However, the weight of these instructional methods don’t necessarily line up with what students want. For example, pure lecture, which encompasses 22% of class time, is only preferred by 5% of respondents. Similarly, students favor experiential education, an increasingly popular means to give students real-world knowledge, at a 24% rate, 14 points higher than the percentage of time that it is allotted in graduate business programs. As GMAC adds, there is a correlation between student satisfaction and the amount of time devoted to their preferred learning style.
This correlation also applies to extracurricular activities: the more activities that fit their interests, the more likely that participants will thrive in a program and ultimately recommend it. And what do students want? You could say full-time MBAs want everything. Sixty-seven per cent participate in clubs, while another 61% completed internships. More than half of full-time MBAs were involved in multicultural events and volunteer activities. And more than a third engaged in case competitions, work projects, mentoring programs, and leadership programs. Conversely, part-time and executive MBAs spent the most time on work projects and study-abroad programs, with master’s students preferring internships, clubs, volunteer activities, and work projects.
These numbers are courtesy of the GMAC 2015 Global Management Education Graduate Survey. Based on responses from 3,329 graduate business students from the Class of 2015, the sample was drawn from 112 universities in 29 countries. Three-fourths of the sample were MBAs, two-thirds of them men. Nearly two-thirds of the respondents lived in the U.S., while more than half of respondents were graduating from full-time two-year and one-year programs. Nearly half of the sample ranged from 25 to 30 years of age, with respondents surveyed in February and March.
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