My Smartly MBA experience
Neetu Jain
Effective, Empathic Problem-solver| AIML Security | AI Governance | Responsible AI | Technology Risk and Controls| 0-to-1| Emerging Tech
When I transitioned from Product development to Product Management I sort of was worried about "How to cover a gap that I am not aware about". Usually that feeling is always there when I start a new project, learn a new domain in unfamiliar territory and it fades away as I read and dig more into the relevant domain/project. Before this whenever I had thought of going back to school..I always had research in my mind but this time I was wondering if MBA is what I should be looking at. Long story short...my Quest for an MBA lead me to explore many options
- In -person take a break to do MBA
- In-person executive MBA
- Partially online, partially in-person MBA
- Mostly online MBA
- completely online MBA
Here are the few that stood out in my list ( based on my constraints, preferences, interests and availability)
- https://www.coursera.org/university-programs/imba
- https://jindal.utdallas.edu/executive-education/emba-programs/emba/
- https://smart.ly/
For the convenience of pricing(free until in Beta) , location (online) and my weakness for trying out brand new stuff (/technology) I decided to go with Smartly.
Here are the key highlights
- This has to be the first MOOC that I completed till the end (believe me I have signed up for many MOOCs including the first MOOC offered by Stanford on machine learning but never went beyond 3/4 weeks)
- I like the bite-size approach they give to lessons
- You can not doze off during the lesson ..since you learn by answering ( it is pretty interactive in that sense)
- It covered a wide variety of topics I had not come across during my product development experience
- The assessments at the end of the chapter .. gave me a good estimate of how well I understand the subject
- The Exam (mid-year, end of year) gave me a good reason to brush up on everything at once and gave a really "back to school" feeling
- The discussions, debates on topics related to lessons ..helped understand the topic in real life context .. it was basically like combining current news, current trends to education .. pretty effective
- Smartly is licensed by the Washington DC Office of the State Superintendent of Education Higher Education Licensure Commission. This means that Smartly confers a licensed MBA degree. So if your motivation is learning .. its a good place to get started .. but I want to remind you it's not an accredited degree (so not sure how it stacks up to other MBA ..but my assumption is that the motivation of MOOCs is learning rather than credit in most of the cases)
- Though I was never able to participate in study groups .. but they do have that option and it helps in building personal relationships with fellow students
- The schedule does give you a little bit of flexibility .. so that if you miss some lessons in a week or 2 because you got busy in office or got sick or are out of town .. so it was nice to be able to catch up and work with that flexibility ..but trust me ,, if you fall too behind it will get hard to catch up .. so try to stay on top of the schedule if you can
- You do not get grades you just get Pass/Fail..(I wish though they had given some grades to help me understand where I stand)
- Overall I totally enjoyed learning with Smartly. I thank them for making their material accessible to me for free and giving me this opportunity (since they are in Beta and apparently they do have a selection criteria for the Beta students .. not sure how true that claim is .. will only find out if somebody was rejected for smartly MBA application .. yes I did apply for the smartly MBA and was selected)
Note:- this review is not solicited by Smartly and I am not getting any favors from them ( I write this after I pass the smartly MBA ;)) .. I just got a couple of queries on linkedin to share my Smartly MBA experience so thought of just generally sharing it with everybody .. in case anybody is on the same pathways .. looking for something similar
I am also looking for more courses/certificates/degrees that are fun to learn from and can help in career growth ...specifically in the field of Product Management, Security, Cloud and Data Science. I have specially been looking out for interesting articles/courses at the intersection of product management and Data/Security....If you have any recommendations please drop me a line or add it in the comments section here.
Vice President, Information Security at SOCi, Inc.
5 年I took a look at Smartly. From their website, they say their "free" MBA program is 10 months long and requires 3-6 hours of effort per week (lets say 5). So to earn their "MBA" student has to put in 200 hours of effort and study. Conversely, an accredited MBA typically requires 36 or so credit hours. Each 3 credit hour class generally requires 45 contact hours, and about 75 hours of effort outside of class. So a typical MBA requires about 1440 hours of effort and study. I'm sorry, but I have a very hard time thinking that a program that requires less than 1/7th of the effort of an established MBA can really be equated. At the undergraduate level, this would be akin to earning a BA degree in one semester of fulltime study. Having been involved as adjunct faculty at an accredited college, I seriously doubt they can become accredited with a program designed as such, and have a very difficult time taking it seriously as an "MBA".
Professionally Designing Financial Futures for Employees & Families Since 2001
5 年Firstly, congrats on the MBA! I was rejected from the free MBA program but offered a seat in the paid EMBA program. However, by that time I was 75% finished my MBA at APU, so I declined. Of course, Smartly is not accredited, so their MBA would not have gained me admission into my doctoral program... Anyway, I did go back and request admission into their Graduate Certificate program and got accepted, so I am working on that as time allows. My take: Smartly does a *really* great job of simplifying complex topics. For example, under Statistics (a topic that makes people zone out), their lesson draws you in and you completely understand heteroskedastic distributions (for example) by the end of the lesson and you think "wow, I got that!". Combined with bite-sized lessons, Smartly has successfully "gamified" graduate level learning. It is a great concept, and I hope they earn accreditation eventually and can compeye with the established Universities out there. In the meantime, at the *very least*, the Graduate Certificate is a great way to pass the time standing in line at the register or waiting for the school bus!
PMI Certified Project Management Professional? (PMP) IES Certified Project Engineer and Associate Member PRC Registered Civil Engineer
6 年You didn't mention if it is free. Is it?
Industrial Engineer | Process Improvement Professional
6 年Thanks for sharing, Neetu!?I found Smartly yesterday, while researching for MBA programs. Do you know what opportunities the MBA program provides after graduation? How much pay increase with a Smartly MBA?
APAC Finance Director | Financial Services | CA | Tax | Compliance & Regulatory
6 年Untraditional path to MBA.