Sacramento State, part of the California State University system, last week announced an international MBA degree program for students in Singapore, nicknamed the IMBA.
“It is a cultural tradition to value education in Singapore, and they value a U.S. degree a lot,” said Monica Lam, associate dean for graduate and external programs at the College of Business Administration at Sacramento State. “There already are U.S. MBA programs in Singapore, but ours is very unique – from a public university in California.
“California itself is a brand name. We don’t need to tell people where it is or why it is attractive.”
Offering concentrations in finance, IT management and international management the IMBA offers international students a unique scheduling concept.
There are seven required classes: managerial accounting, global corporate finance, marketing management, statistical decision-making, information technology management, human resources management for international business, and business law. For these classes, students spend 10 days in online learning sessions. In partnership with Aventis School of Management, Sacramento State faculty will fly to the Aventis campus Singapore for four days of face-to-face instruction with students. Students then return for 10 more days in the virtual classroom. The MBA degree program takes one year to complete, with students essentially spending one month per class. Elective classes are done solely online.
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Lam has also received interested from the local community with ties to business in Singapore. She says she’s been approached by businesses asking to have their international employees take part in the IMBA while they are on assignment.
“This program has given us more opportunities than we had thought about,” said Lam. “It’s a great opportunity to help our stakeholders, internationally and locally.”
The program is structured so that students do not have all online or required in one month and it is targeted toward working adults. The new IMBA program took cues from the sandwich scheduling pattern of the school’s executive MBA program, a semi-hybrid program that’s 25% online. Students take one class over four weeks – the first two weeks are in the classroom, the third is online and the final week students are back in the classroom. The first cohort of the IMBA begins Nov. 19.
–Alanna Stage, @AlannaTweets
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