You want to get an MBA to advance your career, but you can only go part-time? Do you have enough experience to qualify for a 12Month MBA? The type of student that is attracted to this programme is one who comes in on a Friday, wants to learn something in the weekend, and apply it on Monday. It's an experience that will absolutely help you better understand marketing and accounting but, ultimately, it makes you think and reason and make decisions in a completely different way than you would have.

Typically, a student following a 12Month MBA is somebody who is working full-time. They are typically in a higher management position, or they are currently managing a number of people within a company or an organization. They, obviously, have more work experience. A 12Month MBA experience is ideal for the candidate who already feels they have their experience well under their belts. Since the classroom consists of students with a lot of management experience the dialogue in the classroom is not just faculty to student, but it is student to student. Secondly students have the opportunity to work in a team and therefore learning within your team is a feature unique to the 12Month MBA, which is also consistent with the way the industry is going today. It could be stated that 12 Month MBAs are much more strategic, team-focused and helps in developing leadership skills.

The MBA offered by Oxford College of Business (OCB) in affiliation with the Australian Institute of Business (AIB) is the best 12 MBA programme in the country today. It is designed for those looking to take their career to the next level. Traditional MBA models involve several individual subjects being offered generally over a 12 week period. For a busy executive, this makes their learning susceptible to external factors such as unexpected work and personal issues that could occur during this time. While traditional MBAs are designed for undergraduates with very minimal work experience, OCB's 12 Month MBA is designed for senior managers with over 5years of managerial work experience.

When asked from the MBA course director at OCB as to: What will the students be taking away from your 12 Month MBA programme that may even be surprising to them? "I think they come in expecting to broaden their knowledge and to be learning from some of the top business leaders in the country and some of the best practitioners. I think some of the things they don't expect are how this expands their horizons; how it expands their way of thinking. We absolutely see an increase in their level of confidence, partly, because they're taking such a rigorous programme while they're working, holding down challenging positions, and many of them have families because they're in their 30s. So I think that's another thing that they don't expect-that they reach a new level of confidence and maturity they might not have anticipated."

What are some of the surprises you've encountered over the years in dealing with the OCB-AIB 12Month MBA programme? "I think maybe less surprises and more happy confirmations. It never ceases to amaze me that every year we get towards graduation, and students will come into my office and really talk about how it has changed their lives over a short span of one year. They've gotten so much more from the experience than just an education. They think differently, and in many instances, they say that they feel like they're different people. It's an experience that will absolutely help you better understand marketing and accounting. But, ultimately, it is so much more than that. It makes you think and reason and make decisions in a completely different way than you would have. What is most gratifying, in my opinion is in terms of payback; our studies have shown that the average student gets a full return on his investment in about 20 months. That's not a bad return. But it is a decision that a student has to make. It's not just a financial decision. He or she has to be ready to face the challenge of joining quite an intense programme which will give them very high returns at the end of it."

The current business environment is very competitive and the job market is very crowded. These factors are taken into consideration when designing the 12month MBA at OCB. The 12Month MBA at OCB is aimed at helping students differentiate themselves, their career, and their business. Students are taken that extra mile to give the edge which will help in delivering an outstanding performance. Oxford College of Business is committed to delivering a fair competitive advantage for their students which is the reason why the OCB- AIB MBA is ranked high in Sri Lanka today. For more information contact Malindu Ranasinghe - 0714151547 or visit www.12monthmba.com.au