Out of the comfort zone

‘How’s the MBA going?’ This is the most frequent question I am now being asked.

It seems like so many of you are really interested.

My answer is usually… ‘It’s good, but wow, it’s a lot of work! Lots and lots of work…’

To put it into perspective, for me personally, it’s more work than my two masters degrees put together. Yes, that much!

Hard work

I think the explanation for this is that it’s a very different topic to what I’m used to.

Doing dental post-grad is easier, since the terminology used isn’t alien.

We already know what an implant and an ortho bracket are. We certainly all should know what a BPE (basic periodontal examination) is as well!

But MBA jargon is very different.

We are well into the accounting part of the programme and (oh boy!) I now have a new-found respect for my accountant.

Accountancy is hard! Do you know what a ‘deadweight loss’ is? What ‘gearing’ means? How do you work out EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation)?

So this is the issue… there’s a lot of brain re-wiring that needs to be done in order to continue with the course and I believe you have to be open to this change.

To be honest, I am going to re-jig my work commitments to let me focus more on this than teeth.

Broadened horizons

So what have I learnt so far?

Well, I don’t have time to go into all of it here, but to somehow simplify what’s been going on…

It has broadened my horizons and made me see the bigger picture.

We have had sessions on how to negotiate about price structure and how to develop our knowledge further in team management.

It has been very useful, and I certainly feel it’s becoming even more beneficial when I’m bringing the newly collected information back to the dental environment.

We have regular quizzes, which count towards our final grade.

This of course means, every week, there’s the crucial need for some serious study time.

In dental post-grad you can do an intensive amount then almost (sorry to say this) ease the pressure on the accelerator for a few weeks.

Not with an MBA!

At the moment I have two quizzes to revise for, a few telephone meetings, two sessions of group work and the pre-reading for the university sessions next week.

Sleep? Who needs sleep? I have my accountancy textbook to keep me awake! 

Stay tuned!

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