Joseph John
Country of origin: India
Before the MBA chapter of my life, I was working as an Associate Manager for Standard Chartered Bank, India, in the Corporate Banking Operations division. During the 6 years of my work experience, I worked in various project lead roles and also on pure banking operations, with my last role being that of a Loan Closer. Having worked primarily for the UK market and at the same time interacting with bankers across the globe on transactions, it propelled me to step out of my comfort zone geographically and pursue my MBA in the UK.
Although I applied to other Business Schools in the UK, and you undergo a period where you are flooded with information on the various programmes out there, LUMS stood out from the crowd and kept drawing me back to visit the webpage many a time. It was my gut feeling, coupled with the global ranking, comments/blogs on webpages and video library of LUMS that helped narrow down my option and finally led towards the Lancaster MBA.
We usually experience jitters when we hear the word ‘challenge’ – a word I was always thrown to when I mentioned I was going to do the MBA. But during the 12 months, the word ‘challenge’ took a different meaning. The MBA tested me in situations I had not experienced in my career, and the Lancaster MBA not only explains such situations post the ‘challenge’ but made me reflect on how I encountered it and how I could better react to such situations. Every module had its ‘challenge’ and it was all in a safe environment. To single out the most enjoyable moment in the Lancaster MBA would be hard for this reason alone.
The unique feature of the Lancaster MBA was the cohort size. This gave us the opportunity to get to know our peers not only through academic interventions, but also socially. The diversity in the cohort enhanced my perceptions on situational handling and looking at issues differently. I can truly say I have made friends for life thanks to the compact size of our cohort.
The icing on the cake was the faculty. The breadth of knowledge, experience, combined with reputation kept lectures and interactions engaging. The approachability factor and the guidance each professor and member of the management school staff provided were tremendous, not only from the module perspective but also for international students like me who were new to the UK.
Through these 12 months, I can truly claim that the MBA is a platform not only to broaden career options, but also to enter the next phase of one’s career with confidence. I would like to go back into banking and finance related roles as I feel I have not yet scratched the surface of the technical knowledge this sector holds, hence would like to seek opportunities and be a specialist in a particular stream.
