Full-time UST MBA

Meet Chris Cook

"Something I learned immediately in the Full-Time UST MBA program was that your MBA education is so much more than what you learn in a classroom."

I completed my undergraduate training at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska, focusing on health care administration and policy, and minoring in studio art. After graduation, I worked full-time at a small organization that offered management consulting to health care organizations throughout the country. I was so impressed with the company’s proprietary technology and best-practice insights that I found myself wanting to start a small business myself. I’d like to establish a career in socially responsible marketing and advertising, and to spend time building microeconomies and developing businesses in underdeveloped communities overseas, but I realized that I would need to acquire the necessary education and theory first.

As I was looking at business schools in the Midwest, St. Thomas was a clear standout for its business community connections, its small class size, and its emphasis on global leadership. Part of the UST MBA mission is to develop “global business leaders.” I have learned just as much from my classmates about being a global business leader as I have from my professors! When we bring our different skill sets, career backgrounds and future work interests to the table, we learn so much from each other and we learn to widen our own perspectives.

In the Full-Time UST MBA program, you are surrounded by a community of students which is diverse in many ways. Of course, we hail from different countries and cultures. But we also bring diverse skill sets, work experiences and career interests. The cohort model of learning affords us unique opportunities to learn from each other and engage one another, both inside and outside the classroom. The small class size means that you really get to know your professors, and they get to know their students.

Our faculty adds to the diversity of our community. The best thing about the faculty in the UST MBA is that they aren’t life-long academics. Our professors have years of experience as business and community leaders, and a passion for coaching and leadership development. They bring their real-world experience into the classroom, and it really colors the coursework.

Ethics and business law become an integral part of our class discussions and a necessary perspective in our learning objectives. We even have opportunities to meet with local companies about ethical issues they have faced, and the infrastructures they have built to balance employee values and organizational values. It’s evidence of the Full-time UST MBA commitment to developing “highly principled global business leaders.”

St. Thomas combines a commitment to rigorous academic study with a focus on professional and leadership development. The class sizes are small enough that everyone contributes their experience and perspective to the discussions, but large enough that you are surrounded by diverse backgrounds and career interests. And the campus is located in downtown Minneapolis, so you are close to dozens of business leaders and important Minnesota companies. The relationships that we form during our two years here, both within the program and throughout the larger business community around us, will stay with us forever.

Something I learned immediately in the Full-Time UST MBA program was that your MBA education is so much more than what you learn in a classroom. It’s just as much about developing personally and professionally, building your own brand, and getting involved in the business community. The Full-Time UST MBA makes each of these aspects of business education a part of the pedagogy. At a very basic level, my education has given me a sturdy foundation of both theoretical and applied business principles; but at a more fundamental level, it has plugged me in to my professional surroundings.