If you are spending a lot of time on, and money for, an education, you want the school to be the very best at providing a method of learning that teaches critical analysis, developing solutions to complex problems, working with ambiguity, and more.
So what does Ivey do as a school that makes how you learn so unique? It’s difficult to describe without experiencing it, but one of our current students recently described it to me as “engaged learning.” He said that a friend in another MBA program told him he has the best class right now because he’s never fallen asleep even once. Our Ivey student said, “People fall asleep? That could never happen at Ivey!” Why? Because learning at Ivey is a participatory process that involves constant interaction in order to discuss, debate, and share ideas.
In most Ivey classes cell phones and computers must be turned off, and most people wouldn’t consider turning them on anyway because they want to pay attention. It’s fast-moving in the classroom, and that isn’t all of it. Even before coming to the classroom there is individual reflection and background reading, then discussion and analysis takes place in learning teams with people from diverse industry and geographical backgrounds. Only then does it all collide in the high-energy classroom format.
I went through years of traditional, passive learning, and this active Ivey process was entirely new to me. Having embraced it in the classes I took at Ivey I don’t think I could ever go back. The case studies that Ivey uses as a basis for learning, though not the only tool, provide such rich discussion and understanding. They are all about real businesses and real people. Some are classics, like Starbucks, which are fun to discuss in the context of what we know today. Some are so new that the business in the case has not actually solved the challenges in question yet. Many are international, which provides insight into entirely different ways of thinking about business challenges. Our faculty write many of the cases themselves and those cases are then used in MBA programs around the world. Our Ivey Case-Method, however, is unique. Also, the fact that I could ask the author of the case, who did the research on the company, questions about what really happened deepened my learning. At times the protagonist in the case would be invited to speak to the class too.
You deserve to get the most out of your MBA experience. And your future employers will have expectations about what you can bring to the table as an MBA graduate. How you learn matters in preparing you.
Here is my pitch: visit each school and ask to sit in on a live class with real students (who are hopefully awake). At Ivey we have formal class visit days monthly (http://go.ivey.ca/events) and we will make it easy for you to come and visit. But if these won’t fit into your schedule we will find a class and a time that will.
We look forward to sharing the Ivey Case-Method experience with you soon.