The Eller Community : Meet Eller MBAs

Greg Goodman, MBA '08

“By using a case-study approach in a small and intimate classroom environment, the Eller program allows me to learn about the corporate world through real-world applications and cases.”

On choosing Eller:

I chose the Eller College for several reasons. In addition to Eller's excellent national reputation, the case-study approach allows us to analyze actual problems rather than strictly learning theory and quantitative applications. We do still study theory, but a lot of my classmates and I agree that we learn the material far more effectively by having a practical or real-world situation in which to apply that theory. A second reason was the small class size. So far, every professor and staff member has made a concerted effort to get to know us, not just as students, but as colleagues. This fosters much better discussion both in and out of the classroom.

On the Eller experience:

Because of the structured nature of the first year, and the first semester in particular, there has not been any opportunity to customize the curriculum. That will change next semester when we can take at least one elective, and in successive semesters when we can select all the classes we want to take. Because it has been more than 12 years since I have taken classes in a university setting, these core classes have provided an excellent opportunity to get back into the classroom mindset.

On Eller faculty and curriculum:

I have been impressed with professor Sue Brown's management information systems class. The MIS class was valuable because the case-study methodology allowed us to take a step back from the problem to analyze and discuss the case from a manager's perspective. Having previously worked in a field where I was involved in positions of leadership and decision-making similar to those in some of the cases, analyzing whether they made the right or wrong decisions was particularly interesting. There were terrific discussion sessions in this class. I was also impressed with the BIQ portion of business communications, which has provided a great way to investigate numerous facets of a real company and analyze some of the real-world problems they face today. Rather than randomly assigning us to companies, Denise Schubert and her staff did a great job of getting to know us early in the semester and assigned us to companies related to our interests and future career objectives.

On the Eller approach:

By using a case-study approach in a small and intimate classroom environment, the Eller program allows me to learn about the corporate world through real-world applications and cases. While the actual problems analyzed in the cases may not present themselves in the future, the process of analyzing problems and developing solutions will definitely help me excel following graduation.

 
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