Year 1: Core Curriculum

by Laurie Pickard | Aug 9, 2013 | MOOC MBA Design

I am modeling my No-Pay MBA on top-flight MBA programs such as Harvard, Stanford, UPenn, and MIT. The first year of a degree program at these universities typically focuses on fundamentals. The second year, students get to take more elective courses. The core curriculum for the first year usually includes some subset of the following:

• Finance
• Accounting
• Leadership, managerial skills, and organizational psychology
• Business ethics
• Technology and operations management
• Marketing
• Microeconomics

In my first year, I plan to do coursework in all of these areas. My overall strategy is to take 16 courses over two to three years. I will take two courses at a time for 3 months at a time. At that rate, I can do eight courses in a year.

Some of the courses I have found are traditional ones that are set up on a semester schedule, with required readings and homework. For technical topics, such as finance and accounting, I will make a point of seeking out such courses. For topics that are less technical - such as leadership - I will try to incorporate a diversity of opinions by taking shorter courses, listening to lecture series, and reading books on the subject.

For anyone reading who has done an MBA, how does this list look to you? Am I missing anything critical in my first year curriculum? Is there anything here that you would leave out or replace with something else?

Class of 2015, Student Body: 1

by Laurie Pickard | Aug 9, 2013 | MOOC MBA Design

If you aren’t fully convinced that free online degrees are the way of the future, neither am I.  I received a tremendous amount of value from both my undergraduate and my graduate experiences, and I wouldn’t trade those experiences in for a free degree earned from the comfort of my bedroom. There is no true substitute for the classroom environment, for realtime exchanges between teacher and student, for lively face-to-face discussion. So I’m certainly not saying there isn’t any value to a traditional MBA. However, given my particular situation, the numbers just don’t add up. For me - and, I would expect, for many others - a free online degree seems like the way to go.

Here is what makes me a good candidate for a No-Pay MBA:

1. I already have a master’s degree. Having a few more letters behind my name might not open any doors that are currently closed to me.

2. I don’t need the B-school network. I’ve been told that a large part of the benefit of attending business school is acquiring a network. I don’t doubt that this is true, but since I already have a professional network, and because I work in a fairly small field not typically filled with MBA grads - international agricultural development - I think I can forgo that perk of attending business school.

3. I don’t want to stop working. When you consider the lost income from the years you spend in school versus working, the price of an MBA goes even higher. Plus, my work will give me a laboratory for applying what I’m learning.

4. I am disciplined enough to finish the courses and willing to explain my approach to others. The fact is, most people who sign up for online courses don’t finish them. Not only that, most courses don’t give credit. So in order for me to reap any benefit from doing a free MBA, I have to be able to both do the work and convince others that I have learned what I say I’ve learned. It’s a tall order, but in part that’s why I am writing this blog - to provide some accountability in my self-made MBA.

5. I have a particular field of interest that isn’t part of most business schools’ curricula. I want to be able to focus my attention on topics connected to international agricultural development - supply chain management, sustainability labeling, sourcing from developing countries, financing for small farms, and other such themes.

A Free MBA?

by Laurie Pickard | Aug 8, 2013 | MOOC MBA Design

For quite a while now we’ve been hearing about the staggering cost of higher education. In March, The New York Times reported that student aid was falling even as the costs of going to college were rising. Just a few months later, in the same paper, Joseph Stiglitz suggested that student debt was crushing the American dream. Also this year, two books came out saying that American higher education had better get ready to face a reckoning because these days degrees are just not worth what they cost.

I’ve been reading about this trend while simultaneously researching MBA programs. They’re all shockingly expensive; the most prestigious schools can cost over $90,000 per year once you’ve factored in tuition, housing, and other expenses. While I would like to have an MBA, I don’t want to walk away from the experience with $150,000 in debt, thank you very much.

The other innovation that has entered the higher education scene in a big way is the massive open online course, or MOOC. MOOCs are increasingly available from some of the most prestigious universities - through the universities’ own sites or through sites like Coursera or edX. Some people have even suggested that in the future it may be the norm for all higher learning to happen virtually.

All of this has gotten me thinking:

I’ve looked at what’s out there, from Coursera to ItunesU to TEDTalks. These resources may be relatively new, but there is a ton of material out there. Many of the courses on Coursera even operate like real college courses - with homework assignments and discussion groups. I’ve compared the free course offerings to the curricula of top business schools. And the answer I’ve come to is this:

In my next post, I will introduce the sole member of the first entering class of The No-Pay MBA self-administered degree program - me!

I hope you’ll support me in my journey, and I’d love to hear from others who are trying the same thing. Comments welcome.