On Training...

Since Monday this week, I have been attending the 9th ITPM training at THE best graduate school of business and management in the country, AIM (Asian Institute of Management).

I was really looking forward to this training, but was still surprised to discover that I miss going to school or maybe more aprropriately... I miss doing interesting group discussions. And I immediately knew this after the first day. Of course, this was very different from College education... as most graduate programs are. Masteral levels usually focus on peer education and the professor merely works as a facilitator. I guess it also helps that one of our professors is actually the Assistant Dean of the Graduate School of Business program of AIM.

One of the main reasons I have been shunning away from possibly pursuing an MBA is that a lot of people have told me that the MBA programs at La Salle and Ateneo are pretty much shite. The only place that really is worth going for is AIM. And even there, since graduate level programs are more into peer education... the quality of discussions you get will of course really depend on the composition of your class. It's such a pity that Ateneo or La Salle actually allows fresh grads to join the MBA program. I mean come on, how the heck are they supposed to contribute? They will obvisouly learn from the experiences that you share... but the flow doesnt go the other way. Some foreign schools usually make the cut at 3-4 years work experience, at the very least. This I can take. But fresh out of college? And they're going to suggest on how best it is to manage people or business? I think not.

Of course, I know that one of the reasons why this class is different is because there are surprisingly 55 of us in the course. And although a small majority of us came from software houses, we had all sorts of industries represented in the group. But most important of all I beleive, is that a huge bulk of us have 11-20 years of experience in each of our industries. Some even have 20+ years, while only several have below 10. Now whenever you have a mix of that coupled with a very good facilitator, you're bound to have some interesting discussion going on. If nothing else, at least I've gained a new network of people I can go to. And in the small world of IT, that will always be a good thing.