Troops abroad pursue MBA education at Auburn University
The stereotypical business school classroom is filled with marquees flashing stock market updates and ticker symbols, copies of the latest Wall Street Journal, financial calculators and cups of stale coffee. The stereotypical business student is an eager twenty something ready to seize the day and become the next Wall Street darling. A group of M.B.A. students studying at Auburn University, however, are anything but stereotypical. Cushy graduate school classrooms have been replaced with sandy desert battlefields and Wall Street ambitions have been supplanted with a commitment of service to country.
29 active duty military men and women are currently working, in tandem with their obligations to the armed services, towards a Master of Business Administration degree using Auburn University’s distance learning technology. These students, officers in the United States Air Force, Army, Marines and Navy, are able to view and participate in graduate business classes that are taking place right now on Auburn University’s campus by logging in to a streaming video service provided by the College of Business and making use of cutting edge digital classroom management software to interact with professors and peers. These technical abilities have made a traditional MBA education available to those with preexisting patriotic commitments in a format that compliments their military obligations.
The active duty students are serving both at bases domestically within the United States and internationally at foreign posts as far as Africa and Afghanistan. Captain Niklaus Pleisch is a Finance Officer for the United States Air Force who is stationed at Vandenberg AFB in California and currently is deployed in Afghanistan. He has chosen to pursue an M.B.A. to help with promotion within the Air Force and to provide a competitive skill set for a later career in the civilian sector as a financial planner and investment portfolio consultant. Captain Pleisch chose to study at Auburn because he found it to “have the best combination of curriculum, tuition expenses, and reputation as being military-friendly”
Captain Pleisch is not alone in his engagement in a distance education program as he studies abroad and seems to be quite enthusiastic about the opportunity to study with Auburn University stating that “the material and delivery has exceeded my expectations for a distance program. I’ve heard many people (fellow soldiers) tell me their programs do not offer streaming video options, so it’s difficult for them to get the same material that the on-campus students get. I am very happy with my experience so far and the classes have been enjoyable, more than just tedious studying.”
The MBA Program, while preparing Captain Pleisch for his future both in the military and upon retirement from active duty, has shown immediate rewards. Skills learned by completing an Operations Management term project helped Captain Pleisch to streamline processes in his office and contributed to his flight wining the Financial Services Office of the Year Award from the Air Force Space Command. Captain Pleisch has also attributed several Company Grade Officer Awards to knowledge he gained from the Auburn MBA Program.
Major Steve Kvaal serves in the United States Army as a Battalion Executive Officer and Acting Commander of a Tactical Company in an Amy Psychological Operations Battalion (PSYOP) and is stationed in Arden Hills, Minnesota. Major Kvaal is quite energized about how the Auburn Executive MBA curriculum has supplemented his Army training and helped him to become a more self aware leader which, he says, has helped him to become a better, more well rounded Army officer – both in terms of leading and following within the organization.
Interestingly, the skills gained in Auburn MBA marketing courses have helped Major Kvaal in his Psychological Operations work for the Army. Specifically, he has been able to perform better target audience analysis as he prepares for deployment into hostile environments such as Iraq, Afghanistan and the Balkans. Major Kvaal has found the means of calculating measures of effectiveness for his PSYOP Campaigns learned at Auburn to be critical to carrying out his duties in the most valuable means possible and has been able to directly apply multi-media marketing practices obtained at Auburn in the field.
As is the case for many service men and women who chose to participate in the Auburn MBA Outreach and Executive Programs, Major Steve Kvaal did so to gain skills both for immediate use in the Army and to prepare him for civilian sector work upon military retirement. Major Kvaal chose Auburn University over other options because of its strong reputation and accessibility in concert with his obligations as a soldier. Major Kvaal also found the Auburn Executive MBA program to be the best bang for his buck and gave significant credibility to the ease of his search – Auburn was recommended to him by an Undersecretary of Defense whom he has worked with at the Pentagon.