How the Surrey MBA can impact your career at the University of Surrey
We sat down with Martine Carter, Director of Strategy at the University of Surrey to find out what impact the Surrey MBA has had on her career since completing the programme a few years ago...
What attracted you to doing the Surrey MBA in the first place?
The opportunity to do the MBA arose shortly after I had joined the University as a member of staff in the Planning Team. I saw it as a chance to learn, not only from the academic experts teaching on the programme but also, from my classmates who were a wide range of individuals with different backgrounds and experiences.
In what ways has the Surrey MBA impacted your career?
It’s hard to know how things might have been different if I hadn’t undertaken the MBA, but the broad grounding in all the key management disciplines has definitely given me more confidence to contribute to a wider range of issues and to accept new challenges. I still refer back to some of my key textbooks when I’m looking to get to grips with something new, and my role has changed a number of times since I started the programme! There is a lot of group work in the MBA and I think that experience also taught me a lot about getting the most out of teams, and valuing different types of input, which I hope has made me a better line manager.
Would you recommend the Surrey MBA to other members of staff? Why?
I would absolutely recommend the Surrey MBA but it is a big commitment and anyone thinking of doing it should think very carefully around the other calls on their time. I thoroughly enjoyed the classes and the lively debates over dinner with classmates and lecturers, but the assignments were demanding both intellectually and in terms of time.
I learned a lot about prioritisation and when to recognise that “good enough” really is good enough. It’s worth saying as well that there have been a number of things that I learned about and researched as part of the course that I have then been able to put in to practice at the University. So hopefully the University gained from it too! It goes without saying that I also gained lifelong friends from the experience.
