Andrew Mannella - Accelerated MBA - Introduction & Why Ivey

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 Good morning! or good afternoon, depending on the time of the day that you're watching this video. My name is Andrew Manella. I am a student at the Ivey Business School studying in our Accelerated MBA program. Now, a little bit about me, as you might be able to tell by my orange apron here I work at Home Depot. I work full time at the Home Depot in a finance position on the side here I'm a part time student at the Ivey School of Business. I live in Toronto, Ontario, I was born and raised in Niagara Falls, Ontario, which is just a stone's throw away and I'm really excited to be here today to tell you about my Ivey experience. All right, now that I've slipped into something a little bit more comfortable, I want to talk about my experience at Ivey Business School. So I'm a student in the Accelerated MBA program, as I alluded to already, which is a part time program designed for working professionals. That's a great thing for me because work life balance is extremely important and, I’ll addanother dimension to that work life and academic balance is really important. For me, I have a busy job. I'm a director of finance. I'm in meetings from 9 to 5, and I don't have much time to think about my education until after five o'clock. The great news about the Accelerated MBA program and why it really sets itself apart from other peers in the space is that the blended learning program, both online and in class, allows you to find time in your busy schedule to get some of the online work done in advance of some of the weekend classes that might be out there. That, for me was a really important selling feature of the program. As I looked at different programs at different schools, a lot of them didn't offer that same flexibility of partial online learning, and a lot of them also might have taken two or three years to actually to complete the degree. The difference with the Accelerated MBA program is that it's tailored for business and commerce undergraduate students with some leadership experience and development in the field so that a lot of the fundamental business work can just be simply reviewed rather than re-taught the beginning, so that was a really appealing part of the program to me and one of the big reasons why it could be condensed to one year. Now it's condensed toe one year, so that doesn't mean it's easier than other programs. In a lot of ways, there's a lot more challenging because there is a lot more work ongoing that you need to be committed to. You know, it was about 20 to 25 hours of work on a weekly basis. They needed to slot in around your busy work or family schedules. Now, for me, that meant a lot of weekday evenings, but also some weekends you had to sacrifice along the way. But the good news is that the one year flies by and you don't need to think about it beyond that, much more so. It's a lot of work. It's a quick year, but it is a lot of work along the way. But the good news is your classmates are in it together and they support you along the way. My class had 43 individuals in it and we were a cohort. We moved through the entire program together. We went through all classes together, but you could see the work ethic with the other 43 people in the class, and you could see that everybody is going through the same struggles. Juggling work and life at the same time is their academic careers, and I don't think I can emphasize this part enough. The people really make the Difference at the Ivey Business School. My class was an extremely talented group of individuals that helped sharpen my learning along the way. The Ivey Business School teaches that the case method of business education, we go through cases every single class to really refine a subject for us and the value get into the program is the people in the class around you. You know, we had a number of different individuals from different industries with varying different experiences on every case was made that much richer hearing perspectives from other people about how they might have experienced it in their path historically, or how they might think about it from their industry or sector. Outside of the classroom the people made a huge difference, though, is well despite the COVID situation that we're facing through our duration of the program, we still found time to have social outings pre COVID we'd get out and go out and play Ping Pong, or we go to a bar after class and have a couple drinks. But in the summer, even in the COVID situation that we're in, we're finding time to get together online on ZOOM and have ZOOM, happy hours or trivia nights. And even in the summer, we Got out golfing as a group in a socially distant kind of way. So we really made an effort, a conscious effort to stay connected as a class because that's one of the really valuable parts of the MBA program that you take away. Outside of the students in the program, the faculty are great, a top notch. It makes a tremendous difference when you think about your business school, having a faculty with great industry experience and academic insight to bring to your program. They are expert facilitators and keeping the case dialogues alive. And that's really important in the case method. The faculty was there along the way, you know, making adjustments in our in our new normal, with COVID moving more online than they had initially planned for the blended learning on really rapidly reacting in finding new, innovative ways to teach the program. So kudos to the faculty they did a bang up job along the way. And for anyone considering application to the program, reach out to some of the faculty or some of the program directors or admissions directors. They'll give you great advice for me personally. As I was researching Ivey, I had a couple of great conversations with some of the recruitment team. They invited me to come on campus and check things out, which I did. I drove to London and actually looked at the campus despite the fact that I'd be in Toronto. There was also an opportunity to get downtown Toronto and actually see a case discussion live. I actually sat in on one of the Executive MBA programs, and I heard about the case method live, and I chatted with some of the students that were in the EMBA program to get their perspective on the learning experience, and it really helps you decide the Ivey is the right place. Why the MBA versus some other programs, while the Accelerated MBA for me was more a matter of me staying engaged with my current employer and continue on the career trajectory that I was already on. The Accelerated MBA. Being a part time program really enabled that for me, without having to walk away and look at pivoting my career in a different way. So I would encourage you to think about that really clearly. If you're looking to pivot your career into something different, if you wanna get into different industry completely, then maybe the full time MBA at Ivey is something that's a little bit more appealing to you. But if you really like where you're at with your employer and you're not really interested in making any drastic career changes, but you just wanna accelerate to ah, more of a leadership role than the AMBA is there for you. Speaking for myself personally, I was looking for a promotion at work. I wanted to become a director of finance. The program got me there before the program even expired I got the promotion that I was looking for. So it hit all the right spots for me and tremendously happy that I did it the way that I did. So, some parting thoughts for me. You should absolutely consider the Ivey Business School if you're looking for flexibility, if you're looking to get your degree done quickly. If you're looking to attend one of the top business schools in Canada, it's something that will help accelerate you in your career where you are currently. But if you're looking for something a little bit different, you know, changing careers or sectors completely, then maybe a full time program might be a better fit. But the approach, the case method, you know, the course content and the people. Most importantly, the people really made the difference for me. Good luck in your search. Reach out to me. If you need anything, take care.