MBA degree at distance and networking

The MBA at distance degree, sometimes erroneously called MBA online degree, are becoming increasingly demanded by professionals interested in management training but who wish to maintain their present job. To faced with this demand, the business school are currently incorporating more and more in their courses. But if a major benefit of a Full Time MBA course is the networking opportunity, can a MBA at distance offer the same advantage? Dr. Paul Walley, academic director of distance learning MBA at Warwick Business School, and Associate Professor of Operations Management, explains how an MBA distance learning is not a lonely experience.

When Dr. Walley began working on a MBA at distance, many years ago, every student received by mail a heavy pack full of books and handouts. Tasks were performed on four sheets of carbon paper and returned by mail. Times have changed enormously.

Now that internet has made communication faster and reliable, has opened a wide range of possibilities to communicate more effectively with the faculty and, perhaps more importantly, with other students. One of the aspects more important than an MBA is the opportunity to develop their interpersonal skills and at the same time new network that will help their future career. Students in Full Time MBA benefit immediately new friendships and knowledge of business during their studies, this is especially useful for those career change and need to build new contacts. Many MBA students at distance, affected rather to make a career step within their work, prefer to study part-time and have more time for the existing working relationship and their networks. Maintain existing social networks can also be an advantage during the study, for example working with people with whom you work and who are maybe studying for an MBA course.

What Has Driven Women Out of Computer Science?

ELLEN SPERTUS, a graduate student at M.I.T., wondered why the computer camp she had attended as a girl had a boy-girl ratio of six to one. And why were only 20 percent of computer science undergraduates at M.I.T. female? She published a 124-page paper, “Why Are There So Few Female Computer Scientists?”, that catalogued different cultural biases that discouraged girls and women from pursuing a career in the field. The year was 1991.

Computer science has changed considerably since then. Now, there are even fewer women entering the field. Why this is so remains a matter of dispute.

What’s particularly puzzling is that the explanations for under-representation of women that were assembled back in 1991 applied to all technical fields. Yet women have achieved broad parity with men in almost every other technical pursuit. When all science and engineering fields are considered, the percentage of bachelor’s degree recipients who are women has improved to 51 percent in 2004-5 from 39 percent in 1984-85, according to National Science Foundation surveys.

When one looks at computer science in particular, however, the proportion of women has been falling. In 2001-2, only 28 percent of all undergraduate degrees in computer science went to women. By 2004-5, the number had declined to only 22 percent. Data collected by the Computing Research Association showed even fewer women at research universities like M.I.T.: women accounted for only 12 percent of undergraduate degrees in computer science and engineering in the United States and Canada granted in 2006-7 by Ph.D.-granting institutions, down from 19 percent in 2001-2. Many computer science departments report that women now make up less than 10 percent of the newest undergraduates.

In 1998, when Ms. Spertus received her Ph.D. in computer science, women received 14 percent of the doctorates granted in the field. Today, she’s an associate professor at Mills College and a research scientist at Google. Her life story supports the hypothesis of Jane Margolis, co-author of “Unlocking the Clubhouse: Women in Computing,” who highlights the ambient ideas in a family that are enormously influential in career decisions.

Last week, Ms. Margolis said that “a lot of the girls who were doing computer science came from families of computer scientists and engineers.” Her explanation: “It was in the air. There was the expectation that they could do whatever they wanted.” Ms. Spertus’s father was an M.I.T.-trained engineer. She learned programming even before personal computers had arrived, using computer terminals in her house that were connected to a Honeywell mainframe used by the family’s business.

Twenty-five years ago, more young women in colleges and universities were drawn to computer science than today. From 1971 to 1983, incoming freshman women who declared an intention to major in computer science jumped eightfold, to 4 percent from about 0.5 percent.

Jonathan Kane, a professor of mathematics and computer science at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, recalls the mid-1980s, when women made up 40 percent of the students who majored in management computer systems, the second most popular major on campus. But soon after, the number of students majoring in the program had fallen about 75 percent, reflecting a nationwide trend, and the number of women fell even more. “I asked at a department meeting,” he says, “ ‘Where have the women gone?’ It wasn’t clear.” His theory is that young women earlier had felt comfortable pursing the major because the male subculture of action gaming had yet to appear.

Justine Cassell, director of Northwestern University’s Center for Technology & Social Behavior, has written about the efforts in the 1990s to create computer games that would appeal to girls and, ultimately, increase the representation of women in computer science. In commenting as a co-contributor in a new book, “Beyond Barbie and Mortal Kombat: New Perspectives on Gender and Gaming,” Ms. Cassell writes of the failure of these efforts, “The girls game movement failed to dislodge the sense among both boys and girls that computers were ‘boys’ toys’ and that true girls didn’t play with computers.”

She said last week that some people in the field still believed that the answer to reversing declining enrollment was building the right game. Another school of thought is what she calls the “we won” claim because women have entered computer-related fields like Web site design that are not traditional computer science. Ms. Cassell points out that it’s not much of a victory, however. The pay is considerably less than in software engineering and the work has less influence on how computers are used, and whether this actually accounts for the diminishing numbers of female computer science majors remains unproved.

Ms. Cassell identifies another explanation for the drop in interest, which is linked to the pejorative figure of the “nerd” or “geek.” She said that this school of thought was: “Girls and young women don’t want to be that person.”

I spoke with Ms. Spertus last week about her thoughts about the declining percentage of undergraduate women majoring in the field. “Women choosing not to go into computer science is fine,” she said, “if there aren’t artificial barriers keeping them out.” She lamented the recent decision of one of her outstanding computer science students who chose to major in nursing because of what the student perceived as better prospects for finding employment.

Such students who choose not to pursue their interest may have been introduced to computer science too late. The younger, the better, Ms. Margolis says. Games would offer considerable promise, except that they have been tried and have failed to have an effect on steeply declining female enrollment.

At least we know one thing: it’s possible to have about the same number of men and women in computer science classes. That just about describes classrooms of 25 years ago.

(original paper)

An aptitude test, designed to identify 'diagonal thinkers'

There are few outward signs that Tim Lindsay isn't completely straight. A family man in his fifties and president of advertising giant TBWA, with a client list of international brands that include Apple, Adidas, Mars, McDonald's and PlayStation, Lindsay appears to be a highly successful, even conventional, senior manager.

Yet Lindsay has a secret. According to an aptitude test designed by the advertising industry to pull it out of its white, middle-class rut, Lindsay is, to date, the most "diagonal thinker" in the world.

You may have heard of linear thought - the ability to think logically. And you're probably aware of lateral thinking - the ability to think creatively. But diagonal thinking is a new concept dreamed up by the advertising business to describe the combination of the linear and lateral thinking needed to succeed in creative jobs.

"It's the ability to switch effortlessly between linear, logical thought processes to lateral, creative ones," explains Hamish Pringle, director general of advertising trade body the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA), "and it seems to be one of the defining characteristics of people who do well in our industry. If you're just linear, you should, perhaps, be an accountant. Just lateral and maybe you should be in fine arts. But if you're a diagonal thinker, you are equipped to succeed in all the main roles in advertising."

According to the IPA 10% of the population can think diagonally. If you're curious to find out if you're a diagonal thinker - or keen to land a creative job - try taking the IPA's free hour-long, online aptitude test. "Anyone scoring more than 90% can print out an IPA certificate proving their scores and attach it to their CV," says Pringle. Proof of talent will become, he reckons, "their passport to Adland".

The test has been endorsed by the government which included it in a Creative Britain strategy document published earlier this year and was officially launched last week by culture secretary, Andy Burnham, at a festival held in London's Golden Square to promote the creative industries.

With the financial sector in crisis, the government sees the creative industries as key to Britain's future economic success. Currently accounting for more than 7% of GDP, the creative sector is growing at twice the rate of the wider economy and is on course to become the second largest contributor to the UK economy by 2018.

And yet it's an industry perceived as being riddled with institutional snobbery and elitism. Pringle admits that "diagonal thinking" is only the latest effort by creative industries desperate to shed their reputation as a refuge for the pampered bourgeoisie.

"There's a self-reinforcing cycle of largely white, middle class, university-educated students who are friends and family of similar people already employed throughout the top levels of the industry," he says. "They're the ones who get the scarce work experience positions, receive coaching on completing job applications and the interview process, and end up winning one of the rare jobs on offer."

Sure enough, a recent IPA survey found that only 6% of advertising people come from ethnic backgrounds - not so bad compared with the national average of 8%, but pretty shocking when compared with the London figure of 40%.

It doesn't help that agencies perpetuate the practice of wageless work placements and low entry-level salaries - an average of £17,000 per annum compared with £30,000 you might earn in a law firm, making it nigh impossible for graduate trainees with student debts to afford to live in London without family support. "If you're not already in our 'village', and from a non-white, non-graduate, non-middle class background, it's very hard to break in," concedes Pringle, "and the lack of role models makes it look as if Adland doesn't want you anyway."

Meanwhile Lindsay expresses surprise at being the highest-scoring diagonal thinker among the 200 people who have trialled the test. "I've always known I have both linear and lateral thinking skills, but always thought I was never quite good enough at either," he says.

But he reckons that it confirms what he has long looked for when recruiting fresh blood. "I always ask them about their enthusiasms - whether they read the FT and the Economist," says Lindsay. "But I also ask them who their favourite directors are and why.

"You need diagonal thinking in advertising to be able to come up with relevant creative ideas and innovative business ideas, and secondly to be able to judge creative ideas. But most of all you need it to manage creative types - often borderline sociopaths who just don't play by the rules."

The test has only been available for a few days, but the trials have already produced results. In 2001 Lucia Hargasova came to the UK from Slovakia where her father was a builder. After a couple of years of nannying she was sufficiently fluent in English to put herself through a degree at London Metropolitan University. She took part in the diagonal thinking trials before she graduated this year and, to her surprise, scored in the top 10%. It helped her secure four job interviews and she is now a trainee media planner for media agency Starcom.

"It was straightforward. Time pressured, but not difficult," she recalls. "But there's no doubt that my test results opened doors for me that might otherwise have remained closed."
How to do the diagonal thinking test

The diagonal thinking test is a cocktail of psychometric measures which identify the linear and lateral thinking styles, and personality traits that have been proven to be characteristic of people who do well in the advertising business, explains the occupational psychologist John Gage who developed the test. Try answering the following:

Lateral thinking question
You are managing director of a small but successful catalogue clothing business aimed at professional people within the UK with above average incomes. Your clothing is priced generally around 80% higher than your nearest competitor, but sells well to its market as it is seen as unique in design, high quality and British made. You are deciding whether to expand your target market or to re-brand to make your business even bigger and better.

List as many factors and issues you would need to take into account making this decision.

Linear thinking question
Should all British householders be fined for failing to recycle at least 70% of their household waste?

Questions like this measure your ability to judge whether an argument is a good or poor one in relation to the question presented. A good one would be important and related to the question, while a bad one would be if it is of minor importance or related only to trivial aspects of the question. For example, a poor argument might be "No - fining schemes usually backfire as people often rebel against them. It should be up to each individual household to decide on the amount of waste they wish to recycle." In contrast, a good argument might be: "Yes - this would encourage the average British citizen to think more about their recycling habits."