At Gies College of Business, one of our strategic priorities is to democratize education. We do that by delivering our iMBA, IMSA, executive education, and business minor online. That is not business as usual, and it's certainly not the online education of old. We put our very best faculty in the online space. They actively engage with students from around the world face to face in a digital classroom. Faculty and students collaborating together infuse these programs with the personal attention that enables students to reach their full potential. The iMBA program through the Gies College of Business is so incredibly innovative. The ability and accessibility to reach a whole new audience of students and let them learn on their own time has been phenomenal, and being able to collaborate with people across the globe and to learn from topnotch professors has been completely revolutionary. When you're interacting and teaching in a live session, you can see the students environment, and while I'm teaching here at night and champagne, it's daytime, wherever they are in the world, some of them. It slaps you in the face immediately that there's a completely different perspective. You might think, it's more removed, it's more distant, but in fact, my experience in an online class has actually been surprisingly intimate and connected. In a classroom setting, you might have 50, 60, or more students in a room at one time, and so I'm scanning around, looking at people. But in an online, I'm looking at one place and the students looking right back at me and that's surprisingly a direct experience. I was shocked at how much it felt as good or better than when I was sitting in class in my undergraduate days, everyone has their cameras on, on their computers. There's a chat feature, so you can also type in a question and the professor can answer your question that way. I think the cool thing is that you can truly participate from whatever you are. These systems work on your desktop, on your cell phone. We were traveling in the middle of nowhere back from Indiana, and on the Wi-Fi, still on my iPad, I was able to connect through Zoom with classmates in Dubai and Tokyo and California all at the same time. Even being in a remote place on the go, the accessibility and the exposure that I was able to get was phenomenal. Getting my iMBA makes me feel empowered because I don't need to stop being myself, I don't need to stop working, I don't need to stop being a mother, I don't need to stop having my life, and that is everything. Our online programs are designed to be career curated learning experiences. Our leading edge course material is structured the way that professionals apply these concepts everyday. Leadership, communication, and critical thinking skills are built into the core, empowering our students to put their purpose into practice at the highest level. One of the most impactful things is just your ability to take the skills that we deliver and take them back to work on Monday. I've heard a couple of stories where students had talked about the skills that they were able to build over a couple of weeks, and then they were able to immediately bring that skill set back into their job and make an immediate impact. I would recommend Gies IMBA program for anyone. This is both, if you are starting questioning your career to if you're professional and you want to own your skills. This is it, this the place to be. At Gies College of Business, we are truly revolutionizing how online education is delivered. This isn't just the few PowerPoint slides in a reading assignment. Our faculty and students thrive in this one of a kind global classroom. Relevant timely discussions about current topics from around the world, keep content fresh and exciting. The next generation of business leaders will come from all corners of the world, and now they converge here at Gies Business.
