SBGE MBA Webinar

Welcome everyone to this informational webinar about the MBA program at Seattle Pacific University.

It's great to see some participants who have logged in.

Thank you so very much for participating.

I will do my best to keep an eye on the chat window to see if you have questions along the way.

Our agenda for the web and R is to give you a brief introduction to myself to review some thoughts about going back to Graduate School.

To explain and explore some more about Seattle Pacific's program, particular our MBA program, we talk about the learning goals, the curriculum.

The admission eligibility criteria and the application process.

I'm Gary Carnes, The Associate Dean for graduate programs in the School of Business, government and economics. Muscle professor of marketing and I teach an MBA marketing course.

Along with my administrative duties.

The goal for this webinars quite simply to provide you with some information to help you make a choice about whether or not the MBA program at SPU is a good fit for you, 'cause.

We always and everywhere want to make sure that people are equipped and enabled to make the best choice for themselves about going back to Graduate School because it's a big commitment.

Normally we have these information sessions on campus in person, face to face, and they're really just conversations more than the our presentations. But under the current circumstances we are using this web and R format and I hope that it works for you. I'll do my best to keep things moving along, but also answer questions that you might post in the chat function. There will be a couple of opportunities along the way. I'll take a break.

And ask if anybody has a question before we move on to the next topic.

So let's talk about going back to Graduate School. You've got your bachelors degree and you likely have been working for a year or more, maybe maybe quite a long time, after having earned your bachelors degree and you have been trying to find your way. In particular, trying to find your way forward. You've achieved some level of responsibility and and a sphere of influence. If you will help the graphic, is it too cheesy?

Uh, and you probably want to have an increased sphere of influence, but there's a gap between where you are now and what it will take to get there.

So going back to Graduate School is probably a way to get that boost to help you get to the point where you can have the increased responsibility that you are seeking.

So now you got some thinking to do about what direction you want to take. Are you at the point in your career where you're ready to think about becoming a cross functional leader and simply that just means intersecting with people from various aspects of a business enterprise, moving more towards.

Readying yourself to to move upwards in the organization, as opposed to just managing a slightly larger team, or just managing a slightly larger process, or just manage Ng particular functional group.

There are specialized Masters degrees. We have some specialized Masters degrees that are focused on on functional specializations. the NBA is a cross functional degree, a general management leadership oriented degree typically.

What is it? What does it entail? Well, you have to have a lot of business that you have to understand every aspect of business, accounting, finance, marketing, operations, information technology.

Management leadership.

You have to understand a global enterprise and working in with global supply chains. In our current experience with COVID-19 is drawn into sharp relief. Some sense of the importance of understanding how to have effective global supply chains.

And you have to understand a good deal about business strategy and how do you position a business to be flexible.

To be efficient to be affective would be great stewards of resources. To be a great citizen in its community, to be a good partner with caring for people and planet.

And to be ready for interesting changes whether there really all that interesting or not. Our current situation is causing tremendous upheaval, disruption, and it's important for business leaders to sort out. How do we move forward?

How do we give it as they say?

Well, it takes a creative and analytical mind to do those things. Certainly leadership skills, interpersonal skills, and ethical framework. Solid moral commitment seems to be important. It's important for us for sure and readiness to roll up your sleeves and tackle big problems.

To work with others having great communication skills, teamwork skills, cross-cultural skills really important to be affective in in today's world is cross functional management.

So how do you? How do you advanced towards your next thing? Well, keep working and by process of learning on the job increased experience. You will move, move forward and move ahead and move up.

Accelerate that effort by going back and getting a Masters degree.

Quite often.

Since we've probably already got some work experience, we would love to be in a situation where we can learn while we aren't and do both work, continue working and go to school part time.

When is the best time to go back to school?

Will typically it's after you've had a year or two of work experience.

But hopefully not too much later then after you've had maybe 5 to 7 years of work experience, there's no.

Magic formula or hard constraint about that, but the issue is it just gets harder and harder to go back to school, harder and harder to fit it into life. The more that you've got going, the farther you get into your karere and end time.

The economics have it become less attractive as well. You're going to make a sizable financial as well as personal an intellectual investments in getting the degree and you want to get it as early as it makes sense to get the most out of it.

So that when you doing have increased responsibilities and increased pay.

That you have a longer time for it to pay back.

There are programs that will take students right out of undergraduate and give you a chance to get a Masters degree.

I have some more to say about our approach in a moment.

I'm gonna take a break right here and see if you have any questions about this general overview regarding pursuing a graduate degree and whether it's kind of the right thing for you.

The last couple of times I've done webinars, the chat function for one reason or another didn't quite keep up.

Yeah, so questions actually landed in the inbox sometime at the end of the web and R or even after the web and R so have No Fear. I will keep checking an even after the webinar. I will check and if you have a specific question that we haven't answered I'll make sure that you get your answer.

Just another moment to give you a chance to compose a question.

OK, I'm not seeing anything that doesn't mean there isn't a question, it just means the technology hasn't shown one. But, uh, I'm going to move on and and again, I'm not trying to give anyone the the quick rush. If you've got a question, will make sure you get any answer.

So going back to Graduate School means picking which school is right for me and what kind of school do you want to pick? You want to pick one where you going to fit? That's going to help you thrive. This is going to be a major chunk of your life for probably a couple of years.

Maybe longer.

So, so you just want to have a place where you feel like you fit.

Like she like, it's comfortable. You feel like you're going to get to know what you signed up for.

So here's a little bit about Seattle Pacific.

It's a beautiful campus nestled in a residential area.

Our commitment is to help you learn to be ready to take on additional responsibilities to make a difference in enterprises and organizations of every kind. We were private University Christian faith based University.

In our commitment is to help students be ready to fully engage the culture, change the world, make life better for those around around us to make sure that you have the competence and character to be effective as people who bring knowledge and wisdom to the real world. Problems that really matter.

We are in.

The downtown area greater downtown area of Seattle were on the North slope of what's called Queen Anne Hill here in Seattle, if you're familiar.

Or about 3 miles from the heart of downtown.

As a University were about 4000 students overall.

About 1000 students are graduate students and most of them are our students who are coming back and taking classes in evening with fabulous programs in psychology, nursing, education, business.

They have a very interesting creative writing program on campus.

SP was ranked as the best National University by US news World Report, and we've had that ranking for several years in a row.

The hallmarks of SPU broadly our our commitment to Christian faith. Perspectives in that worldview for understanding life and understanding the importance of Education and how to put it to use to help others.

Certainly strong academics.

Great reputation for excellence and commitment to student learning.

And we try to be great, great partners. Agree citizen. A great resource to the city of Seattle and and it's important to understand that Seattle is a hub. If you're not local, Seattle is Cosmopolitan global Gateway city hub of learning hub of technology of healthcare hub of social enterprise.

Out of innovation, it's it's just a very vibrant place to work and learn.

There's a little bit about the School of Business, government and economics at SPU.

You might imagine, and hopefully can easily draw the line between the two dots of our mission statements. the University mission informs our mission statement, deeply grounded in Christian faith and values, we developed leaders who advanced human flourishing through service in business, government and in civil society.

So non profit organizations fit into that civil society group.

Why choose SPU? Why choose the School of Business, government and economics at SPU or first and foremost? We have a reputation for excellence and a strong commitment to effective student learning.

We have a great.

Reputation for quality and fabulous.

Connection of the real world and applied activities with learning.

It's a tremendous blend of theory and practice, theory and application.

We are AACSB accredited. That's the oldest and most prestigious Business School accreditation.

It's uh, it's held by only about 5% of business schools around the world.

We have a deep and abiding commitment to ethics and faith based approach to business. We like to say it's it's using business to serve the common good.

We are, we have Center for integrity in business, we have strong ethics.

Flavor to our curriculum. Our faculty research.

And we have a fabulous so project digital video, documentary project or documenting the work of various businesses and business leaders who are using business as a platform to be good neighbors to help others.

It's called face income.

I've been involved with that project more deeply this year, helping to create some new videos. Really exciting project.

You may you may have heard of the principles of responsible management to the principles of responsible management education. That's an enterprise of business schools with the United Nations and the UN global compact. We are working to help develop leaders who will use business to pursue ethics, to do, to do the right thing, to contribute to the common good, and in particular to understand.

How do use business to address the 17 sustainable development goals that have been set forth by the United Nations? We are champion school. There are only 5 champion schools for PR me in North America.

There are lots of pure me related schools, but champion schools were one of five.

Were designed with you in mind. Were designed for working professionals. We are.

Trying very hard to enable work life balance. Not going back to school. Having a full life, having having lots of work to do and going back to school is not particularly balanced, but as best as possible we enable people to earn while they learn.

Or learn while they're whichever way you want to.

We have flexible pacing. The students can take one class at a time to time, or if they want to try and get done, they can do three at a time.

I suppose you could try, for. We've had this one student once try for it, it was overloading. It was overwhelming and they were between jobs and trying to get done so they can move on to the next job.

I one or two that makes a lot of sense, particular while you're working.

The classes are held in the evenings, so it work all day. Come to come to school.

In the evening from 6 until 9:00 PM on campus.

Classes are in person.

We have rolling admissions so we have student intake every term of the year and we have four terms were on the quarter system, so more about more about that animal.

So not only are we academically excellent. Yeah, practically minded. Not only are we ethically and morally minded, not only are we geared to work with you and fit things into life, it learning into into life and work.

And not only are we otherwise responsive, inflexible.

Going out of our commitments of who we are. We're very interactive, very engaging, very personal. We take an engaged approach to learning.

We take a personal approach to interactions with students. We have smaller classes I supported. Fact is that yes, they have high expectations, but they will do their best to help you achieve your goals.

I heard a recent story about how our faculty have pivoted in response to COVID-19 and everyone is learning online. Everyone in every school is is learning online and some students have shared some horror stories about some of the online learning that are occuring.

Various places in this quick pivot an in our faculty have really stepped up and have done a great job of offering as much personal engaging, supportive learning as possible under the circumstances of having a very quickly pivot to online learning.

Would you have great connections in Seattle business community? We have a great pool of Advisors who help us stay on our toes and stay relevant and we have a fabulous one to one mentoring program that are grad students are encouraged to leverage to help build out their networks.

We had an employee at a large Seattle organization. I could share the name, but it won't. Uhm at this point that that was a fairly lower level employee came came and entered our MBA program an as result of participating in the mentor program was connected with the the very most senior leader in the organization that this person could never have had.

And our chat with as an employee.

It was. It was fabulous.

Let's take a break there and see if any questions have come to mind for you I will.

Be quiet and let you type.

OK, well I didn't see any questions. And again if you've got one will answer them. If they pop up later if we haven't already answered it in the web and R will be happy to engage with you after the fact and follow up with you by email, phone, zoom, chat.

So let's let's take a look at it. At our programs, we have specialized Masters degrees in data analytics in human resources and information systems, and we have the MBA program.

We have a very unique situation. We have a joint or dual degree with theology school as well. It's very unique.

Would you offer some graduate level certificates if you're not quite ready to commit to the full MBA degree? Yeah, maybe one of these certificates would make sense and you can leverage those interest degree. It's like rock climbing. You find 1 foothold and pretty soon you keep climbing and you guys talking about.

The learning goals for the MBA program very much can be rolled up into this notion of of readying our students for leadership's purpose driven cross functional leaders.

Readying you for increased responsibility to engage cross functional.

Readying you to recognize and respond to ethical issues to human flourishing opportunities as they present themselves use business to serve the common good.

Growing individuals comprehension understanding of all of the functions of business and how they intersect developing cross functional and strategic understanding of business there are opportunities to gain some more depth.

In management finance HR data analytics information system cyber security by taking electives.

And as mentioned earlier you need.

Knowledge and skills technical skills you also need a lot of soft skills problem solving.

Communication, leadership, professionalism, cross function I mean cross cultural awareness and engagement teamwork.

And in our program will help you grow in those areas as well.

So the curriculum is organized into.

For big buckets.

We have two ethics. Course is no surprise there given what I've already mentioned.

And we have leadership and communication. Again, no surprise there. Trying to grow leaders who are going to be responsible leaders. Those four classes. There's no surprises there. We cross. Functional is the third big bucket you're going to get advanced.

Knowledge development in managerial economics, marketing finance.

Enterprise analysis is an interesting course it's a combination of information technology and business and business strategy how does one not just automated business an automated process but transform the way business is done to do a new and Better Business to create new opportunities to leverage the power of technology and we're all learning how important that is.

We've seen it and we're seeing it to.

With heightened emphasis and during the code 19 situation.

And of course a lot of engagement and learning around business strategy and planning forward thinking.

Then there are electives in each of the areas I mentioned human resources management finance.

Analytics cybersecurity and information systems.

The advanced business.

Courses.

Do you rely on prerequisite knowledge we assume some background knowledge in business so there are foundations business courses there 99 of those foundations business courses introductory accounting introductory managerial accounting introductory finance introductory marketing the kinds of course is that that one may have satisfied and taken as a junior or senior undergraduate if you were business majors?

So if you did take those courses as an undergraduate whether you're a business major reminder we had some other major where you wind up taking some of those courses were happy to consider whether or not you've satisfied that background and can skip past.

If you have at least AB?

In a relatively recent course that covers those foundation topics you could skip ahead.

International students attending on an F one visa are curious to know about curricular practical training CPT and occupational practical training opete opportunities certainly we have those opportunities available for our students.

I wanna take a brief sidestepping and come back to this notion of certificates.

We have a certificate we've got the the leadership communications and the 2 ethics courses packaged together into a certificate in responsible leadership.

We have the foundations courses packaged into 3 different certificates financial analysis and reporting.

Creating and distributing value the marketing operations and information systems courses and understanding business contexts business law.

Macroeconomics statistics.

So I want to come back to this notion of how our program is delivered. We are a face to face working professional flex format evenings on campus.

How long does it take to complete the NBA? Well, it depends on how many classes you take at a time and it depends on how many of the foundations courses you may have already satisfied through undergraduate or other studies.

Taking one or two classes at a time, and if you were at at the minimum of 45 credits or 15 courses, it will take 15 courses. Wanna go one at a time? 15 quarters 'cause it's four years?

Most events will take one or two classes at a time and are able to finish it about three years.

International students attending on an F1 visa take two and sometimes three courses at a time, so they finish in between 2:00 and 3:00.

How much does it cost? Tuition is $875 per credit.

That's 40 thousand just over $40,000 for the 45 credits that are the NBA.

And the foundations courses are available from SPU they are an additional charge.

We don't have any differential in tuition for in-state or out-of-state everybody pays the same whether you're AUS student an international student whether Washington resident or or not everyone pays the same tuition.

There are a few additional fees modest one time fees for 4.

Matriculation or entering the University for graduation so we charge you coming in charge it going out but you need a cap and gallon under normal circumstances students would have already ordered their caps and gowns an and some of them are choosing to keep them even in the Cove at 19 situation others have had opportunity to return them for refund but we're going to do our best to have a great graduation celebration even though it's going to be.

Books are always extra and of course is faculty members have variety books learning resources alot of the learning resources are library resources we have a fabulous accessible online iaccessible library so.

That's out there too.

So when can I start.

Well as I said we have rolling admissions so we we have intake every quarter false starts in September winter in January spring in March and summer begins in June.

So we have an application deadline.

Backwards long enough to to have the application process run its course, so applications for fall the end of September start is August. The first international students need to apply by June 1st because it takes longer to process their applications. There's more paperwork involved and they have to get the F1 Visa.

And in the winter application, deadlines are November, the first or September the first 4F, one February, the first for spring or December, the first for F1 because we lose so much time during the Holidays. In December we backed it up to December. The first.

Um, in the summer made the first is the deadline, so coming right up. If you want to start taking classes this summer, jump right in.

Well then.

International students were just starting. We have to hate to say we have a smaller faculty want to do some research and they want to have some time off. So we have a reduced set of courses available in this summer so we aren't off able to offer introductory level class is sufficient to make a full time schedule for international students so we don't have international in taking some.

Well that was very quick about curriculum and about getting started. Let's see if there any questions.

So moving right along let's let's answer some questions about admissions. Everyone wants to know what does it take to get in.

What we try to be very accessible. We are really good program. Really good program for the money. A great value.

Grilled values alignment with people. Lot of resonance there.

And uh, for good school we have very reasonable admission criteria. You need to have a bachelors degree with a 3.0 cumulative grade point average.

And paired with that, you need a 500 gmat score.

Would you offer gmat exemptions for applicants with really high GPA's?

With with a 3.25 GPA and three years of work experience or even a 30 GPA in five years of work experience.

So the tradeoff there is between work experience and.

Academic.

Record academic ability and just readiness to learn in an hour learning environment. So we use these indicators, set GPA, gmat and work experience to help us discern what makes the most sense for helping you learn.

Do require at least one year of professional work experience after the Masters degree.

Now how hard it faster these things? If you had a 2 nine GPA, you need a higher gmat score.

Certainly if you have a 3 Seven, you don't need it. You mat score.

What if I? What if I've been working and it's only been nine months since I graduated, but I did a really half the internship during school for three months. Well, will look at that and say, well, that's probably about 12 by the time. If you're working so that your application or two or three months in advance of when courses start by the time courses start, you'll have.

I will say that most of our MBA students have a substantial amount of work experience 5 to 7 years.

An and the joy and beauty of having work experience along with academic ability and coming into the classroom with work experience, is that we can have a much more robust.

Discussion much more robust set of questions are much more robust understanding of what it means to be a manager or leader to think strategically about business.

Students for whom English is a second language needed. Total score of at least 90. Again, it's it's not super hard and fast if you're a little bit below that, we will certainly consider you, but we will ask you to upscale with some additional ESL training.

An Angel. The point here is is too ready students for success in our program and coming out of our.

What do I need to submit well?

You need to complete the online application.

And normally there's a $50 application processing fee.

I drink during the cover 19 situation that she is being waived.

We need to see your current recipe. That will tell us that you you.

Had at least a year of work experience. What kinds of reasoning responsible jobs you've been doing?

We need a. the University requires official transcripts from the institutions that you attended, particularly institution that granted your bachelors degree.

You need a gmat score if you already have a graduate record exam score to your re score will accept that we won't make you take the gmat. If you've already got a GRB score.

So we need a gmat score unless you qualify for one of the exemptions.

And we need responses to the three essay questions that are embedded in the application. The online application has three essay questions embedded in it.

We need answers to those questions and that's the version of a personal statements that we use. It's not a generic personal statement of.

Largely yeah, now I'm interested in business any and I want to get a graduate degree now it's it's much more around the nature of the kinds of questions you might expect for a job interview.

Why do you want this this job? Why do you want to become a student in our program? How is this going to be a good fit? Why do you think you will fit into our culture and our cultural fit fit with you? Um.

What will you bring to the table? So think of it more as as the kinds of questions and responses that get it, why there's going to be good? This is as I said, like more like a job in.

And we read those very carefully. I want to make sure there's alignment and we also read them. Four of a composition. It's another indicator of of communications.

Speakers of English as a second language needs meticulous score. They are allowed to submit. It's called the islets score. We're looking for islets, band 7. If you have eyelids, band 6.5 and we're looking at additional ESL training.

Students seeking to attend on an F1 visa or quote International students have to submit a declaration of financial support. 'cause US government requires students to be able to show that they can.

Pay their way weather here so you have to have at least to tuition and living expenses and some other.

Funds available before starting.

The government.

Before they will consider issuing a visa.

If you have a transcript that's not from a US school.

That official transcripts is expected to be translated into English and evaluated by any transcript evaluation service, and there's more details about that on our website.

So let's see if a question pops. For now, I really appreciate your out here hanging in there and participating. I'm trying to keep track of the chat box and also that the participants that have logged in. Thanks for not leaving.

We're getting towards the end, so hang in.

Let's get back to the big picture. What's what's right for you as you seek to become a cross functional leader of problem solver who wants to use business to make life better for those around you?

You can do this with some pre existing knowledge.

With some skills with some experience.

With some heart for doing good in the world.

Share that with the knowledge, skills, development opportunities that will be presented to you through the MBA program here at SPU. Get your Masters degree and you'll be set up to make that jump to increase responsibilities as a cross functional leader problem solver, an end were convinced that you'll have a brighter future and you'll be ready to have more impact.

So what's next?

Well, you certainly welcome to request more information or happy to continue engaging with you after this webinar is concluded.

You certainly, I presume you've already visited the website, but visited again. Perhaps something that we've shared in this webinar will make elements of the website on little clearer.

Under normal circumstances, we would love to host you for a class observation.

Come and see what happens for an hour and talk to students during the break and see that it's going to be a fit for you. But unfortunately, right now we're not able to do that.

We are able to host to host you for connections with current students, with alumni with faculty members so that you can have email conversations, phone conversation. You can have another zoom chat with the other present zoom chat. During COVID-19 you can have a chat with people who are experiencing it and just to get a feel for.

Again, our goal is to help you make the best choice for you.

Normally you take it. You can take a tour of our beautiful campus right now there's a virtual tour available on the website and it will give you a feeling for how fabulous is the school is as far as the grounds in the buildings in the sense of of what a great ambiance for learning.

Well, if all of your questions have been answered and you've already sold yourself basically and then we just reinforced some of your thinking, Press on that. Apply now button.

You can always say email myself. Email doctor Miller, who's my associate in Business School. She's graduate program director works directly with students. You can email the graduate admissions team an end.

One or all of us will get back to you and and do our best to help you puzzle out what makes sense.

Let's see if there's a question that pops to mind now.

OK, I'm not seeing any questions. I hope that we've done a good enough job to touch on the things that matter to you.

Questions may pop into the chat box, uh, a little later. And of course, please reach out to us if there's something that you need specific answer about, or happy, happy, happy to help you make an informed choice.

So with that I I say thanks for attending the web and R.

And have a great week.