An MBA Is Only As Good As The Business Partners It Connects You With

Candidates applying to MBA programs in Canada are looking to see that their school of choice values practical experience with the same regard as academic learning. Success in the business sphere is, after all, weighed by how long someone has been working in the industry, and how engaged they have been with their projects. A strong program will therefore allow students to advance in their field of choice by giving them the opportunity to apply what they’ve learned in class to an internship or co-op placement with a company on the outside.

When students are part of an MBA program that includes co-op, it gives them a taste for how the professional world of business works, the types of personalities they may encounter after graduation, and an inside look into how various industries rise to the challenge when they’re thrown into difficult situations. It also trains them to be critical thinkers and how to work under pressure. Graduates of these programs will also attest that the tools and techniques they retained in these early days were instrumental to their finding success in their chosen careers.

Graduates of MBA programs offering this type of work placement, such as those emerging from the Lazaridis School of Business & Economics in Ontario, are better prepared than many of their counterparts to take their respective industries head on. In a 20-month span, students will enjoy two paid four-month work terms. They not only graduate with a depth of knowledge but with a practical skill set that increases their hiring potential once they finish school. They further establish contacts and special connections, which are a beneficial take away from this type of MBA program. The coworkers or prospective employers they meet during placement can be called upon later, sometimes simply for a reference, other times for a fulltime job. Visit the Lazaridis website to learn about MBA internships and how they help springboard students into the professional working world, in whichever field most interests them.

Internships can also be taken in the summer with esteemed businesses like BDO Canada (focusing on Chartered Professional Accounting), federal government agencies like the CRA or FedDev Ontario, and even leaders in the automotive industry, like General Motors. This gives candidates even more working experience on top of co-op placement opportunities during the year. With various companies so eager to hire students to fill summer positions under the umbrella of a business program they can trust, students connected to the institution are at better odds of being taken on as interns for their term off school.

The best MBA programs will give their students both a strong academic knowledgebase as well as necessary working experience so they’re better prepared to enter their field of choice upon completion of their degrees. With hiring managers across the board searching for the presence of reputable internships or co-op placements on an applicant’s resume, a highly respected program that will open exactly these kinds of door for their Masters candidates understands the market their students will be entering, caters the degree to reflect current market needs, and as a result, puts graduates in the best position possible for finding success.