Virtual Open House Master of Business Administration Transcript

SUSAN NAGER: Welcome. Thank you for joining us. My name is Susan. I’m an admissions rep on behalf of George Mason. And I’m joined with the MBA program director, Dr. Bellows, and thanks for joining us.

DR. IOANNIS BELLOS: Thank you, Susan. Hi. Welcome, everybody. Thank you for joining this, this information, this information session. My name is Janice bellows, I’m an associate professor of information systems and operations management at the School of Business here at George Mason University. I am also the MBA program director. As Susan mentioned, I joined George Mason in 2012. And since then, one of my favorite parts of my job has been teaching, connecting and learning from MBA students. In my capacity as MBA faculty, I have designed and taught courses in a variety of modalities and formats, whether face to face hybrid online, and so on. So I do look forward to sharing my perspective with you and answering any questions you have this evening. So let’s move to the next slide. And let’s start talking about the MBA program. Our MBA comprises 48 credits, that is 1010 core courses, five elective courses and one global requirement, which you can meet by choosing between an international residency which involves travel, traveling and or a traditional course with an international emphasis. Students can take courses in person or asynchronously online, it’s in person course takes place once per week in our Fairfax or Arlington campuses during the evening from 720 to 10. But regardless of whether you’re taking a course in person or online, each course takes place over eight weeks. You have the flexibility to do the program fully in person fully online or mixed modalities. You can start in fall, spring or summer, and you set your own your own pace. Specifically, you can complete the program in 16, one six to 33 months, during or even before deciding to join the MBA program. You can also choose to pursue a Certificate in Business Analytics. We will elaborate on all of these in the following slides. I should not forget to brag about to brag about a couple of things here. First of all, our online and in person MBA programs are in the top 100 programs, most recently the 2023 US News World. US News and World Report ranked us number 65 In the best part time MBA category nationally, and number 40 among public institutions. Our online program has been ranked number 51 among public, public universities, and number three in the DC metro area. Most notably, our students enjoy a two to one return on investment on the admissions side. Our MBA program is test optional. However, if you like to submit a test score with your application application, we invite you to do so the next slide captures a snapshot of our MBA student population. The average age of our students is 333 years old with an average work experience of nine years. The split between male versus female students is around 5248. And over the years we have seen these getting closer and closer to 5050. We have a diverse student body this diversity is reflected in the different countries of origin of our students the race that in their undergraduate majors. For instance, our students have majored in fields such as theater, low English fashion engineering, economics estimation, if you will the only point I want to emphasize here this is to emphasize that you do not need prior to training in business to do an MBA. The next slide captures a snapshot of our career outcomes. The top three industries or our graduates find themselves in our government and government contracting, consulting and financial services. They impressive ROI that I mentioned earlier is in part driven by the fact that upon graduation our students report an average salary of one 101 or 4k, and 94% employment rate, with the overwhelming majority of the of them employed in a role related to their career goals. Of course, it’s not uncommon for our students to receive promotions and new job offers while you’re going through the program. On this slide, you can also see a list of companies where our program has a large alumni footprint. Something however, that is not mentioned on this slide is that we just survey are first year students, and 90% of them indicated that they are already confident that MBA degree will pay off. The next slide provides a high level overview of the different paces of the different available paces that you can pursue. Taking two courses per each eight week module will allow you to graduate in 16, one six months. This is ideal for students who want to maximize their GI Bill benefits or those who are simply interested in finishing finishing the program as quickly as possible. Taking one or two courses per each eight week module will bring you will bring your graduation timeline between 22 and 24 months, which may be the preferred pace for those who want to ease into the program offerings and are going to have greater flexibility throughout. If you have a very demanding or unpredictable schedule, taking one course per module may be better. And we bring your your timeline between 30 to 32 to 48 months. In the next slide, you can see some of the places that our MBA students have visited through global residency. Last summer, some of our students travel. Last summer our students traveled to Estonia, Denmark, Sweden, and South Africa. I was actually part of the group that visited Denmark and Sweden you can see me on the very back of of this photo on the bottom on the bottom left. This summer. Our destinations are Japan, Greece, South Africa, and Dubai. During during Global residency, our students spent a week abroad and as you can tell from the photos, they spent that week visiting and starting companies as well as participating in cultural activities. The feedback that we consistently received from our students is global residency three, it is one of the most memorable and defining experiences of the program. Not only you’re able to visit a different country and understand its culture and business environment, but through this experience, you are able to fortify your connections with your peers and further expand your network. However, I should I should also note that as I mentioned earlier, if you’re an old a if you’re not able to travel if you if you cannot travel, you can still take a more traditional course with international focus. Let’s move on to the next slide. There you can see a list of courses a sample of our courses. Overall, our program will equip you with a holistic understanding of business and give you the opportunity to improve both your analytical and leadership skills. We do that through our core and elective courses. Again, here you can on this slide, you can see a sample of these courses. As you can as you can notice, all academic in all academic discipline disciplines and business functions represented in our curriculum. In addition, if you’re interested, you can take up to six credit hours outside the MBA program. In the next slide on of our offerings that I would like to draw your attention to is our Certificate in Business Analytics. This is a 12 credits certificate that requires four courses. Data mining for Business Analytics is the core the core requirement and three more electives. And three more elective courses for all that you can you can choose from the lease on on the right, as will emphasize that students can pursue this certificate as part of the MBA program or as a standalone option without even having been admitted to the program. They can use this certificate as a pathway to the MBA program or not. That is if you join the MBA program, you can use the certificate credits towards the 48 credits that I mentioned earlier. In the overall in terms of course expectations, you should expect to learn a lot and also have fun. Now, no two courses are the same. Our instructors bring their own unique approaches and teaching philosophies. But overall, our courses are interactive. And the instructors facilitate active learning, which can take the form of case discussions, debates, hands on activity, simulations, and so on. All our in person. Classes are evening classes taking place from 720 to 10pm. And our all our online courses are asynchronous. Now, asynchronous does not mean that you teach yourself. Our instructors have created pre recorded content and also offers students the opportunity to connect with them through optional live sessions. For each week’s topic, you will have an individual or group deliverable to work on. And in terms of workload. The expected time per week is six to eight hours per course. But that also varies based based on your education and professional background. Overall, you will learn not only from your instructors but also from your peers. 85% of our first year students recently indicated that they have already been able to use the knowledge and skills they gained from their MBA courses in their careers. The next video offers you a preview of our online courses and how we deliver content to our students.

VIDEO VOICEOVER: Welcome to the George Mason University Online MBA program. You’ve taken the first steps in beginning your graduate degree. And we’re excited to support you through this journey. Like many students, you might have some questions about what it’s like to take classes online. So we’ve put together this video to show you what it’s like to be an online student. Let’s start with a quick tour of Blackboard. All of your important information can be found by using the navigation on the left hand side of your screen. Here you’ll find a link to Course Announcements, your course syllabus assignments in the library. at George Mason, we believe strongly in providing you with opportunities to test your knowledge and receive feedback in real time. The only difference is that we’ll also add today’s costs. Faculty have curated and created custom videos and tutorials to provide you the opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of the content and build a broad network of peers who will enhance your perspectives and challenge your thinking through rich discussions and a variety of group work. Remember, your student success coach will be here to support you every step of the way. Because at George Mason University student success is our number one goal.

DR. IOANNIS BELLOS: Now I would like to wrap up by talking about the biggest asset of our program, and that is our students. As I mentioned earlier, our students diverse academic and work experience backgrounds. No matter what your background, the NBA team, faculty and staff are here to work with you. And keep in mind that in my experience commitment is the greatest predictor of student success. Speaking of student success earlier I also mentioned that it is not uncommon for our students to receive promotions or new job offers while going through the program. The next video spotlights on one of our more one of our reasons your then success stories, but you can find more stories of these on our website. And I believe Suzanne can put in the chat box a recent after after we go to the next video we Suzanne can put in the chat box the link to one of our articles that highlights more success stories. Yep,

SUSAN NAGER: it’s posted right there. And let’s listen to the one that we have on hand.

SAMANTHA CREUTZINGER: My name is Samantha Creutzinger. I am a graduate of George Mason with my MBA I grew up in a very poor background. I just knew that if I stayed where I was in Tennessee, I wasn’t going to grow any further. So I had to figure out how to make like better, I moved up to the Washington DC area and met people who held jobs like I have now, I’ve networked around. And so why can’t I do that. And then I realized the only differences, I’m not making it happen. I knew the only way to get there was through going to college. The MBA program I was in was a cohort, I was with most of these people. The whole time in my MBA, we all worked really well together and helped each other out. coming from my background, I tried to bring a different perspective into leadership. And I’ve been fortunate that my companies that I’ve worked for, have recognized the drive that I have, and the desire, I want to be good at what I do, and they promoted me along the way. And, and I’ve made it to the director level, I was giving someone advice, don’t kid yourself. If you want it, then you’re gonna go for it, and you’re gonna get it. But motivation isn’t really what you need. It’s discipline. When you look back on it, and you think, man, how did I do that? No one ever says, I’m sad that I got an MBA everyone says that they’re proud of themselves. It’s worth it in the long run.

DR. IOANNIS BELLOS: So I still emphasize that box Amantha and Bailey, they did an MBA only online.

SUSAN NAGER: Yeah. And so I posted Bally’s. And I encourage y’all to take a look at it. It’s fantastic. So now we’re talking about the application process. But before we do, Dr. Bellows, what makes so I love the fact that students can be from a diverse background. One of the majors on there was theater. So I mean, that’s very strong in the arts. So are there any particular prerequisite courses that are needed for this program?

DR. IOANNIS BELLOS: There is no prereq courses, per se, we do. We do ask students, I mean to have like, as this slide mentioned, here, now I say yes, to provide evidence on successful prior completion of calculus algebra, or a stats class. This is recommended prior to enrolling in the MBA program. But we do we are fully aware of the fact that and we do want to accommodate and support in diversity of backgrounds. So even if you know quant, or algebra or math was not, you know, your favorite subject topic at college, we have curated a list of resources, that after you’re admitted to the program, you can go, you can go through, and we help you hit the ground running. Again, the only recommendation that we make to our students is that to have completed a calculus algebra or statistics class, that’s a compare that’s recommended prior to enrolling in the MBA program. But we’re here to fully support them. Wonderful.

SUSAN NAGER: Now, Alfredo is asking do you have to be far in the degree to be able to take the global residency so when does that occur in the program, but

DR. IOANNIS BELLOS: awfully roughly you will need to be done with your core courses. And that’s, that’s intentional in the sense that we want you to have been exposed to all the core coursework that 10 different courses, right. But roughly depending on when you enter, maybe you may have to be exposed only to nine courses. But ideally, we want you to have been exposed to all the core different disciplines and business functions. So when you travel, and when you visit the companies and interact with them, you’re able to put everything together. So you’re able to integrate, integrate all the different knowledge from the different business functions. Fantastic. So that’s roughly, you have to roughly be done with nine to 10 courses.

SUSAN NAGER: Okay. Now, I love the flexibility of this program. It can’t be more flexible. So 16 months is the quickest that you can finish it. The traditional route is 33 months. And then if need be, we give you up to six years to complete this degree. And the fact that you have the online option if you want to take some campus courses and have a hybrid option or do it on campus you can so that’s fantastic. Is there Any tutoring available.

DR. IOANNIS BELLOS: So, the tutoring varies depending so if you take if you take the NBA 633, which is our statistics course, if you take that in person you do have access to in person tutor. If you do not take if you do not take that in person, there are so many interactive tutorials that the instructor have put together and they make themselves available once and twice per week for live sessions that, that, that you can choose, it’s those are optional to join if you’re not if you want, okay, but now that the program is fully asynchronous, and it can be completed without, we do not require you to participate in any live sessions unless you want to do so. Perfect. You call the instructor most of your instructors do have standing Office Hours live live via zoom, or other or similar or Microsoft Teams, that it’s up to you whether it’s up to the students. That’s

SUSAN NAGER: wonderful. And in terms of class size, what is it typically range for the online?

DR. IOANNIS BELLOS: It varies? Our electives can be from 10 to 20. Our core courses, it can go from 25 up to 45. Maybe 50 Depending on the intake.

SUSAN NAGER: Yeah. Okay. And so you mentioned that you can take six credits outside the MBA program. Does that mean like in lieu of some

DR. IOANNIS BELLOS: you do not. So we have let’s say we have 10 core courses, one global requirement and five electives. You can do three MBA electives and two electives outside of the MBA program.

SUSAN NAGER: It doesn’t have to be like in finance or accounting, I mean, could it be in all I mean, I’m just throwing

DR. IOANNIS BELLOS: it can be we have I mean, I it can be in public policy, let’s say for it can be from a different unit automation or it can be in, in other units. I mean, this is subject to my approval as director approval. But he said if I if I see that the elective that the student wants fit within their aspirations or profile, it has an element of you know, managerial responsibilities or provide some basic, some elements of managerial training, I approve that and then we coordinate with the other program the other unit, so our students can take it. We have got students who recently I approved a couple of requests for students of ours to take courses graduate graduate level electives in public policy.

SUSAN NAGER: Fantastic. That’s amazing. And the program accepts six transfer credits as long as it’s from an accredited ace CCSP.

DR. IOANNIS BELLOS: probably wrong. I don’t have the exact number. I don’t remember the exact time but we approved more than that.

SUSAN NAGER: Oh, wonderful. Okay, good to know, good to know. Yeah,

DR. IOANNIS BELLOS: we are approved more than that. So, in this is something that that we will have to exchange information, we will we will ask the students to provide us more additional information on past syllabi and so on so forth. But we do approve a considerable number of credits from other programs, past institutions, other institutions and so on so forth. Okay.

SUSAN NAGER: Yeah. So with respect to so you either go a week abroad, or you do the global

DR. IOANNIS BELLOS: right, it’s the week abroad is part of it, it is part of the course it is part of a course. So if you if you decide if you decide that okay, I do want to travel, then what’s going to happen is still the course will take place over eight weeks. You’re gonna spend the first you know, few weeks in the classroom or online. You know, getting prepared about the trip, learning about the country stuff. It is studying relevant case studies, then you travel abroad, you spend one week in the country. And then when you come back, you do have one or two sessions to do to do the debrief, talk, some group project presentations and so on, so forth. Now, if you do not if you if you do not want or you cannot travel, many times our students, sometimes our students cannot travel because of you know, work family responsibilities, then you can still take a more traditional course, a course, an eight week course, still an eight week course, but with no travel component. And you you can choose among some options, there are some options that are courses with international emphasis, like international marketing, international strategy or international finance. So, now, there is a focus on international and global elements aspects, but there is no travel required.

SUSAN NAGER: Fantastic. Now, are both choices, are they synchronous? Meaning you have to if you’re doing it online, you have to log on at a certain time.

DR. IOANNIS BELLOS: So, for the for the courses that do not require travel, those are asynchronous, asynchronous courses, but the courses that do require travel for if you choose to participate in the global residency that that’s going to be synchronous.

SUSAN NAGER: The entire eight weeks, yes. Okay. Meaning you just have to log in at a certain time, you don’t have to show up to campus. That

DR. IOANNIS BELLOS: is correct. That’s going to be like this. All right, we are going via zoom or themes.

SUSAN NAGER: Perfect, perfect. And I want to stress to y’all that once accepted into the program, in addition to your faculty, you’ll have a student success coach, okay, who you’ll work very closely with and communicate with to set up an individualized course plan. So that’s wonderful.

DR. IOANNIS BELLOS: And every time that you need to make any change that your student success coach will be there wanting your students success goals, typically is one text away. You text, you coordinate a call and you adjust your plan accordingly. Absolutely.

SUSAN NAGER: So don’t be shy. Do y’all have any questions? We have Dr. Bella’s, here to answer all your questions about the program.

DR. IOANNIS BELLOS: Wonderful question that I usually get is what if we choose to do the program full completely online? Well, that’s on our degree will that sound the diploma? No, there is no distinction between, you will still get an end, regardless of whether you do it fully online fully in person or mix modalities. The you will be getting an MBA from George Mason University. That’s, that’s

SUSAN NAGER: absolutely and you can walk to in the graduation.

DR. IOANNIS BELLOS: And we know that this is not just for the online MBA program here at Mason. But most we know that most online poker for most online MBA programs, the students, the online students are within a certain 50 mile radius within the campus. So we invite you in in person events, speakers, social events, networking, happy hours, of course.

SUSAN NAGER: Now that’s great, because best of both worlds here. So you know, you don’t have to fight traffic, you don’t have to find a parking spot or fight inclement weather, you can access your education in the comfort of your own home. However, if you’re a hop, skip and a jump from campus, and you want to stop on over to set up a study group or you can so to me, that’s the best of both worlds. If we don’t have any other questions, we can talk about the application process. So I work as a part of, of a team. So if you don’t have an admissions representative that you’re working with, on the next slide, I will provide you with our contact information and I urge you to reach out to my team and either myself or one of my colleagues will be happy to assist you. Now the application process is very simple. Okay. We will prove we’ll tell you all about the online program. Again, when you call back in and to apply. We need a bachelor’s transcripts. And the great thing about it is is that Mason will you Use unofficial transcripts if you have one lying around. Now, if not, as a courtesy, we will attempt to order those on your behalf. Okay, a resume. Okay? Now, one of the hard prerequisites for this program, though is two years work experience. Is that correct? No. Okay. Now, okay, unless you’re a non traditional student and and correct me if I’m wrong, Dr. Bella. So say for example, I’ve been in the military and working in the military for 10 years, and I go back to get my degree. And, you know, I’ve been maybe working, you know, while I’m in school a little bit. The military experience will qualify, yes, wrongly,

DR. IOANNIS BELLOS: we strongly encourage you to reach out to us and apply or reach out to us if you you have nontraditional work experience. If let’s say you have you have professional experience, even though you that most of the professional experience may have happened before you getting your undergraduate degree, you reach out to us we have a process, we have a process for that. So post baccalaureate, it’s it’s not the post mortem report here should not encourage you, we look at your application holistically. And we if you have professional experience that may have happened, like military experience, right, or paranormal experience that may have happened before you officially getting an undergraduate degree, reach out to us we do have a process to accommodate this. Absolutely, you can potentially accommodate this. Absolutely.

SUSAN NAGER: And with respect to GPA, now, preferably a 3.0 or above but again, what Dr. Bellows just mentioned, we look at you holistically. So if you have tons of work experience and you graduated, you know, eons ago, they’re going to take that into consideration. Correct. Okay.

DR. IOANNIS BELLOS: Maybe you majored in a degree in in a field that later on, you know, you majored in, in one field, but then later on, you pivoted and you build a successful career on a different field. So, again, we will never flat out deny your application because of some numerical value, we will, we will look at your application holistically. Yeah,

SUSAN NAGER: that’s great. You’re not just a number defined by your GPA. There is a personal or goal statement. It’s like 500 to 750 words. And we’ll provide the little prompts to answer it, why you want to do it, why Mason, your career goals, and so forth. So very easy to complete. two letters of recommendation, this is very easy. All you have to do is input their names and emails into the application portal, they will receive an email with a link that takes them to a questionnaire literally takes them about 10 minutes to complete. So very easy. And we already mentioned the work experience, but then, you know, again, there’s non traditional applicants as well, such as military students. And let me go to the next slide. Okay, so what you see here is the main number, okay, our email, and then the link to apply. Okay, so it’s very easy. And my name is Susan. And again, I work with a team of excellent professionals that our job is just to be your personal assistant through the application process. So it’s, you’re not wondering what to do it anytime we give you an application checklist and you follow that step by step. And then of course, you contact us if you have any questions. Okay. Any other questions since we have Dr. Bellows here. And I do encourage you to listen to Bailey’s testimonial. And I think you mentioned it is on the website. Is that correct? Yeah, good stuff. We’re an accredited program. Top notch, top notch faculties. We’re also a tier one research university. We’re the largest research institution in Virginia. So that means your curriculum is going to be backed by the latest research based evidence. Plus, a lot of alumni don’t even know this. But Mason is actually ranked seventh in the entire nation as a value rated school. So meaning you’re gonna get a go Rate bang for your buck.

DR. IOANNIS BELLOS: In the NBA, the ROI for the MBA program is two to one, and based on the evidence at the heart numbers that we listed in the in the presentation. So what

SUSAN NAGER: you mean is that you’re going to earn back double what you paid in is.

DR. IOANNIS BELLOS: We have another it’s another it’s starting another solid and graduation at 104,000. Yes, amazing. Yes. If you do the maths are the total tuition is 52,000 or something like that?

SUSAN NAGER: Yeah. Wonderful. So I thought of one other question that I have. Students often ask, does the department have relationships with local organizations? You mentioned job fairs. How about is there any opportunities for internships,

DR. IOANNIS BELLOS: we have two fantastic novel innovative industry leading centers, not just George Mason University with Dean house in the School of Business. We do have the Baroni center for government contracting, they do phenomenal work in the space of government contracting, and we know how big the space is in the DMV area. And we also have the center of innovation and entrepreneurship. We have very close ties with both centers. The director of the Barone center for government contracting helps us find speakers. He teaches an in person course on government contracting, which is a unique course. To my, to my knowledge, no other programs, MBA programs have a similar course within the area. So yeah, so the answer is, yes, we do have connections with industry. And we’re very proud of two great assets. Especially those two centers, and something that I’m not sure whether we talked about probably not you as school of business graduates, you do get you do get lifelong career services. Oh, yes, exactly graduation.

SUSAN NAGER: And big time heavy hitter, companies seek out our MBA grads such as Booz Allen, Deloitte. The list is quite extensive. So again, you know, reach out to the admissions wrap, we can help you apply. Right now we have a January a start. And so like I said, the application process is really easy. And we’re here to help. Dr. Bellows, thank you so much for your time.

DR. IOANNIS BELLOS: Thank you for coordinating this design. And everyone as I always like to say when in doubt, reach out. You will be surprised by how responsive we we are to emails and inquiries. So I do appreciate you taking the time to join this information session. And I do look forward to connecting connecting with you.

SUSAN NAGER: Thank you so much. And thank you so much for joining us this evening, everybody. I hope you have a lovely night.