International MBA ​Experience in the Asian ​Institute of Management: ​An Honest Take

by Hannah jara

Oh, MBA...

P.S. This is not a sponsored post, and I was not instructed by anyone ​from AIM to write this blog.

Prior to my MBA, I would like to think I was doing pretty well as a ​working professional–I had a good job, a reasonable salary, an ​amazing set of colleagues, and I was finishing my Master in Public ​Health at the University of the Philippines Manila. Not to mention I ​was just newly married with a great partner too. Life was good.

Prior to my day job, though, a few friends and I decided to start a ​rehabilitation clinic in 2021, which opened in February 2022. When ​you start business from scratch, a lot of it is "we'll cross the bridge ​when we get there" kind of scenario. We did do our due diligence, and ​personally I thought my MPH would suffice in making a meaningful ​contribution in discussions.

By July 2022 during the first shareholders' meeting after the clinic's ​opening, I realized that I did not have a good grasp of what business ​was about. It was there that I had a pause, and thought I should ​probably get an MBA. My husband has been subtly hinting on me ​getting an MBA for several months, but I always brushed it off. I've ​been a believer of "self-directed learning", and learned many things ​just by watching videos online, and reading books without a formal ​degree. But I also know that to thrive in business is not just about ​what you know, it's also about who you know. With that, I decided to ​go for it.

Fast forward to the actual MBA.

Take it from me who has studied a previous Master's Degree: the AIM MBA is TOUGH. The closest I ​could probably compare it to is the fourth year of my undergraduate degree in UP Manila, and this ​is because most, if not all, will be self-directed learning (honestly, I am grateful my undergraduate ​kind of prepared me for this). If you are one to expect to be spoonfed, then AIM is not for you. ​There is a reason why it is a top business school in the Philippines and one of the best in Asia.

When I say self-directed learning, this means AIM expects you to have initiative. The degree of ​learning you will get is proportionate to the level of effort you put in. And what is initiative? ​Initiative is reading the readings ahead of the class, doing extra research, practicing on your own, ​and discussing with your learning team without the supervision of an educator. And rightly so, ​because one is expected to behave like an adult during an MBA.

And since I already mentioned it, a learning team is a group of students pre-assigned by the school ​with which you are expected to do group work with for three terms. Learning how to get along with ​your learning team is a crucial skill that you will use not only for MBA, but also in doing business ​later on. So the beauty of the MBA is not just polishing your IQ, but also developing your EQ and AQ ​(adversity quotient). I was assigned to learning team 10 (LT10). I could say with certainty indeed ​that these people were the smartest, most interesting, and most enjoyable people to be with.

Even interacting with other LTs was amazing. Our cohort arranged for tutorial ​sessions, where some students who were already good at a certain topic would ​teach the others pro-bono. This was not required by the school but simply an ​initiative of the batch because we wanted to help each other. There were many ​who just helped out of the goodness of their hearts, without anything in return. ​Witnessing that within the cohort just kind of strengthens the trust. I also liked ​how everyone just knows how to laugh too–laugh at mistakes, laugh at failures, ​laugh at ridiculous moments, and laugh when they're drunk. However despite ​that goofiness, there are true geniuses within these individuals.

Staying at the dorm further increases the bond that the cohort had. Back in my MPH, it was ​just part-time so I would only encounter my classmates during our classes, and nothing ​beyond that. For MBA, it was completely different. My roommates and I cried to each other, ​woke each other up, got sick together, and stayed up late at night to gossip. I even remember ​my roommate Paula, waking me up an hour before classes as she is about to head out. I also ​remember Pat as she does her mat exercises in the bedroom. Paula would give me her ​healthy meals, while Pat prepared homemade Pesto sauce to give to us after the weekends. ​We did silly dances, talked about life after MBA, and more. It was almost like reliving my dorm ​days in college.

During my time, the ladies stayed on the second floor of the AIM ​dorm, while the men stayed on the sixth floor. During many of our ​discussions as an LT, we did them in Room 607. The beauty of the ​rooms is that there are greenboards available for writing about any ​topic being discussed. We stayed up past 12AM to come up with a ​rational valuation of a company, or paraphrase our writeups to ​perfection. The result: taking naps in between classes.

We also had the best professors. I think one of the most vital things ​in an MBA is learning from doers, and AIM nailed that. Core ​professors (and even adjunct faculty) were–or are–engaged in actual ​industry practice. This gives credibility to what they were telling us, ​and I particularly enjoyed my finance and accounting classes. It ​didn’t make it any easier though.

The difficulty of the classes just further strengthened our bond with each other, mainly through food ​and alcohol. I’m not much of a drinker myself, but I found myself drinking the most number of bottles ​during this MBA (vs other years of my life). We were able to immerse in the culture of our ​international classmates, and learn about old world and new world wine. We organized parties like ​the Cub’s Night, ISEPanx Night, and Tiger’s Night. In between those were random Tagaytay trips, ​parties in each other’s homes, and drunken fights in parking lots.

Kidding aside though, the classes were so “malaman” mainly because everyone in the cohort just had ​valuable input in the discussions. Just when you think you know the answer, someone else comes up ​with a better idea. There were times in class that I would just pause and think to myself, “Will I ever ​be surrounded by this much intelligence again in my life?”. It’s not to say that I don’t meet smart ​people anywhere else, but the cohort is the right kind of smart. They are the smart who can pinpoint ​business strategy loopholes, critique your financial projections, and assess risk. That’s something ​you don’t see everyday. What I expected was just to learn. What I didn’t expect was to have the best ​time of my life during this MBA. And that’s not even including my exchange student program in ​Europe! It deserves its own blog post altogether.

I can go on and on about what I loved the most about these people, and how grateful I am to AIM that ​I was able to meet them. But I should best stop at this point, because I will just end up crying.