Nanyang was ranked third-best in the region and the top school in Singapore in the 2010 FT Global MBA rankings, in which it has been ranked inside the worldwide top 30 for two years.
We caught up with Chung Lai Hong, who is Associate Professor and Associate Dean of the MBA program, soon after she landed in London on an applicant-gathering trip. She told us about some of the changes afoot at Nanyang.
“I’m only looking for two or three outstanding students from each city,” says Chung. The Nanyang full-time MBA is relatively small, with only about 100 students, but is very diverse.
This year the proportion of international students is 87%, with Europeans accounting for about 25%, North Americans about 10%, India and China each 10 to 15%, and the rest from places such as Latin America, Japan, Korea and of course Singapore. “We try to keep a balance,” she adds.
While Nanyang graduates have long used the MBA as a stepping stone to Singapore’s strong job market, they’re increasingly demanding to be placed globally.
One of Chung’s key challenges right now is to build links with corporate recruiters internationally. “They want to go where the opportunities are, and that could be back in their own country.”
She’s helped by the fact that the Asian headquarters of many multinational companies are in Singapore, providing opportunities for students to be hired into other country offices.
What sets Nanyang apart from other business schools in Singapore? “That’s a tough one,” says Chung, “because content-wise you probably learn almost the same thing at any good global MBA programme.”
One differentiator, she says, is that the school is “more responsive to students as customers.” The program is very flexible: they are able to choose their elective subjects, and tailor their learning objectives to a large degree. The Nanyang MBA also accommodates students’ requests to switch from full-time to part-time if need be.
More importantly, because the full-time program is relatively small, and students get to know each other. “We could double the size of the class but that would sacrifice the group,” she says. “We ensure that our students really enjoy interacting and learning from one another.”
The smaller class size also means that students get more individual attention from faculty and career services. “Our students like that special treatment- we’re not churning out a load of homogeneous product,” says Chung. “They feel that they’re really being cared for until the end of their studies, and beyond.”
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