Latest / Teach Me Something Hosted By DJ Prostyle & Penny Dellas / The MBA Mindset: Leadership, Business & What's Next

Transcript

The MBA Mindset: Leadership, Business & What's Next · Teach Me Something Hosted By DJ Prostyle & Penny Dellas

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey, what's up? This is DJ Pro Style.
• 0:02
  Speaker 2: And this is Penny Delos.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: And this is Teach Me Something.
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: Brought to you by Berklee College.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: And just like that, we are back, ladies and gentlemen,
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: boys and girls. I am DJ Pro Style.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: And I am Penny Delos.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: And this is the Teach Me Something podcast presented by
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Berklee College. Penny, how are you feeling today? Yes, it is.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: I'm feeling phenomenally well. I'm doing great. And, you know,
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: I'm feeling especially... because of who's sitting across from us.
• 0:29
  Speaker 3: I know.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: I got to hear a little bit of how or
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: why I would say you're inspired. But I said, just
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: stop talking. Let's record and film all this so we
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: can continue with the conversation.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: Inspired, but also a little judged.
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: You're judged?
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: Because I may or may not be. But sitting across
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: from us is a very special person to me anyway, Dr.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: David Glaser, which was my academic chair at Berkeley College.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: not only for my two undergrad degrees, but also my
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: grad degree.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: We kind of moved up together.
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: I cannot take much credit, nor any blame.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: Emphasis on the nor any blame.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: I love the nor any blame part. Well, welcome. Welcome
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: to the podcast.
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: Thank you.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: Hopefully everyone has treated you well up to this point.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: Sorry we're starting late, but you know. Traffic.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: Pro and I were speeding up. Don't try this at home, kids.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: We tried to get here on time, but traffic is crazy.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: I was here on time.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: It's Broadway week.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: It is Broadway week. Is that what it is in
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: New York?
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: It is always some week.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: It's always one week. It's always some week of something.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: You know, and this is veering off. So I just
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: saw a post, which they should do more of these.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: Maybe Liam had something to do with this post. But
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: it was on all the social media platforms for our
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: stations here at iHeart. And they posted what days for
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: the remainder of the year are considered extremely high gridlock days.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: And it almost looked like a joke at first. Because
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: I was like, what? Let's just put the whole month.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: Because it was like.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: It's almost every day.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: It was literally. It was like November 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: Like every day.
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: September.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: I'm like, well, it's the rest of the month. It's
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: basically the rest of the year is gridlock. And you
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: know how the holidays get over here. So. Once the
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: tree goes up, forget about it.
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: It is an everyday type of thing. It is.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: You know, for those that are local and commute via train,
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: it doesn't affect them. We drive into the city every time.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: Getting to the tunnel or the bridge.
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: You don't think it affects? I come in from Jersey.
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: You take transit? I take New Jersey transit, but Amtrak
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: owns the tracks. So any time that Amtrak has a
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: train coming through, we have to stop and wait for
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: Amtrak to go through before we can proceed. So inevitably,
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: we're 10 to 15 to 20 minutes late coming into
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: the station.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: Every time, right?
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: It doesn't matter. Just leave your house two hours earlier.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: I thought about taking transit from Jersey one time.
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: I've done it.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: There's no where I live. There's no train there. I
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: would have to drive somewhere. And then the commute, when
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: you put it in, it takes like an hour and
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: 20 minutes on the train. It takes me longer to
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: use public transportation. So for that, I'm like, I'll just
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: sit in the car. At least I can listen to
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: the radio and whatever.
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: Listen to your script or not.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. I could read my Teach Me Something scripts
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: that Penny sends.
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: Books on tape.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: Books on tape.
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: All right. Well, let's get to the business.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: Bringing decades of corporate, entrepreneurial, and academic experience to the
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: classroom before entering higher education, your career included leadership roles
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: across financial services, investment advising, marketing, sales development, and insurance.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: How do you go from that To higher education.
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: You're making me sound better than I really am. But
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: what actually happened was I was a marketing executive for
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: a financial services company. And we all know what happened
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: in September of 2008. It was a meltdown of the
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: financial sector. And so a lot of jobs disappeared. Fortunately,
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: I had a Ph.D. And I was able to make
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: the transition from being a marketing executive to being a
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: college professor. Berkeley College got in touch with me, said,
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: how would you like to teach for us? And I said,
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: that sounds good. And they said, well, now I'm not
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: sure you would like this idea because the job is
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: not out in the suburbs where you are. I was
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: living in Northern Virginia outside D.C. This is not out
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: in the suburbs. This is going to be in Manhattan.
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: How do you feel about teaching in Manhattan? I said, well,
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: seeing as how I grew up in New York City,
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: I think I can handle it. So that was the
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: end of it. We did the deal, and that was
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: almost 17 years ago now. So I've been there ever since.
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: That's amazing.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: I feel like teaching in Manhattan has to have a
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: little like an awe to it. You know, like going
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: to school and being in the city. There's nothing like it.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: I mean, I listen. Aside from the traffic, right, which
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: is we could all joke around and we all deal
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: with it. Once you get past the hurdle of dealing
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: with the little chaos of Manhattan, there's nowhere. I mean,
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: where else would you rather be?
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: I had always said live in Manhattan at some point
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: in your life, but leave before you get too too hard.
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: And I decided I want to live in Manhattan. So
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: when I first came to New York, I lived five
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: or six blocks away from campus. And I had no
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: commute then, which meant that they could plug me into
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: almost anything at any time, and I would have no
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: problem covering the class. And they said, well, look, you
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: have four graduate degrees in four different disciplines, law, human resources, finance,
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: and marketing. So we're going to plug you into all
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: over the place. But eventually I gravitated towards marketing and about,
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: when was it, been 12 years I was chair of
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: the marketing department, which is how I came in contact
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: with Penny and then later on took over the MBA
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: program about six years ago.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: And let me tell you, the program is not an
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: easy breezy program. It's a rigorous program.
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: It's not supposed to be easy.
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: From undergrad through graduate studies, it's a very tough program.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: The transferable skills that you get there, yeah.
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: MBA is not for everybody. That's one of the things
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: we ought to talk about today because I'm not going
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: to try to talk somebody into going for an MBA
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: degree that really there's no fit there. It's not for everybody.
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: It is a commitment. But if you are committed to it,
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: the payoff is very good.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: An MBA now, for the people who are not aware
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: or understanding what it is, explain what it is that
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: when you go for an MBA.
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: Our degree is a master's in business administration in management.
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: So we focus on managing, being a leader, being executive
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: of businesses, whatever line of industry that happens to be in.
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: So we teach all the major disciplines within that program,
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: whether it be finance or management, or marketing, supply chain,
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: human resources, whatever it is, you get exposed to all
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: of those as part of the core program. Then you
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: have an opportunity to specialize in something, which allows you
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: to gain an extra credential. You can do a concentration,
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: a particular discipline. And so now your MBA in management
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: comes with a concentration in whatever. We have seven different specialties.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: Whatever field you want to be in.
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: That's right. That's right.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: That's incredible. I always say this, right? I really want
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: to get into taking my steps.
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: I keep telling you.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: To come in.
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: Dr.
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: Burrell, I'll offer for you to audit a class.
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: I will.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: I'm going to figure it out. You have to come audit.
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: Professor Perot needs to come to Berkeley. You know, a
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: lot of sweat and tears, but it was so worth it.
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: And I did it. So I did my undergrad accelerated.
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: So we have three semesters a collegiate year, which is
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: not the standard, right? So I was able to accelerate
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: my path. So I did my associates in marketing communications.
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: I did that in 18 months. And then in 18
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: months after that, I did my bachelor of business administration,
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: which is a concentrated bachelor's degree. So it's a level
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: up because you have more business courses than a standard
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: bachelor of science. And then my master's, you could do
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: a full time in a year, but I chose to
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: do it part time because I was working. in marketing
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: at the same time at Berkeley.
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: Good approach. I do not recommend that somebody who's working
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: full-time take a full-time MBA. No, if you're going to
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: work full-time, go part-time. Take the extra time because it's
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: a lot of work. I teach, one of the courses
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: I myself teach is what I call the boot camp course.
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: We call it Essentials of Management. It's the very first
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: course everybody has to take, and it exposes you to
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: all the disciplines you'll be exposed to in the program.
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: And if you can get through my course... You're probably
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: on your way to succeeding, but that's where the rubber
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: meets the road. Can you get through my course successfully?
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: That's a tough class. That's great, though, because I'm sure
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: some amazing people have made it through your courses and
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: gone on to take over and to run some companies.
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: Well, you've got an example right next to you.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: My emails. Where do you think I get it from?
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: The long 32-chain emails. It's a legal binding document if
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: it's on email. Put it in writing.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: That's why I text everything.
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I have to text you everything after I
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: email it. But no, you know what I loved? And
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: I was in your office all the time. You must
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: have been so annoyed with me from undergrad all the
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: way through graduate studies. But the cool thing about the
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: professors and the academic side at Berkeley is that they're accessible.
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: There's an open door policy. You can contact through email
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: or you can just knock on the door. And thank
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: you for always opening the door because I was always
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: coming in ruffling feathers and Saying we could do this,
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: we could do that, and you always took and strained
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: what I brought.
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: That was part of your success because not many of
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: my students knock on that door very often. But we
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: developed a relationship because you did keep coming in and
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: suggesting things and asking questions. And that helped us, quite frankly,
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: perfect the curriculum because we were hearing from one of
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: our best students. And that's an important thing for me
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: to learn as well as for you to learn.
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: You're welcome for future grads for improving your curriculum.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: Look at you, Penny, with the questions. Penny was that
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: girl in class that would always raise her hand if
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: you have a question. I did.
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: And then when I wanted to be off the radar,
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: I was the one that was being called on because
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: no one else would raise their hands. So I'm like, no,
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: I just want to.
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: That's amazing. She tried to hide in the classroom. She did?
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: I did. I tried.
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: I tried staying on the island in the corner.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: Penny trying to hide. Yeah, you know. So obviously you've
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: earned a PhD, an MBA, JD, and Master's in Financial Services.
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: And today, as you said, you lead Berkeley College's MBA program.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: What did education teach you that experience alone couldn't?
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: I think the most important thing is discipline and a
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: way to think. What we specialize in in our MBA
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: program is to teach you how to think. We're not
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: going to teach you a technical skill like how to
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: program a computer or how to fashion a prompt in AI.
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: What we're going to teach you is how to manage
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: a business and how to think like a business executive.
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: And to do that, you have to have a certain
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: amount of discipline, the ability to concentrate and focus on
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: on the task at hand and to see things in series,
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: how they progress from one step to the next. Um,
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: and that's all about how to think it's, it's not
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: really about technical skills. It's about a, a state of
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: mind that you, you develop over time. And that's what
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: I learned there. But you know, they, they did that
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: to me in law school as well. You know, um,
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: it's kind of, I think I had a leg up
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: by the time I got to MBA. I did the
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: law school first and that, teaches you a discipline of
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: how to think, and analytically. And then I took that
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: with me to the MBA program.
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: So why an MBA?
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: Why an MBA?
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: In today's landscape, given the world of technology, why an MBA?
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: Well, we started at the top by my saying that
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: an MBA is not for everybody. If you're happy with
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: where you are in your work life, you're not looking
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: to move up, you're not looking to change careers, then
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: this is a big commitment to take on, and it
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: may not be for you. But if you're looking to advance,
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: if you're looking to get into management, you have to
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: understand that today everybody has a bachelor's degree. Okay, so
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: when you're competing for a management position, you need something
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: more to put on that resume, and that's what the
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: MBA gets you. I was looking at some of the
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: numbers recently, and the prediction is that the average MBA
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: is going to earn $ 2. 3 million more over their work
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: life than somebody with a bachelor's degree doing the same job,
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: which is starting salary. The report, the starting salary for
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: an MBA is around $ 120, 000. For a bachelor's degree, $ 70, 000.
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: In other words, that $ 50, 000 difference on average is about
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: a little bit more than what it should cost to
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: get an MBA degree. You make back your investment in
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: the first year with increased earnings. And, of course, you
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: have to understand that you're going to accept leadership responsibility.
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: Leadership is not for everybody. We need followers in this world.
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: We need mostly followers. Yeah, bro.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: Nah, I've definitely never been a follower in my life.
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: But if you want to be in leadership— Somebody.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: Has to be the chief, and then you have to
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: have just the Indians.
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: Right. If you want to be in leadership— This is
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: the path you ought to consider.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: That's amazing.
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: I considered it. I did it.
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: That's great.
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: Here we are.
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: And now she's bossing everybody around, including me.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: And now she doesn't stop. Now she won't stop.
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: That's great, by the way. We're definitely using that soundbite
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: for social media.
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: The student becomes the teacher.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: But you're absolutely right. And I talk about this. I
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: know people who are very happy with their job and
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: where they're at. And throughout the years... We've had conversations.
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: I've had conversations with certain people, right, of why they
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: haven't elevated or gone to another step or tried to
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: get to another level. And they're just content. And as
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: you said, you know, an MBA might not be for
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: everybody because some people are content and happy with where
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: they're at. And then you have those others who there's
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: absolutely nothing wrong with that. So I'm saying they're happy
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: and they're content with that. And then there's others who
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: want to strive for more. And those are the people
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: that will go for the great for greatness. Right.
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: Greatness.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: How long does it take to get an MBA?
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: Depends upon how you want to do it.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: Like the average.
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: On a part-time basis, it's going to take you two years.
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: If you do it accelerated as a full-time, you can
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: actually finish an MBA in one year.
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: I did part-time.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: Oh, you did part-time.
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: I did two courses a semester. So the courses are condensed, guys.
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: So a typical course is 15 weeks. And in the
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: master's program at Berkeley College, it's seven and a half weeks.
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: So you get two courses a semester if you do
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: it part time, which for my sanity, it was the
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: best decision that I made. And you know what? There's
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: going to be tears and you're going to have moments
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: that you just and this is for anything in life, right?
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: When you're going for education or for a promotion or
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: a new position, you have that. There's a book called
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: The First 90 Days that someone gifted me. when I
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: started my master's program. And every time I start a
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: new position or new project, I reread that book. It's
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: really good. Um, but there's that grace period, right? Kind
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: of like your onboarding or your, um, psychology of adjustment period,
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: which I teach, but you need that period in order to, uh,
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: like get into it.
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: Just like when we did this podcast, like it was like,
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: how do you do a podcast? How do we start this?
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: And you get that, but you get into your groove
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: and you're going to cry sometimes like Liam does when
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: he's editing our episodes, but you get through it and
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: you get to the other side.
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah. We, we, we divide a semester into an a
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: session and a B session. Yeah. So you're taking one
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: in the a session and one in the B you
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: move from one to the other. And that allows a
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: student to finish the degree quicker and even though they're
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: taking it on a part-time basis.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: Do you have, and I'm trying to ask questions just
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: from somebody from the outside, right, which I am.
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: Do you get a bachelor's degree first to then go
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: for an MBA?
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: Yes, that would be the right.
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: It's not somebody that you could just say, I want
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: to go straight to an MBA.
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: No, you would want a bachelor's degree first. Yeah. And
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: we have standards of, you know, we look for people
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: with good grade point averages coming out of bachelor's programs.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: To even accept them into the MBA program. Okay.
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: Do you have to have a bachelor's in business in
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: order to get an MBA?
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: Good question. The answer generally is no, but.
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: No, because if we see somebody, say, who has a BFA,
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: you know, a bachelor's of fine arts, that's not a
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: business program. But they have a very good grade point average,
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: 3.5 or something like that. Say, you really want to
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: be in this? Okay. Okay. Fine, we'll bring you in.
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: We'll give you a shot at it. Understand when you
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: come into my class, the very first class, you may
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: not be used to the terminology we're using. So one
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: of the things you'll have to do is to get
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: up to speed quickly because what I'm not going to
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: do is give you a remedial course in business terminology.
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: You're going to have to figure that out because the
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: rest of the class has already been through a business program.
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: Can't hold them back. Right, can't hold them back. So
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: they will have a little bit more understanding work at
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: the beginning to get up to speed. But yes, we're
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: willing to take somebody who does not have a business degree.
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: Why Berkeley, right? What makes the Berkeley College MBA different?
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: And what do you want students to walk away with
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: that goes beyond the degree itself?
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: Well, first of all, you have to understand that an
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: MBA program at Berkeley College is different than what you're
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: going to get at most traditional universities. A traditional university MBA,
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: you walk into your first course, Essentials of Management, some
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: sort of survey course. And you'll walk into an auditorium
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: that might have 100, 200, 300 students in it. You
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: walk into my class, the maximum is 30. So we
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: have a very low teacher-to-student ratio. All of our classes
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: are small. Our faculty actually teach the courses. At a
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: traditional university, you'll usually have a graduate assistant, a TA
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: of some kind, that's doing most of the work. The
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: professor may come in and lecture, but your papers are
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: being graded by a TA. Your coaching, your office hours
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: are generally going to be with a TA. There are
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: no TAs, no graduate assistants at Berkeley College. You work
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: directly with the faculty member. The faculty member is hired
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: based upon their ability to teach, not their ability to research.
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: At a traditional university, it's all about What are your publications?
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: What is your research project? What grants do you have?
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: That's what they're interested in. I interviewed at several traditional
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: universities before I came to Berkeley. And it was always,
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: when I was interviewed, the committee would always ask me
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: first about my research. And maybe at the end, they'd
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: ask me a little bit about my teaching experience. At Berkeley,
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: it's all about the educational experience. which, by the way,
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: is what the students expect. The students don't care how
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: many publications you have. The student cares, how are you
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: going to motivate me to learn the stuff you need
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: me to learn for me to succeed in this course?
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: Speaking about the students and our listeners, for those who
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: don't know what a publication is, is or the research is,
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: can you elaborate a little bit?
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: Well, any academic journal, any what we call peer-reviewed, whether
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: it be journalistic or academic. So these could be anything
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: in our line, in the marketing line, it would be
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: the Journal of Marketing, the Journal of Services Marketing, something
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: like that. I've been published in Financial Services Review, these
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: kinds of publications. These are the kinds of publications that
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: the student will cite as sources to support what they're
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: writing about in their papers, in their discussion board posts,
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: those kinds of things. That's what we look for. And
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: that's great. And if somebody shows some scholarship as a
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: member of our faculty, we applaud them. I've been published
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: as well as most of the rest of the faculty,
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: but that's not why I was hired. When I was
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: hired at Berkeley, I got to the last interview, and
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: the hiring committee said, okay, we're going to walk you
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: down here to this classroom, and you're going to teach
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: for 20 minutes. On the spot? That's amazing.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: It was a marketing class. It said, this is principles
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: of marketing.
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: I want you to take 20 minutes. The class actually
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: knows you're coming in there. You're going to pick your
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: topic and you're going to talk for 20 minutes on
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: a topic having to do with marketing. Go. You know, okay.
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: And then you sort of gin it up and it's like,
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: you know.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: Next thing you know, you're 45 minutes in.
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: I don't know. Do you want my dance steps or what?
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: You know, it's kind of five, six, seven, eight. And
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: then you start talking about some principle of marketing. for
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: 20 minutes and they sat in the back of the
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: room and I could see at the end, thank goodness,
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: two of them going, okay, you're our guy. That's the,
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: that's the kind of person we want. The other universities
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: that I interviewed at, they weren't all that interested in that,
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: but Berkeley was, it's all about the educational experience. That's awesome.
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: That's great.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: And that's like, it reminds me of private schools. It's
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: like when you're looking at schools for your kids, you know,
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: That's the difference of public school versus private school, how
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: many kids are in the classroom. So you want your
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: child to get that one-on-one attention or that attention from
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: the teacher versus sitting in a room with a bunch
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: of kids. Sure.
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: And, you know, because we're a relatively small program, we
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: have a little over 200 students in the MBA program,
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: we can be high touch. We can spend extra time
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: with the students. You know, a lot of people say, well,
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: the graduate students, you know, they must know everything about
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: how to be a student. Still, it's different. This is
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: not like your bachelor's program. This is not 13th grade.
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: This is the real thing now. You're in the show.
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: You're in the big time. And so if you're getting
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: stuck on things, you've got to know how to reach out.
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: And because we're a relatively small program, we can be
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: high touch. But you know what? That's what Berkeley College
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: was all about from the beginning. We give people an
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: opportunity to get an education they otherwise would have a
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: hard time accessing. Well, the same thing goes in graduate school.
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: We give you a shot at getting an education, getting
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: a graduate degree that might be difficult for you to
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: get someplace else.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: That's so awesome.
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: Okay, Penny.
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: Okay, pro. Three degrees in five years. Tears, but it
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: was so well worth it.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: Because it goes. And, you know, we're going to get
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: into some fun stuff, but I did want to touch
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: on the– Subject of artificial intelligence because this is the
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: topic of conversation across the board in every single outlet,
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: every forum, every Reddit line. It's just everywhere.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: Every episode. Yeah. Because it's affecting and not it affects everything, right?
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: It does. And it's vast and it encompasses many things, right?
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: And most recently, Berkeley College launched an AI– and business
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: concentration for the MBA program. What does that signify within
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: this current landscape?
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we just launched what's called an AI and business
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: data analytics concentration, one of our seven concentrations. This is
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: the newest one. And the courses in it will premiere
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: beginning in the winter, two in the winter term and
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: two in the spring term. It's a package of four courses.
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: It has specifics on managing AI, managing business data analytics,
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: managing machine learning. These are the basic concepts. But notice
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: heavy reliance on managing. We're not going to teach a
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: student how to draft a prompt to put into, you know,
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: Claude or something like that to get some kind of answer.
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: That's not what this is about. This is about taking
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: an AI app and managing it for the good of
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: the business. remember that we want to teach students how
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: to think. So we can't lose the need for them
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: to do critical thinking. And if a student is simply
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: going to put a prompt in and have an AI
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: app write their entire paper for them, that's not critical thinking.
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: We want to see original thinking. And lo and behold,
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: there are ways to figure out whether a student is
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: really authoring original material where they might have gotten a
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: little bit of direction here or there from AI as
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: opposed to just having the whole thing written for themselves.
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: A lot of people make the mistake of thinking that businesses, well,
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: businesses are doing it. Businesses are having their memos and
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: their presentations, their PowerPoints all composed by AI. You don't
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: have to do anything. Whoa, hold on a second. You
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: show me one of those AI presentations, and I'll be
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: able to tell you whether it was original or it
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: was AI. AI makes mistakes, too, and you have to
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: know where the line is to be drawn. And so
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: what we do is we have an academic integrity policy
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: that mirrors the need for students to be able to
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: come out of the program being able to do critical
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: thinking on their own and using AI as a tool,
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: not as a crutch. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah.
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: It does feel like I'm in the classroom.
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: Well, his voice must be.
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: I know.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: You could probably close your eyes and.
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: Feel like you're right back in there. I know, 100%.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: 100%.
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: Well, that's interesting. I can say right now we're in recruitment, right,
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: for my department, and I'm filling in a few positions.
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: And the amount of resumes that I get, you can
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: tell what's AI and what's not.
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: And then you start questioning things.
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: It's subtle, but if you really know your stuff, you
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: can tell the difference.
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, 100%, especially when they leave the prompt in the resume.
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah.
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: I know you've said that before.
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: I know.
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: They do. They leave the prompts, which is hysterical. But
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: let's get into some fun things.
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: So you have been an on-air radio personality, a voiceover artist,
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: a guitarist, a vocalist, and a bandleader, which we definitely
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: weren't expecting from the director of an MBA program. First
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: of all, I don't even know where to start.
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: Wait, a band leader?
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: Leadership includes being a band leader, particularly when you consider
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: that when you're a band leader, unless you have a
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: lot of money to dole out to the band members,
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: you're paying out at the gig. And that means you've
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: got to be a leader with no real authority to
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: boss anybody around. They simply have to respect that you
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: know what you're talking about. And trying to keep a
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: band together with all the egos that are in it.
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: It was one of the most difficult leadership tasks I
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: ever had. Well, I understand you're a musician as well, correct?
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: Well, I do radio. DJ, produce, stuff like that. A
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: little different from being in the band. But definitely been
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: in a leader position for a long time.
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: I'll quote John Lennon, who once said, I play a guitar.
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: Sometimes I play the fool.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: Wait, I didn't know that you were in a band.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: What did you play?
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: As a band leader.
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: We had a band called the Griffalos. And if you remember,
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: you probably go back far enough to remember our drummer
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: was the chair of the English department at Berkeley College.
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: And that's how we got started here. I had a
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: band in Northern Virginia. And when I came up to D.C.,
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: I ran into a couple of people from Berkeley College
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: that were musicians. And I got them together with some
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: of my mates from college. And we formed a band.
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: And for about three years, we played around. We weren't
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: what you would call a midtown band. We were a
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: suburban band. We weren't a Saturday night band. We were
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: a Thursday night band. But we had a lot of fun.
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: I still play occasionally.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: What do you play?
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: What kind of music?
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: No, like you play an instrument?
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: I play guitar. It's occasionally bass, but mostly guitar. And
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: sometimes they let me sing.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: That's awesome. I always wanted to be in a band
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: when I was a kid. Yeah?
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: Me and my cousin, which that's a funny story because
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: we ended up, we work for the same company right now.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: And we totally went different ways in life, like different states, everything.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: But we always were like, we're going to be in
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: a band. And then we kind of thought who was
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: going to be the drummer. And then it was either
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: being a drummer or a guitarist.
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: That's so cool. Yeah. Yeah.
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: Definitely.
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: Fun facts you wouldn't know.
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: And now you're an on-air personality as well.
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: I was. I was. Now, I go back to the
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: analog days with cart machines and two-track reel-to-reel, sitting in
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: a studio and manually engineering it myself. But I did
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: some small market work, particularly moonlighting. Whatever my day job was,
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: I always tried to have a part-time job on air.
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: I loved radio. I still love radio. It's a difficult
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: medium today. It's a totally different medium. Your mate, Jody,
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: showed me, gave me a tour around all the stations here.
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: And I saw, for example, your Q104 would have been
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: the kind of station I would have worked at. Yeah.
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: How does it feel to be behind a mic today?
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: I love it. Yeah.
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: You feel like home?
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: You have a great voice, by the way. Yeah, he does.
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: I could tell. Yeah, you have a voice for radio.
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's why I got into voiceovers because... Your voice.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: It has that bass in the voice.
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: It helps because we have... In the MBA program, we
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: have a lot of international students. They come from other countries.
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: They've learned English. But the way they learned English is
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: to listen to people who speak standard broadcast American English
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: or standard BBC English. So you have to speak to
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: them without much of an accent. If you get an
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: international faculty member who has a heavy accent talking to
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: international students who are just barely fluent in English, there
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: could be a communications challenge there. So one of the
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: advantages I have is because I can speak to them
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: as standard broadcast English. Yeah.
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: That's so cool. I'm learning so many things today.
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: That's great.
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: I love this.
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: I love it, too.
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: I remember. I've been on the radio long enough where
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: I did the cards. I never did the track. They
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: talk about putting tracks in.
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: The reel-to-reel?
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so when I started radio, we were doing cards
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: with CDs in it. You'd have to load every CD.
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: I mean, commercial breaks. I understand a commercial break, you're
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: like 20 commercials. It had to be... Individually, each one? Yeah,
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: and there was only two or three slots, but then
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: we had all these things full of CDs. And you
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: used to have to look at a piece of paper,
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: and it would tell you the commercials. Like, let's say
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: there's a commercial break coming up. It was a full-time, like,
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: it was not like, right now, everyone who's doing radio
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: now has it made. You know, you can auto-seg everything,
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: and you can sit back with your feet up. No,
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: back then, it was everything had to be loaded live
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: and fired off live. And when the commercial break's coming up,
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: you had to check off each commercial as it played.
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: And you had to sit there and go through the
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: cart numbers and load it, load it. Some songs would
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: start skipping. You know how to hit it real quick. Oh,
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: my gosh. You'd be on the radio and be like, look, look, look.
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: Like real radio back in the days was like that.
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: Oh, you're talking my past.
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: Sometimes you'd have to grab them like, sorry, well, that's
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: not working out today. We're going to.
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: We're live. Things happen.
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: That's what happens. Keep it rolling. Yeah, there definitely was
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: no computers or anything like that.
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: Keep it rolling. Well, we got to have you back
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: just to talk about. broadcast and music.
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: That'll be cool.
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: You put a microphone in front of me. I'll not stop.
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: No, but this is what the listeners want to hear.
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: You know, they want to know who the person is.
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: This is such an important, this is such an important
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: episode too, for, for everyone out there. Cause it is
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: so funny. Cause my, my son, uh, I have a
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: 10 year old now and they're offering in school now
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: a business program. And it's a special program that you
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: had to like get accepted into. And he got accepted.
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: And so, so like once a week, We have to
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: drop them off at school early. That's the only bad
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: thing about it for me. I wake them up and
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: go take them. But it's a business program, and it's amazing.
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: And I feel like more people these days want to
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: be entrepreneurs or want to be business leaders. So I
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: could only imagine the amount of students and the amount
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: of people listening to this podcast who are going to
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: be so interested in the MBA and people who are
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: getting bachelors and knowing the steps on how to get
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: to that MBA level if they're built for it.
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll say from my core, probably like 70% of
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: us were entrepreneurs when we were in it. I mean,
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: we've had Randy Gomez on. She's an entrepreneur in the
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: tech space.
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: And Dr.
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: Melissa Burrell, the teacher.
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: Because you could go into that not knowing, correct? Meaning like,
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: like you just want to get an MBA and get
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: your bachelor's and MBA in business and then, you know,
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: hopefully see where you land after. You don't have to
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: know what business field you want to.
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: No, not at all. And in fact, entrepreneurship is the
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: growth industry. I mean, if you think that you're going to,
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: come out of school and chase a paycheck, that's fine.
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: But you're going to compete against a lot of different people.
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: But if you have an idea and you can scale
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: it and get a little financing, bingo, you've got your
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: own business. Take a shot at it. When you're 23,
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: 24 years old and you want to start a business,
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: let's say you fall flat on your face by 25.
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: So what? You're 25. You've still got 40 years of
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: work life ahead of you. And guess the experience you have.
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: Guess what? I ran a registered investment advisor in the 1980s.
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: I sold it after a year because it was just teetering.
• 34:34
  Speaker 3: I managed to get out of it and go back
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: into a home office. But that experience I had as
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: an entrepreneur was that you can't duplicate it.
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: It can be tough, but it's exciting.
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: What we try to do in the MBA program is
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: the capstone course. You get an opportunity to actually simulate
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: running a business. You work with a group of people.
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: You have a team. And they make decisions. And you
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: put it into the simulation. And you see what comes
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: out as the results. And then you go into the
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: next quarter and make new decisions based upon what you
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: experienced in the prior quarter. So you get actual hands-on
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: experience as if you're an entrepreneur.
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: Oh, those laptops.
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: That's what the companies were. They were tech companies.
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: Oh, yes.
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: They're still using that particular scenario.
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: The same scenario?
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Still using that.
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: We had to build from supply and demand all the
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: way to market research and deployment and to advertising. Yeah, so...
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: You were split into groups within the class. So my
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: particular group, there was five of us. Two of them
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: were in military. One of them was on a naval ship.
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: So we could only meet as a group on Sundays
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: for one hour because it's the only time she had internet.
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: So it definitely teaches you how to work within your
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: group and look at talent acquisition and what's the best asset,
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: what are you good at. And you kind of self-assess
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: each other and see who's the best at what. So
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: it's not so much about the simulation. For our group,
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: it was more about learning about each other. And what
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: our strengths were and how we could work together as
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: a team.
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: You know, in this program, you've got to learn two
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: truths when you're in an MBA program that you're going
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: to experience in business. Rule number one is you're rarely
• 36:14
  Speaker 3: going to ever be able to work alone. So teamwork
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: becomes a centerpiece of the program. And learning how to
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: get along with people is important. And the second rule
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: is you rarely get to pick who is going to
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: be on your team. So you end up being with
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: a bunch of people, most of whom you don't know,
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: most of whom you hope you like, a couple of them,
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: maybe not so much, but you figure out a way
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: to make the team work.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: To get it done.
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: I'm having flashbacks. So in true Teach Me Something fashion,
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: if you could articulate what you would want your legacy
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: to be in one word, what would that word be?
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: Persistence. persistence. I do, you know, just, I, no matter
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: what you throw at me, I'm just going to keep
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: rolling along. That's pretty much been my entire working life. So, um,
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: you know, and I, and I go back to a
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: time before anything was automated, you know, when, you know, I,
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: I kept ledgers, handwritten ledgers of, of, of, you know,
• 37:17
  Speaker 3: credits and debits, um, and, uh, uh, and all the
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: way to, to what we do now when everything is computerized,
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: but you just keep rolling along, whatever, whatever hits you,
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: You let it bounce off and you persist.
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: I love that. Just keep swimming.
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: Just keep swimming?
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: Just keep swimming. Well, on that note, everyone.
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: This has been incredible.
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: I know.
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: I've had so much fun. You dropped a lot of
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: gems today.
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: Thank you both. I really appreciate the opportunity to come
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: in and be part of this.
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: And we definitely appreciate you taking time out to come
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: join us over here on the Teach Me Something podcast.
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: And it's a wrap for today. I mean, this amazing episode.
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: Amazing.
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: Did you learn some stuff.
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: Today, Penny?
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: I learned so much.
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: And I can't believe this is your actual professor.
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: Yes, professor and chair, yeah. All three degrees.
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: Well, thank you so much once again. I am ProStyle.
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: I am Penny Delos.
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: And we will see you guys next time right here
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: on the Teach Me Something podcast presented by Berkeley College.
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: Follow us at pod.teachmesomething and you can catch our episodes
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: wherever you stream your podcasts on the iHeartRadio app on
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: WR710 Sundays and of course on 103.5 KTU. Hey, thanks
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: for listening. Tune in next week.
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: For an all new episode of Teach Me Something.
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: Brought to you by Berkeley College.