An Advanced Education to Match an Advancing Career: Meet iMBA Student Jason B.

When Jason B. landed a promotion to a director role, he started thinking more seriously about earning a graduate degree to match his career growth. But with new responsibilities at work and a family of five at home, a traditional program that required him to be in-person and on-campus didn’t make sense. 

“I was working full-time and needed an affordable and flexible system that could fill out my experience and prepare me for higher roles in my future career,” he explained. 

Knowing how much an institution’s reputation matters when it comes to a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree specifically, Jason started searching for high-quality online programs. He discovered the University of Illinois’ iMBA, available through Coursera. 

The program met his requirements for reputation, quality, and structure, but it turned out to suit his learning style as well. “I often tell people now that I don't think I could go back to the ‘old way’ of learning, one without video on demand,” he said. 

Throughout the program, he’s also had the opportunity to learn more about artificial intelligence (AI) and its impact on business operations. “The iMBA has given me the skills, knowledge, and ambition to take on advanced business challenges,” he said. 

Learn more about why Jason chose to enroll in the iMBA with the University of Illinois, what he’s enjoyed about the program, and what he’d say to anyone else considering the degree. 

Why did you want to pursue an MBA? 

After getting a promotion to a director position, I wanted to advance my education in business to help in my current role and to prepare me for future higher-level positions as well. 

Why did you choose to earn your MBA from the University of Illinois?

The iMBA program was the perfect fit for several reasons: First, I wanted to work with an accredited and high-quality institution where I knew that the curriculum and faculty would be high-quality and recognized. 

Second, I needed a flexible system because I was working full-time with a family of five. Third, if possible, I did not want to take on a large amount of debt to fund the degree. After reviewing several options for MBA programs, it became apparent that the iMBA was the best choice to accomplish my goals.

How did you balance learning with your other responsibilities? 

My best tactic to achieve the 4.0 I earned for the total program was to work ahead, aiming to have the Coursera portion completed before the live class officially started. In this way, I had a solid foundation that I could take to those sessions to expand my learning and live interactions. It increased the amount of information I could learn, understand, and retain significantly because I didn't have to juggle all the content at once. 

Has the iMBA had any impact on your life thus far? 

It's helped me in many ways, but most significantly, it's prepared me to take on new challenges, such as AI and how it's used in business operations. Because the school was very proactive in putting policies in place and revising assignments to include popular AI platforms for strategic assignment sections, such as for research and background information, it forced us to not only become familiar with the technology, but use it in a way that is ethically sound as well. 

This translates to my work today in business operations because I not only think about the technology, but how to use it in a way that fits proper business processes that must be audited and secure. I've taken this experience and the rest of the lessons learned and have not only excelled in senior management positions, but have also recently started a consulting firm where I help businesses implement technology into their processes.

Do you have any advice for anyone else considering the iMBA program? 

Completing courses early is important, but I’d also recommend: The ability to make notes and store them efficiently electronically was absolutely critical. I occasionally go back and review these notes even now. 

Also, being able to rewind and re-watch video was absolutely critical to my success. As all people do, when we hit interesting topics, my mind would sometimes wander to think about side topics or tangents to what was just said. This is very useful, but can be distracting and would cause me to miss what was said next. 

With this system, I can easily go back and review what was said while also enabling me to pause and fully explore my other thoughts first before moving on. I don't think I would want to learn any other way now.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.