The MBA program is a challenge!

The MBA program is a challenge for most of us! Juggling work, studies, family duties, extra curricular activities and other demands on your time is never easy. If you are from a non- business background you can add to that list subjects like accounting, finance, statistics and operations research which require great tutors and sufficient time to master. We hear this often and want to highlight this great quote from Roosevelt.

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

– Teddy Roosevelt, April 23rd 1910

Hang on and persevere. This MBA program will be over soon and you will enjoy the benefits of being an MBA graduate! In the meantime, if our MBA tutors including accounting tutors, finance tutors, statistics tutors, economic tutors, operations management tutors, etc can assist you in any way, please do not hesitate to get in touch with us. Private tutoring does make learning a lot easier and faster.

Business Writing & MBA Tutors

As MBA tutors, we get to work with MBA students around the country. The business writing skills of a few MBA students are a concern for us. With texting becoming widely prevalent, classic writing skills are being significantly compromised. Spellings, grammar, structure, et al are severely compromised.

This NYT article highlights this issue in the US.  I recently read about a group of UK educators who considered removing the requirement for correct spelling in exams as the number of British students failing exams had increased dramatically!

I believe that we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg as most of our students are in their thirties and above. We will only see the impact when today’s teenagers reach graduate school.  A decade from now, I believe that business writing will become a foundation course in the MBA program.

The NYT article above takes a lenient view on spellings. I personally would like to maintain the good old classic writing skills and will encourage students to use good business writing. While we do not have any specialist business writing tutors, our finance tutors, accounting tutors and economics tutors can tutor you on business writing and help you develop business writing skills.

MBA / EMBA students and the deductibility of MBA tuition costs

Note: We are CPA / EMBA tutors and not tax consultants or advisers. Please consult a professional for tax advice.
MBA students have always wondered if their MBA tuition is tax deductible. What about your MBA tutoring costs?  The deductibility of MBA tuition and MBA tutoring costs has not been clear. But a recent ruling may provide some clarity.  This article by Laura Saunders from yahoo!/wsj.com discusses how Ms Singleton-Clarke, a Maryland nurse, won a battle with the Internal Revenue Service on the deductibility of her MBA tuition! We applaud her for her bravery in taking on the IRS and that too without a lawyer!!
Generally you can deduct “ordinary and necessary” expenses paid in connection with your trade or business as long as it is appropriate or helpful to the business. Taxpayers can deduct education costs, in particular, as “ordinary and necessary” expenses if the education maintains or improves the skills required for the taxpayer’s current trade or business. These rules usually meant that if you are not a lawyer or a doctor and you go to law or medical school, you can’t deduct the cost of your tuition.  The IRS argued that business school education and MBA tuition were not  “ordinary and necessary” expenses of a business. Doctors and lawyers needed the certification to practice – but you did not need an MBA to be in business or have a career!
However, this ruling essentially states that your MBA / EMBA tuition can qualify as a deduction if you can prove that your MBA and the courses you take improve your business skills and help you grow your career/business. It does not matter if you are a full time MBA student or part time MBA student.
This tax filing season, make sure your tax advisor knows about this ruling and ask if you can qualify to deduct your MBA tuition cost. Check with him on your MBA / EMBA tutoring costs too! Maybe you’ll have more money in your pocket!
Note: We are CPA / MBA / EMBA tutors and not tax consultants or advisers. Please consult a professional before you decide on the above.

Support Haiti Relief and Recovery Efforts

The survivors of the devastating earthquake in Haiti need our immediate help. These first 48 hours determines how many lives we can save.

Together, we can help communities get back on their feet.  The Clinton Foundation lists several places you can donate.  You can also text “HAITI” to “20222” and $10 will automatically be donated and charged to your cell phone.

Another way to help in this time of need is to spread the word.  Please post a message on your Facebook, Linkedin and MySpace pages and other networks you influence.  Blog it, tweet it, talk it and walk it! It will go a long way toward mobilizing people.

As MBA students, you are in the midst of a dynamic community. If there is a drive to support the relief efforts support it, if there is none become a leader and START ONE asap!

MBAs & the Economics of Cows

We truly believe that MBA programs (good ones) are worth every dollar you spend on them and are easily one of the best masters’ programs out there (for most people).  One of the reasons is that an MBA program is very versatile.  If you list out all the sectors or functions that students join after their MBA, you will  probably list out everything under the sun.  An MBA adds value in almost all industries, sectors and roles.

Here is additional evidence why we believe that an MBA is a versatile program. An Economist article on the economics of cows mentions  that Dr Galligan, got an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania after originally studying veterinary sciences. He is now teaching veterinary economics. He has also spent time helping Amish farmers in the past! How much more interesting can life get!?

Here is the kicker! Whichever industry or function you are in one of our MBA tutors can tutor you on a subject that is of interest to you!  The range of concepts we tutor students in is so wide that between our pool of MBA tutors (finance tutors, economics tutors, statistics tutors, accounting tutors and financial modeling tutor) we will have something that is of interest to you! It may be understanding the economics of a cow, calculating the net present value of an asset, figuring out the return on investment of a new project, building a business plan or a financial model for a business plan, or figuring out the marketing strategy for a new market but one of our MBA tutors can help you learn something interesting. Challenge us on this. Give us a call.

Impact of the downturn on MBA students, MBA schools

The EuropeanVoice.com has an interesting article on the impact of the downturn on MBA schools and MBA students.

Unlike many other articles that just state that the number of students or applicants have increased, this one has tried to go deeper. They still have no specific numbers nor have they tried to guesstimate it.  But have a ‘guess’ on possible reasons for the changes they see.

Interview preparation for MBA students

MBA tutoring is our primary focus.  We however provide our MBA students a variety of other services in addition to MBA tutoring including interview preparation assistance and specialized niches such as case interview practice sessions with industry professionals.

Yesterday’s NYT has an interesting article on alumni turning back to their college career centers for help on a variety of services from counseling, resume editing, job search assistance, etc. You can read more about the story here.

The article mentions that some of these colleges provide this service free of cost while some charge for this service. I want to reiterate that we do provide similar services such as interview practice to our MBA students. Practicing for interviews is critical especially if you are interviewing for niche careers such as consulting or investment banking where they use specialized interview techniques. Case interviews are a good example. (Read what is a consulting case interview here) Practicing for case interviews and preparing for case interviews significantly increases your odds for success.

We however charge for this service as we are not subsidized by any organization or government and hence have bills to pay. Our career services are quite pricy we admit…But we do get you assistance from industry insiders (usually from your industry of interest) and not from career officers who have been career officers their entire careers!  We believe getting someone from your industry is worth the price difference.

Do let us know if we can get you some professional help.

MBA Tutoring Plans & Challenges

We have been in the MBA tutoring space for more than 2 years now. Our focus areas and the challenges we face are different as time goes on. To give you a glimpse of what our plans for the year are and the challenges we expect, I post highlights from our most recent annual letter below.
MBA tutoring plans and challenges from GraduateTutor.com’s annual letter

I want to first take this opportunity to wish you a happy New Year and great success in your professional and personal lives in 2010.  I have tried to briefly highlight below our focus areas and the challenges that we see for the year ahead as we continue to serve CFA, CPA & MBA students.
As I write our annual team letter, my strongest emotion is one of deep gratitude to each one of you who have been a part of GraduateTutor.com over the last few years.  While we have all played instrumental roles in GraduateTutor.com’s success till date, I want to especially thank our tutoring faculty for their commitment and time with us.  It is the strength of our tutoring faculty that distinguishes us from a host of other players in the market.
Plans for the year
  • We want to continue serving students to the best of our ability.  We believe that the best way to build our business is to build it one hour and one student at a time.  We want all our interactions and activities to reflect this belief.
  • Recruiting outstanding faculty to our pool of great tutors continues to be an area of focus.  We are very selective in who we recruit and so if you know potential candidates, please do let us know.
  • This year we also want to strengthen our existing university relationships and build new relationships. If you know faculty or administrators, do give us an introduction.  We do reward introductions that turn into business with commissions.
Challenges
  • This year, we have seen an increase in low priced and low quality competition.  We expect this to increase in the coming months but will hold fast to our aim to provide high quality tutoring services.  Our emphasis is on helping students learn. Our product is really knowledge and understanding which is far more valuable than solutions to questions.
  • We also see a lot of unethical competition in the form of tutoring services that just provide homework and exam solutions. Once again we want to hold fast to our core values and do not want to do exams or assignments for students.  We are well aware that with more universities going in for graded assignments and hybrid approaches to grading, this is a larger challenge and we count on you individually to take calls on what is right given our philosophy and our emphasis on knowledge and understanding.
  • As we have grown, we are increasingly seeing online fraud. We have enlisted appropriate help and are learning to cope with and counter online fraud.

Writing Business Plans

Today’s WSJ has an article on a trend in business schools these days. With jobs few, business grads are turning into entrepreneurship.

This is in our opinion, a good trend. Entrepreneurship will teach them a number of things that a regular job will not – and quickly. Business plans, cash-flow management, customer service, value to a customer, competition, recruiting, etc become not just terms or concepts these business school grads are familiar with but real issues to deal with directly! It also helps boost the economy as they generate net jobs and value to investors.

A quick bit of advice. Make sure you have a good business plan – We leave it up to you to decide if you want to write it out or just think it through. Here is a quick article on why it is very important to have a business plan.

The MBA tutors at GraduateTutor.com salute this trend and have been helping aspiring entrepreneurs with business plans in a variety of ways. If you are looking at developing a business plan, our MBA tutors can help you in a number of ways be it collaborating with you to write the entire business plan, reviewing your business plan to suggest areas to improve it, providing you research support to find critical data points or building a financial model for your business plan. Read more about our business plan services here. Our MBA tutors have helped a number of our customers who have included business school graduates who just want a second opinion or those who are unfamiliar with business and need a lot of help. We can also draw upon specialists from our pool of finance tutors, accounting tutors, economic tutors and other research specialists depending on your need. We are happy to assist and welcome more entrepreneurs into this world.

Financial Management-15.414 (MIT-OCW-Summer 2003)

GraduateTutor will now provide tutoring for MIT’s Open Course Ware (OCW) program – Financial Management-15.414. Corporate Finance, Capital Markets, Managerial Decisions, Financial Assets, Financial Derivatives etc are few common titles that one come across very often in B Schools and for that matter in a corporate world. MIT’s Open Courseware via Sloan School of Business titled ‘Financial Management-15.414 (Summer 2003)’ includes all of the above!

MIT’s Open Courseware (OCW) via Sloan School of business is a generous innovation in the field of education. Graduate Tutor has been working towards its vision; to make learning easier than ever before by rendering homework help and tutoring services on various topics included in MIT’s OCW. ‘Financial Management-15.414 (Summer 2003)’ is the latest addition.

Graduate Tutor’s expert tutors consist of MBA, CPAs or CFAs with strong tutoring skills in accounting and finance among other topics. Currently we provide tutoring to finance students from a number of top business schools and we are confident with their ability to tutor ‘Financial Management-15.414 (Summer 2003)’

‘Financial Management-15.414 (Summer 2003)’ is just one of the many topics that we plan to provide tutoring in. We hope to widen our spectrum and provide tutoring support to more programs included in MIT’s open courseware.

Enjoy learning and look forward to it!