Distance Learning

Distance Learning in the MBA Program: A student perspective

Mike Morelli, who will graduate with his MBA this August, talks about his experience with Distance-Learning in the Hagan MBA program.

What courses or courses have you taken in a distance learning format at Hagan?

A lot! Marketing 615, Consumer Behavior; Management 993, Special Topics in Management; Human Resource Management 630, Self-Assessment and Career Management; BLW 635, International Law; and Management 650, Entrepreneurship. This past winter trimester, all of my classes were online courses.

What did you initially expect from this format?

Not much in the way of traditional classroom instruction of chapter-by-chapter by a professor. I expected that it would be a lot of reading and that I would be required to make my own posts on Iona’s web page about the readings

How did the experience compare with your expectations?

I found that my expectations were pretty on-target.

Is a DL course more or less work than a traditional classroom course?

For some of the courses, it’s a lot more work. DL courses are more paper-driven, that is, they more likely to require students to submit research papers - - lengthier papers at that. In other classes, it was just posting and taking quizzes online. The quizzes were not too bad, as they were all open book

Is the work of a different variety or quality?

Definitely. You’re able to work through the course material on your own time and pace, so when you do it is when you feel like learning it. It’s easier to dedicate your time because you’re not forced at a particular time to sit and do it. You’re free to decide when you want to focus on your course work.

One of the things we “sell” at Hagan is the chance to learn as much from classmates as from faculty. Do you feel like you get a real chance to interact with and learn from fellow students in a DL course?

The advantage of the DL course is that you get many people from different areas with different experience. Having them chime into the on-line discussion boards with their personal experience on the job makes it more real. You’re not just relying on a teacher’s opinion of how something might go. And I think people tend to express themselves more freely without a professor to edit them.

What kind of material lends itself to distance learning?

I would say that more theoretical material is better taught on-line. It would be harder to learn more mathematical material this way. There are things you need to be walked through…you can’t just read it in a textbook. Finance or Accounting, for example, might not be so easy to learn in this format.

What advice would you have for students considering DL courses?

It requires a different type of dedication. You don’t have a teacher each week telling you that YOU MUST DO THIS…you don’t have those constant reminders. On BlackBoard (the system that facilitates the online interaction) the assignment is posted once and you have to make sure that you do it on your own, with no reminders.

I know you do some teaching in your “other” life ( Outside of Iona, Mike works as a Krav Maga (Israeli Self-Defense) instructor as well as a children's Martial Arts instructor.) Can you envision using a DL format to teach?

Absolutely. For instance, teaching “how to be a teacher” and school ownership and the concepts required in that would lend itself well.

Any other comments about your Distance Learning experiences at Hagan?

I think distance learning is probably one of the best ways to earn an MBA. Since most people in the MBA program have jobs that require late hours and sometimes cannot make a class meeting, the DL courses offer them flexibility. When you miss even one in-person classroom session in the MBA program, it usually has a negative effect on the grade, since there are so few meetings per trimester.

I wouldn't have been able to get my MBA if Hagan didn’t offer courses online. I’ve only taken 3 traditional courses in the whole program.

There’s a lot more interaction in the on-line positing than people might think. I probably did miss seeing people face-to-face and being able to put a face to their name. But being able to read their comments and think about what I had to say before I had to respond made me give better responses than I would have in class.

It really worked well for me.