Re: AVOID HULT
[#permalink]
02 Nov 2012, 09:29
Just want to give a student perspective of Hult.
I cannot comment much about the MBA programme there as I was enrolled on to the MIB (Master of International Business) programme but from what I hear the programmes are quite similar. A bit about myself - I have over five years banking experience working for European banks in the UK. I would classify myself as mid-management and my areas of expertise are treasury and corporate banking, although I have worked in other areas including credit, project management and retail banking. I had always aspired to attaining a Master's degree from a good business school but had been putting it off as I was quite settled in my job and was progressing swiftly. Nonetheless, I felt that the time had come for me to be decisive and I sumitted my resignation in 2011 to pursue my Master's.
When I considered the various streams, the field that attracted me most was International Business. My career had up until that point revolved around finance. My undergraduate degree had a strong finance orientation and so too did my professional qualifications and experience. However, I felt that the time had come for me to gain a wider perspective of business, therefore I decided to specialise in International Business I considered a number of business schools including Hult, Thunderbird, Imperial, Warwick, Emory, NUS, UCD and Melbourne Business School. I took a number of different business factors including reputation, cost, quality of faculty, international experience and class sizes and in the end settled for Hult. This does not mean that Hult offers the most reputable or most cost effective programme. Nor am I claiming that its the most global business school. However, when all factors of consideration were taken into account, Hult offered the right balance for me.
I have provided a summary of what I feel are the positive and negative aspects of the school below. Hope it helps you make the right choice. I thoroughly enjoyed the course itself, but have found it quite tough to find a suitable role post graduation. Whether, this is due to the Hult brand name or whether this is due to the poor market conditions, I cannot say for certain. My guess, would be that it is perhaps a combination of both!
Pros
Quality of the faculty - The quality of the faculty was exceedingly good...not only did the lecturers/professors have strong academic backgrounds but they also possessed strong industry experience and therefore the courses were very practical. They were also in general very approachable and keen to optimise every student's learning experience. Extensive use of case studies was made in almost every course and students were strongly encouraged to think out of the box and come up with innovative solutions. It must be noted that much of Hult's faculty also teach at other schools including Cranfield, INSEAD, Babson, Rotterdam School of Management, Cardiff, Cass, Harvard, London School of Economics and Boston University. Many of the faculty members have MBA's, PhD's etc from top institutions such as Harvard and Cambridge.
International experience - In this aspect I would give Hult a 5 star. Hult is truly global in its outlook. Not only does it have perhaps the most global student body among top business schools, but the content of materials taught is also international in nature.
Scholarships - Hult is perhaps more generous in offering scholarships than other B-Schools.
Brand Marketing - The Hult management is aware of the importance of a strong brand name and is investing heavily in developing its brand. From the Hult Global Case Challenge to the Business Professor of the Year awards, the school is investing heavily to enhance its reputation.
Multiple campuses globally - Hult has campuses in Boston, San Francisco, London, Dubai and Shanghai. These campuses provide students with the opportunity to study/work in multiple campuses and experience different business cultures, which is very beneficial for students aspiring to work in multinational environments. From what I hear through the grapevine, Hult is planning to test out a campus in Sao Paolo this year. Hult consider the multiple campuses approach to be one of its unique selling points and actively search for opportunities to expand their global footprint.
Speaker events - keynote speakers at Hult have included Jimmy Wales (founder of Wikipedia), Bill Clinton (Former American President), Steve Wozniak (C-Founder of Apple), Biz Stone (Co-founder of Twitter), Ronald Jonash (Head of Innovation, Monitor), Grzegorz Kolodko (renowned Economist and former Deputy Prime Minister of Poland) and Edgar Perez (renowned High-Frequency Trader, Edgar Perez).
Responsive management - The Hult management is sincerely concerned about the experience of students and is willing to take tough decisions if necessary. I know of a Professor who was fired because the vast majority of students did not like his style of teaching.
Action Project - Hult programmes provide students with an opportunity to work as a Consultant for clients on behalf of the IXL Centre (a consulting firm run by Hult). Past clients have included Raffles Medical, Nike, Philips, British Airways, Crosslane, Energy Logic, 3M, One Laptop per Child and Panasonic among others. Consultants (students) are tasked with challenging responsibilities over a 6 week period during which they will work closely with the client (in my case our point of contact on the client was the CEO) to meet the client's requirements. During this period, Consultants (students) also work closely with their mentors (who are Professional Consultants working for the IXL Centre, many of whom are former Monitor and McKinsey consultants). I found the Action Project to be a very important aspect of my learning experience as it gave me an opportunity to put into practice all the theory that we learnt earlier in the year.
One year programme - While Hult's Master's programmes (including the MBA) are intensive, students save a year in comparison to other programmes.
Cons:
Brand Reputation - The Hult brand is still not perceived to be among the top B-school brands. Though the school is ambitious and is investing enhancing its brand image, realistically I expect that it will take at least 5 years for the brand to gain good recognition.
Career Services - The Career Services at Hult are excellent in providing advice and guidance. However, the school does not have campus recruitment which is a major drawback. From what I hear, the Shanghai campus appears to be the only campus which has a somewhat active strategy in terms of campus recruitment.
Recreational facilities - The school offers minimal recreational facilities.
Library - Hult campuses globally have an extensive online library. But I find the absence of a physical library to be somewhat strange and extremely inconvenient.
Quality of students - While 80% of students are of a good standard, I do feel that there are some slackers and Hult needs to become more selective when it comes to recruiting students.
Hope this helps!
close
Posted from GMAT ToolKit 
