A roller coaster ride
When I made the decision to attend a one-year MBA, I knew that I had signed up for an intense roller coaster ride. I knew that the classes would be short and precise and filled with lots of theoretical frameworks and applications. I knew that some would seem “fluffy” while others would deal with hard numbers – my worst nightmare. I was pleasantly surprised by one of our Finance Professors, Jeppe Christoffersen, because he truly tried to make a topic like Financial Statement Analysis easier to understand for us finance dummies (mainly me). It also helped that he has a great personality and sense of humour, which aided him in making the classes more interactive and engaging. None of us begrudged him the daily slavish hours of work over the duration of his course, because we knew that he always went through our homework with a very detailed eye and gave us personal feedback. Not surprisingly, he was voted Teacher of the Year by us students at our graduation ceremony earlier this month.
The class that captured my heart
While all of this make it seem like Jeppe’s subject became my favourite MBA class, there was another that really captured my heart. I was only able to discover it towards the end of my MBA course as it was my final elective, Social Entrepreneurship. This class teaches the process of setting up an enterprise with a view of turning an ‘antagonistic asset’ (groups of people or things that normal companies would not invest in as they would be considered losses) into a complimentary for the enterprise.
Our Professor, Kai Hockerts, was not only very knowledgeable but also very up-to-date with theoretical frameworks from numerous courses, seemingly unrelated to his. He also made a point of sharing extra knowledge with us on many topics to do with Denmark, world trends and his own international experience. Not least, he was able to combat the idea of his course being a “fluffy” one and turned skeptics into believers through logic and reasoning – believe me, it was a beauty to see that transformation take place! His guidance was very educational and steered us on to the right style of thinking that needs to be applied to the concept of a social enterprise.
Theory and real-world experiences
In order to help us better understand some of the theories within his course, he invited many guest speakers from various social enterprises; those helping children, a call center that employs blind people, etc. Our interactions with them and with him truly helped us develop ideas for our own social enterprises and structure them to meet the approval of potential investors.
I truly believe that this was the best class of the entire MBA and wish that this was part of the foundation rather than an elective. For me, it was also the ideal stepping stone for the Business Accelerator course. It has added so much value for me personally as it helped me refine the way I think, apply many frameworks from other courses from the MBA and also help me contribute positively to the world even if only in a small way. Our Professor was a brilliant blend of theory and real-world experiences and the best guide you could have for such a topic. He is always going to have my vote of confidence and I would definitely recommend his course for years to come.
