Okay the reality is, I stink at math. Or at least I have always felt that I do. The reason is because in the past I have performed uniformly poor in almost anything having to do with math, algebra, geometry and even some business mathematics courses. Here’s the rub. I entered into Ashford University after speaking to one of the admissions guys (great guy by the way) who told me that the mathematics portion, such as Managerial Economics is not really that intense. I have found this to in fact be false, but it is how you define intense I suppose. See the concepts by which you are graded are very theoretically advanced (this is a Masters course after all) and the math which you are generally not graded on is also intense. The problem is that although you are graded on your understanding of the theories behind the lesson, often your answer will depend on your skills in mathematics in order to derive the information by which you apply said theory. Such as in determining maximum utility or when performing a regression analysis. Sometimes for you to get the right answer, there may be as slight as a 10th of a percentage difference between the two numbers, but that counts and you have to be able to either guess really well or understand how to use the statistics to crunch data in an algebraic equation.
Should you be scared of the Ashford MBA program? Certainly not, there is no university that I have seen or heard of that is more supportive in almost every conceivable way. Is Ashford University a “math-light” MBA school? Not even close. The core of the MBA has no fewer than 4 quantitative courses, as it should be I am coming to discover. Look, business is numbers and numbers require understanding to both manipulate to make decisions and translate to real world application in order to justify those decisions. No MBA program should be without these courses and anyone seeking a math free MBA is really setting themselves up for professional failure even should they receive academic success unless they work in HR or something (no offense to HR people). The point is, without these skills your MBA is just paper on the wall, you may as well major in Management or something. Not that there is anything wrong with an MSM, but Management is a soft skills based area of study in most schools. Business Administration seems to require a lot more in the hard skills department and this is generally why the MBA commands the salary that they do on average compared to other various business degrees out there. But that academic expectation will lead to real world performance expectations as well. You have to know this stuff, especially the math if you want to be an effective business administrator. But having the hard skills is not enough, heck a Masters of Science in Accounting and Finance is rife with hard skills oriented education, but how do you apply that data in order to steer an organization? Now there’s the MBA niche.
Just a thought for the day.
Oh and before I forget, I stunk at math initially because the concepts were never fully explained or demonstrated as to how they may be applied. Strange how after just a couple of classes all of a sudden I feel that I can do this stuff at Ashford where I couldn’t before at some other schools. That says a lot about a school. Don’t worry though, I doubt I will replace any economists in the future, but at least I know enough to speak the language.