MBA students write their own lessons
As university students across the country go back to school, 43 MBA students at the University of Richmond’s Robins School of Business spent two weekends on lock-down learning as much as they could about a local Fortune 500 company and writing up a case study.
Many of the current group of MBA students work at the region’s larger companies, such as Capital One and CarMax. The three strongest groups presented their ideas to a panel of Owens & Minor executives Sunday.
“The impressive thing is that you have to learn what’s the meat and what’s extraneous, and that’s a good learning experience,” said Mark Van Sumeren, a senior vice president of strategic planning and development at Owens & Minor and one of the judges at the final presentation.
The panel of Owens & Minor executives said that although all three presentations were helpful, the wining group appeared to spend the most time researching numbers and was the only group to produce a projected income statement.
“They were very clear, very concise and had good strong analytics behind it. We thought it tied most closely with our overall strategic direction,” Van Sumeren said.
The process was not just instructive for the new students. Several of the heads at Owens & Minor said they have debated many of the same issues that the groups suggested. “It helps to get some fresh perspective,” Van Sumeren said.
Indeed, the case-study method has become a popular teaching tool at business schools. It’s a way for students to apply what they learn to real-life challenges, said Richard Coughlan, an associate dean at the school and the director of the graduate program.
“Part of it (the case study method) is to allow the students to have some small failures. And that’s a learning opportunity to force them to become decision makers,” Coughlan said, adding that next year, locally-based insurer Markel Corp. will be the subject of the case study.
related news
Comments (1)
.gif)
An astonishing 148 companies of the 225 in our database 66 are considered microcap i. ambien eoq levitra 8880 xanax 658255