Jack Welch Adding Prestige to Online MBA; Can it Compare With the Classroom?

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  lindsayb

  06/26/09 | Report as spam

  RE: Jack Welch Adding Prestige to Online MBA; Can it Compare With the Classroom?

  I admire Mr. Welch's goal to raise the bar on online education. If online programs are ever going to be respected by employers ( 

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  lindsayb

  06/26/09 | Report as spam

  RE: Jack Welch Adding Prestige to Online MBA; Can it Compare With the Classroom?

  Oops. Link broke the comment. Here's the full text: I admire Mr. Welch's goal to raise the bar on online education. If online programs are ever going to be respected by employers (and for the most part they aren't), the standards need to be much higher. But talking to Ivy League professors will only get the school so far. How about rethinking the lax admissions policies that other for-profit schools rely on? Welch's admissions requirements: a 2.8 GPA; no writing sample or GMAT required. Wonder how the Ivy League folks feel about that.

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  DallasDave

  06/29/09 | Report as spam

  RE: Jack Welch Adding Prestige to Online MBA; Can it Compare With the Classroom?

  As an MBA grad from a brick and mortar school whose undergrad GPA was just shy of 2.6 and never took the GMAT, I have always been a little skeptical of what the Ivy League types thought anyway (in my personal experiences, their analytic and presentation skills have typically been very solid, but generally has not made up for the lack of interpersonal and leadership qualities - likely due to what I perceive to be the same personality traits that got them into the Ivy League schools to begin with).
  
  Please note that my undergrad was in Engineering while working 60+ hours on average, and my GRE score was somehow able to merit acceptance both into grad school, as well as Mensa. My MBA GPA was 1 class short of 4.0 (professors don't like being repeatedly proven wrong in class, but my ethics in engineering and business had taught me not to let false information propagate), and let's just say when it comes to getting a grade, I'll take the nastiest business case study anyone can come up with over a thermodynamics or quantum mechanics problem any day...

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  lross002

  06/29/09 | Report as spam

  RE: Jack Welch Adding Prestige to Online MBA; Can it Compare With the Classroom?

  If the online format can successfully deliver the tools needed for analytical decision making and simultaneously build the team building and leadership skills of a quality MBA program, then and only then (regardless of whose name is associated with the program) will virtual graduate schools earn the respect of industry. Admissions standards are just that - "standards" and the absence of a standard suggests that the program's results will be difficult to assess.

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  steve@...

  06/30/09 | Report as spam

  Just what we need

  Jack Welch Institute will be staffed by Ivy League professors. These
  are the same people who educated the banks and investment
  banking houses with the MBA grads that put our country into the
  financial jam it's in now. The generation of Ivy League MBAs from
  1986 helped to cause the S & L crisis, and the generation of Ivy
  League MBAs from 1973 who caused the collapse of the REIT
  industry and the 1974 recession.
  
  We've given the Ivy Leaguers three tries. They've struck out three
  times. Perhaps it's time to rethink the game and draw the players
  from a different source. What would the Jack Welch Institute
  provide that would be better if it's staffed by the same people who
  helped educate the prior three groups of MBAs that have succeeded
  so well at bankrupting our largest institutions?
  
  Today's MBAs may have superb analytical skills but they lack any
  ability to think intelligently about results. Their skills exist in a
  contextual vacuum. They subscribe to a blind adherence to the
  precision of mathematics. They make mathematically precise
  mistakes valid to 10 decimal places of utter stupidity.
  
  And, given the recent performance of GE, perhaps the bloom is off
  the Jack Welch rose.

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  billketterman

  06/30/09 | Report as spam

  RE: Jack Welch Adding Prestige to Online MBA; Can it Compare With the Classroom?

  I just graduated from the Norwich University MBA online program 2 weeks ago. It is capped with a week long residency on campus. I was with the same group (cohort) the entire time with the exception of those who had to drop out a semester. So we know each other well from our on-line discussions and debates. We have bonded to a degree before residency and more since. Three of my seven instructors were retired military officers and required military precision in our work. Another was a finance executive with Ford, and another, Dr. Nida Backaitis, an individual that contributed to W. Edwards Deming's work in "The New Economics for Industry, Government, Education." All are active in their fields. This was not shoddy instruction. I'll converse with anyone regarding competitive advantage, organizational capital, strategic alignment, core competency.... Excellent on-line programs are doable. Jack will play it to win.

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  jcballand@...

  06/30/09 | Report as spam

  RE: Jack Welch Adding Prestige to Online MBA; Can it Compare With the Classroom?

  I must say that I have been surprised by Mr Welch's initiative, and this for several reasons:
  1. Mr. Welch is highly respected among executives and managers and it seems that a prestigious program tailored to this audience would have more chances to aatract quality students
  2. The College he's associated with is close to unknown and Mr. Welch name will probably not overcome this on a degree
  3. The reputation of a college is not only due to the faculty but also by the quality of its students (meaning the selection). When faced with a choice 4.0 students will most likely pick Harvard over the Jack Welch's institute
  4. As a professor who have taught both in the classroom and online, I have concluded that online instruction cannot compete with classroom instruction. The reason: classroom instruction stimulates more senses and it has been proven scientifically that the more senses are stimulated, the stickier the instruction.
  
  It may take 20 years for this college to rise to the top level. But at that time Mr. Welch will be gone. What will be left of the Jack Welch' Institute?
  
  But He's Jack Welch and I'm a nobody, and would be glad to be wrong.
  
  
  

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  myjob

  06/30/09 | Report as spam

  RE: Jack Welch Adding Prestige to Online MBA; Can it Compare With the Classroom?

  There is nothing to stop online MBAs from connecting in person and regularly and they should. Online learnine is a tool (for flexibility) ..... it isn't the only tool or exclusive of other means of communicating and learning.

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  Raj196

  06/30/09 | Report as spam

  RE: Jack Welch Adding Prestige to Online MBA; Can it Compare With the Classroom?

  I must say that Jack Welch has the kind of credibility to revolutionize online learning. I myself have graduated from an online university, U21 Global, Singapore, & must say that it was the most fascinating experience of my life. We had a very advance Learning Management System, a virtual class room environment, discussion boards with hundreds of posts on various topics. I must say that the advocates of brick & mortar institutes need to go back to the table & create other advantages apart from lively discussions. The point is online education is a reality, which provides an opportunity to students to carry out their professional work along with studies. It provides opportunity to simultaneously adopt the various theories in their work & see the results themselves.

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  valeriehg

  07/01/09 | Report as spam

  RE: Jack Welch Adding Prestige to Online MBA; Can it Compare With the Classroom?

  We need to wake up to the benefits of technology and kick down the bricks & mortar barriers to education.

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  lease777

  07/01/09 | Report as spam

  RE: Jack Welch Adding Prestige to Online MBA; Can it Compare With the Classroom?

  I'm with you, DallasDave!! I also have an undergrad in engineering and escaped with a nominal GPA. I now have 4 master's degrees and am a couple classes shy of finishing my 5th (Physics, looking forward to Special Relativity).
  I just completed an online degree program; all the rest have been from brick and mortar schools. I dare say that my brick and mortar experiences have left me with fewer contacts than my online program. I do not have an MBA (I opted for an MPA), but still had plenty of group projects, study sessions, etc. that failed to develop bonds or networks with my fellow students... By contrast, I also had group projects in my online degree and have developed a nice little network of friends and contacts around the country in a diverse array of industries.
  Jack just might be on to something!!
  

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  Dzyn Guy

  07/01/09 | Report as spam

  RE: Jack Welch Adding Prestige to Online MBA; Can it Compare With the Classroom?

  Although the on-campus experience can't be replicated on-line the real attraction to this type of program is getting the MBA validation. Many people, like myself, have been in business long enough and participated in enough successful marketing plans that we feel we have credible experience but we lack that piece of paper. At 58 I don't think the contacts I make on a college campus will have much impact on my remaining career. The MBA degree, however, tells my clients that I'm familiar with the issues they face building their brands.

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  Annalon

  07/01/09 | Report as spam

  RE: Jack Welch Adding Prestige to Online MBA; Can it Compare With the Classroom?

  I think he's got the right idea. But I think it will be because our culture is becoming more and more tied in with technology and going to school on-line is going to lose its stigma. IS Jack Welch really respected anymore? Maybe to a certain generation of white males, but I bet to 35's and under, he's just another old guy. I don't say this to insult the man, I just feel there is a major, major shift going on and the things he stood for are crumbling. And learning on-line will be considered normal. A lot of professionals get their continuing education credits through on-line courses and tests now. It's just becoming "every day stuff."

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  Tom322

  07/02/09 | Report as spam

  RE: Jack Welch Adding Prestige to Online MBA; Can it Compare With the Classroom?

  The bottom line with online education is this: you still have to do the work. In fact, you have to be more self-motivated since there is no structure of going to class at 3:00 every Monday and Wednesday. I talk to lots of people who tell me they simply don't possess the self-discipline to complete an online degree.
  
  I earned my master's in project management from Keller, and, as others have alluded to, the benefits of applying classroom learning while working 50-hour weeks are immediate and gratifying.

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  UserFX

  07/06/09 | Report as spam

  RE: Jack Welch Adding Prestige to Online MBA; Can it Compare With the Classroom?

  Yeah, didn't this guy dump his first wife for some broad in business. Hey can't wait to see the ethics offering.