Monday 21 May 2012

Your MBA is as Good as your Dissertation

No mistake about it. You can do MBA anywhere in any school. If you have not done a dissertation as part of your study, there is no point flaunting your MBA to professionals in the field of business. Even if you have done one that cannot stand the rigorous test of academic standards, you would better keep your MBA out of sight from professionals in the field of business and academe.

Today, a plethora of MBA programmes are advertised globally. There is on-line MBA for a fraction of the fee levied by reputed universities. Some institutions offer MBA as a distance learning with or without requirement of a dissertation. Executive MBA is a programme offered for busy executives with duration of 6 to 9 months; such programmes at best require the candidate to file an executive report of some sort. We also spot programmes that award MBA degree after a lapse of 12, 15 or 18 months without insisting on any research paper. More than that, there are printing presses that can give you MBA certificate for a small fee. Such is the status of MBA programme today, it behoves parents and potential candidates do lot of search and thinking before embarking on a MBA programme.

Bet that as it may, having entered an acceptable MBA programme you should tally up the core subjects and electives/optional subjects and then zoom in on the type of dissertation the university or school requires. Some universities allocate 3 course credits or certain number of credit hours for a dissertation. If there are say 15 total course credits required then a dissertation is about 20 % of the entire study duration. As an easy way out, few schools land a single course credit on a dissertation and bring the total course credits to 12 or less. Normally, candidates tend to think about dissertation as an easy go where they can write some muck to pass the hurdle. They would be sorely disappointed. Every university or school applies strict evaluation yard stick in whetting such dissertations. Moreover, when a candidate who has handled dissertation with a kid glove goes out in the market in search of new job, elevation in present employment or placement elsewhere, he gets a slap on his face as he is often asked to furnish an abstract of the research done for his MBA.

A dissertation is defined as a “treatise written by a candidate in partial fulfilment of the requirements for a Master’s Degree in Business Administration, where an argument is presented, described and explained based on the findings of such candidate”. A well written MBA dissertation speaks of the excellence of the MBA programme one followed. Like proof of the pudding in the eating, a dissertation evidences that the author has done his homework well and deserves the degree of MBA. If you are signing up for a MBA programme be determined to do a well-researched dissertation. When you pass out as an MBA the professional and academic community would be in awe of you.

Muthu Ashraff

Business Adviser

Mobile : +94 777 265677

E-mail : cosmicgems@gmail.com

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Blog : http://cosmicgemslanka.com/blog/

 

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