but more of than anon). So what would I have liked to have known prior to starting out? These are the top five questions.
My name is Patrick Hillis but all of my new classmates here at the Smurfit MBA have taken to calling me, “Paddy” (affectionately, I think). I come from the Pacific Northwest region of the United States — home of the space needle, Starbucks and fine folks like my good friend Billy Gates (not exactly, but I did come within a mile of his house on a boat once).