Hello

I know a lot has been written about the 2 schools I have to choose from. Believe me I have red all posts as I find this forum very useful. Most important aspect for me is my personal development, that is focusing on soft skills. I have 3 offers.
Bath, Durham and Aston. I have rejected Aston and am focusing on the other two.

I am an HR professional with 4 years of professional experience and looking for a career in the UK.

JK, Ezra, Ralph (Mamit I have your opinion) can you let me know what you think. I have a good scholarship from Durham which makes it very attractive.

Thanks

If your focus is soft skills, why did you drop Aston for a more academic programme like Durham? Perhaps you are swayed by the financial aid more than you care to admit?

Hello

Thank you for your reply JK. Well the issue is that both programmes cost around 25k and my scholarship does not make such a big difference, so to answer your question no financial aid is not so important for me.

If you take a look at both programmes you will see that Aston runs a module (they call it Mindful Global Manager) for personal development and Durham runs a set of activities (they talk about a Leading Edge programme) for soft skills development. Aston's module seems theoretic to me, Durham has more project work included in that framework. Again this is not something I just assume, it is what they publish on their website.

If you want another reason for dropping Aston - which I really believe is a good programme - they do not have a single module on Change Management. Now if you do the work I am doing it is important to have basic knowlegde of these kind of issues.

If we take under consideration rankings, Durham has a better performance over the last 4 years (Economist, FT Rankings).

Any comments on Bath? According to the rankings they have the best outcomes from all three.

Good choice not doing Aston.

Durham more academic? All Aston modules 75-100+ PowerPoint slides each lecture. Teacher talk whole time not even half class show up.

Mindful Global Manager is all lecture with bad teacher. Under 10 people show up for lectures. Everyone pass and learn nothing.

ilikeblue clearly has an axe to grind. Maybe Aston has declined so sharply though: speak to current students.

Yes, Bath has been performing well. Durham clearly has the appetite to develop, but I would put Bath higher.

Thank you JK for your post. Would you mind telling me what you mean by saying that "Durham clearly has the apetite to develop"?

I think that Bath is a safer choice right now but Durham maybe a better bet in the long term. Also they give me the feeling that their MBA cohorts are a team as they do not recruit more that 45 students each year.

Guys any other comments on both of them? I have to make my decision as soon as possible.

Durham is expanding its business school, physically. It clearly intends to enlarge its scale.

I think that neither Bath nor Durham are very strong long-term bets. Neither of them has a secure place in the rankings and they will continue to struggle for high quality candidates as long as employment options are limited for non-EU students, and particularly for Indians. At the undergraduate level, they are strong performers. Academically they will be strong. However, Bath clearly has the edge in understanding how to develop soft skills and working with diversity.

Team skills are nothing to do with cohort size. Kellogg and LBS are huge schools with great team culture: that is built by having group activities dominating the assessment. The Durham MBA rests on individual examinations and the major project is also an individual task.

Duncan's right - frankly, these lower-tier programs in the UK are not the most realistic routes to a job in the country for international students.

That said, Bath is the only one currently ranked in the FT Global 100 - for whatever that means, as these programs tend to hop in and out depending on the year.

Either way, I'd advise to do a consulting project with a local firm that you'd want to work for in the long-run - this tends to be a reasonably reliable way to get a job after graduation (although by no means is it a guarantee.)

Thank you for your posts. It really isnt easy as you say Ezra the schools are not consistent in their rankings, but thats only true for the FT rankings. In the Which MBA ranking Durham and Bath have a long presence (with their ups and downs). I mean its something we need to take under consideration as these two dominate the system.

I am just wondering how bad a programme can be (I am talking about Durham MBA) which has been in the FT rankings 5 out of the last 7 years. In 2011 it was ranked 55th inthe world. This year its out. But thats the case for all 2 tier programmes in the UK (Bradford, Birmingham, Aston, Edinburgh, Leeds, Nottingham).

How better do you guys think is Smurfit and Lancaster. Both are consistently ranked but with ups and downs as well.

I think you're confusing two things: whether these MBAs are good or bad in general, versus whether or not they are effective routes into management consultancy firms. Durham and Bath are very different from each other, but both business schools have an MBA that easily meets the standards for accreditation. But the number of roles in management consultancy firms is really limited in the UK, and they fill up their firms from a small number of firms. Bath is okay as a route into IBM, Lloyds, BAE, BP - but not into consulting. Durham has good relationships with Deloitte and HSBC - but not into consulting.

If you want to get into strategic management consulting in the UK, then the best route is LBS, Insead or Harvard. The risky road is Oxbridge or an MSc at the LSE. Bath and Durham are nowhere on that map. That does not mean that they are not good MBAs, but they are not good enough for those firms.

Thank you for your reply.

JK, noone said anything about moving into management consulting,I am happy with what I am doing now, the MBA is to accelerate my career within that framework, get a higher salary. I am not interested in doing consultancy.

So there is no need to find a programme that serves the purpose you mentioned.

I believe you are right that none of them is good for a consultancy role. Bath is a great porgramme for Leadership and Marketing (they do have some of the best faculty in these areas), Durham is a general programme that was at least good for HR and finance (you can have a look at the EIU of 2009).

Guys any other thoughts......

If you don't want to do management consultancy on HR issues, then why take an MBA? Why not take a CIPD-accredited programmes? Surely that's what managers look for when hiring HR people in the UK?

Hello

Thanks JK I know the crucial role of CIPD in the Uk but I have a masters degree in Human Resources that's why I am not interested in a second one.

Can you let me know your opinion on Smurfit?

Are you a CIPD member? I'm finding hard to see specifically what sort of role you are aiming for, which firms you'd like to aim for or how an MBA will help you. If you could work out the likely roles and employers then you could see what the options are. Right now, I think there are no HR consultancies in the UK which are large-scale recruiters of MBAs; they will have a few employees who have done part-time MBAs at the OU, Henley, Warwick, Cranfield, LBS. They will be *much* more likely to have MSc degrees in HR or organisational psychology, often accredited by the BPS or CIPD.

Smurfit is a good school but, of course, it's in another country. I don't think it will be well known by UK employers.

If you already have a master's degree and aren't looking to transition out of human resources, why not use executive education to surgically skill-up? I know that LBS offers a few human resources-oriented programs, like this one:

http://www.nextexecutive.com/courses/10614

Thank you for your posts guys. Mba hipster your suggestion is a good one however programmes like this cost a lot of money and do tend to have a short duration. Skills development should be ongoing. Now lets say I wanted to take part in 3 of 4 of these sessions I would have to pay a lot of money. Probaby these programmes can help many executives sharpen their skills but do not provide a qualification of the value of an MBA.

JK, I am not CIPD accredited unfortunately never opted for one as I thought that I would spend my entire professional life within my country. Funny how things change.

My plan is to get a position with a better salary. I work in the FMCG sector so would like to find a job in this area. If I do not find anything after my MBA the plan is to go to Germany. I was born and raised there so it feels like home.

Mba hipster which of the 2 would you choose? Bath or Durham?

I think there's a chance than an MBA will not help you find the sort of role you are looking for. I suggest you speak with a careers guidance counsellor.