Education

Master’s or MBA? Find Out at the QS World MBA & Grad Tour in Beirut on September 24


I started this blog when I was doing my undergraduate studies back in 2010. Today, almost 9 years later, the biggest chunk of my readers are in my age range. This means that many of you are considering whether to get your Master’s or MBA degrees.

If you’re anything like me though, chances are you feel choosing the right option for you, the right school and figuring out how to pay for it all or if you can get a scholarship or financial aid, are all very daunting tasks. I don’t even know where to start, especially given I’d prefer to do my prospective Master’s degree somewhere abroad and take a break from Lebanon for a couple of years.

That’s when I found out about the 2018 QS World MBA Tour and the QS World Grad Tour happening in Beirut this year on September 24th at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beirut.

Here’s a little background to prepare you before you check them out later this month.


MBA vs Master’s

If you’re not sure which is the right choice for you to continue your education, let’s break down the major differences between the two types of programs.

MBAs are designed to build upon your life and career experience so far, and are often a more general approach to develop and put to better use what you have learned in the past few years to help you get back into your field with an edge (and sizable salary bump of course!)

Master’s degrees are usually designed to build upon your academic background. This means that instead of a more general approach to help you better manage in your business and financial sectors, Master’s degrees are much more specialized and help you become an expert in a particular industry or field you wish to continue and advance in.

Teaching Styles

To dive deeper into the differences between MBAs and Masters, it’s important to know that the teaching styles in each are very different.

MBAs rely mainly on case studies. These are often real-world examples of issues or challenges students would be expected to face after they graduate. Usually, small groups of students will explore, discuss and reflect on different case studies throughout their MBA program, helping equip them to dive back into their careers better prepared and ready for bigger challenges. Lectures like the ones you had in your undergraduate studies will also be featured, but much less than the case-study based work you will encounter during your MBA.

Master’s programs are built upon classroom and laboratory-based activities, presentations and lectures. It’s basically a more advanced, more specialized form of what you encountered during your undergrad time. What’s important to note, is that even though Master’s degree programs might include work in small groups, the emphasis is always on the individual and independent learning of each student, unlike MBA degrees where work in small student “syndicates” is more important.

Specializations

Apart from the teaching styles and formats, the main difference between a Master’s and an MBA is the level of specialization depending on the area a student would like to advance in.

MBA programs are usually perfect for a student who wants to better equip themselves for a wide range of business-related situations. Students seeking a more specialized set of skills usually choose a Master’s qualification for their postgraduate studies with a more precise academic and theoretical framework for their chosen area of study.

A good example to help you better understand the differences between an MBA and a Master’s program, is the ability to choose the courses you want. A typical MBA program might include 12 courses, only four of which are electives a student can choose. In a Master’s program, far less courses are chosen for you, and you can elect to register for more courses of your choosing, depending on what you aim to get out of your postgraduate studies.

One real-world example is for students who are hoping to get into the Human Resources area in their future career. An MBA will have more general business courses, and a handful of HR specialty ones. If you already know that HR is the road you want to take, a more specialized Master’s in HR management will better your chances with employers looking for an HR manager. If you’re unsure which management position you’d like to go for in the future, an MBA will keep more options open for you, but make you less competitive for more specialized positions.

What Should You Choose?

The debate about the pros and cons of MBAs vs Masters degrees will not end anytime soon. At the end, it all boils down to two main factors:

The first, is if you’ve already made your decision about the specific direction you hope to take your career in. If that’s the case, a Master’s degree is right for you. If you’re not a 100% sure where you want to end up in your career, then a more generic, business-focused MBA program might be the better choice.

The second factor to consider is your background, experience and qualifications. International MBA and Master’s program that you probably want to attend require pretty specific entry qualifications. Whether it’s your scores on the GMAT or GRE, your past professional experience, academic achievments or even the languages you speak, they all factor in to help you figure out which type of degree and which university would be the best fit for you.

Need Help Figuring It Out?

I tried to narrow it down for you guys here as much as I can, but we both know it goes far beyond the points I raised above. If you want to pursue higher education, but still can’t decide what would present the highest ROI for you and your career, then head down to the QS World MBA and Grad School Tour in Beirut on September 24.

To get an idea about the ROI for all you business-heads, here’s a few points from the QS Trends and Salary Report of 2018

MBA salary levels increase after dip in 2016; MBA employers in the US & Canada are the most generous ($98,900, increasing to $116,300 with bonus), pulling away from Western Europe ($85,500, increasing to $101,300).

Highest MBA salaries on offer in Switzerland ($123,500), followed by US ($102,100). France ($98,500) and UK ($92,400) are next best performers in Europe. Australia leads the way in Asia-Pacific ($98,400), followed by Japan ($80,000).

(source)

(source)

The event will feature admissions directors from universities across the globe, including: LBS, INSEAD, IE, Toronto-Rotman, Arizona State, Warwick, Manchester, CKGSB, Bocconi, King’s, EDHEC, SKEMA, HEC- Paris, Imperial, NYU and many more.

Apart from that, you can attend admissions seminars, LinkedIn and GMAC workshops and gain access to a pool of scholarships worth 7 million dollars.

Book your spot by registering online for:

MBA event here

Masters event here.

UNICEF’s Awesome Social Experiment in Ein El Mreisseh #AbtalAlMadrasa



How many of your parents took out loans, sold land they had inherited or never spent on themselves to afford sending you guys to school and university?

How many online debates have ended with a consensus that “education” is the solution?

What would your life be like if you didn’t have your school and university days as part of them?

Where would you have met all your closest friends, your business partners or even your life partners if not between classes and at recess?

Education is important, for so many reasons. It is the great equalizer, where doing well will guarantee you a shot at the life you want, no matter how humble your beginnings or hard the road to get an education was.

At times like these, with so much instability, turmoil and hopelessness, generations are being lost in the crossfire. Dire economic situations are forcing parents to pull their children from school, and into jobs they should never be doing as minors.

In all the gloom though, one good thing about Lebanon is that anyone who seeks an education, can get one. All children in Lebanon, whether Lebanese or refugees, have a right to an education. A chance to be whatever they want to be when they grow up. A chance to lift up themselves and their communities, suffering at the hands of corruption, neglect and conflict.

With the recent savage tax hikes in Lebanon, and the chaotic increase in school tuition, with more and more Lebanese waking up to find themselves on the wrong side of the poverty line, means many kids might get pulled from school.

This campaign is a reminder to everyone, all parents, guardians and community leaders that everyone has a right to free education in Lebanon’s public schools.

Keep your kids in school. Make sure all the uncertainty and unrest don’t have devastating effects that will last for generations to come. Educate your children.

UNICEF and the Ministry of Education launched a campaign now that it’s “back to school” time. The campaign seeks to raise awareness that every child on Lebanese soil is entitled to a free education. The video below is the campaign’s brilliant social experiment carried out on the Corniche in Ein El Mreisseh.


Earn Money Tutoring this Summer with Synkers



With unemployment over 30%, and youth unemployment over 50%, Lebanon and the Lebanese are suffering under the current circumstances. I have more friends working in Gulf countries or doing their masters degrees abroad, then I do here.

Money is short, and jobs are short too. The traditional ways of making money are kinda no longer valid under the extreme corruption and lack of vision from Lebanon’s government.

That’s why new startups that are disrupting Lebanon’s failing economy might be the key to many young people trying to make ends meet without being forced to leave Lebanon in search of a better life.

Synkers

I discovered Synkers a few weeks ago, and loved the idea behind it. Synkers is a Lebanese startup that’s transforming the way you can find a tutor, or be one. It’s a very user-friendly app, available on Android and iOS.

The idea is, you can select the course or subject you need help in, and then browse the verified tutors, their ratings and their reviews. You then select your favorite, choose a time and date, and payment method (cash at the session, or card via the app).

Synkers has more than 600 verified tutors so far, and 6000 active users in their community. If you don’t need a tutor for your university or school work, you can become a tutor!

If you had good grades in school or university, and pass the interview and verification process, you can make good money helping others in their studies for school, university or standardized tests. It’s also not just in Lebanon, with several other places like the UAE also available.

So, if you like tutoring, and want to earn money this summer tutoring others, but don’t want the hassle that usually entails (finding the students, arranging payment, etc.) You can do all of that via an app, with a few taps now.

The Process:







Download Synkers now.

A TEDx Talk Every Enlightened New Age Yogi Needs to See


My Mentor and How I Fell in Love with Neuroscience (My Serotonin Tattoo)

Arne Dietrich was my Neuroscience professor at the American University of Beirut. However, to me, Arne was so much more than that. I doubt he knows the profound impact he had on me, but I am the person I am today because I studied under him at just the right time in my life.

I used to be angry, conservative and intolerant. I wore a giant gold, gem-encrusted cross. I hated gay people. I thought life was just a test for an afterlife. I was stupid, petty and unimpressed. The world never made sense. I was never really happy.

I was in a Catholic school, so instead of being taught Natural Selection, we were taught Darwin is a demon and ignored the parts in the official curriculum that had to do with Evolution. My parents paid a shit-load of money for years, I had to jump through hoops and got accepted into a top university, but I hadn’t even learned the first thing about Natural Selection.

Love Affair with Biology and Psychology

Luckily, AUB changed that, and I fell in love with everything alive and life itself. Nature was the most fascinating thing to me, and life was its crown jewel. Organisms that eat, fuck and try to survive. An arrangement of cells and molecules that could feel, think, hope, love, hate and all those things we never think of in a scientific, mechanistic way. That was fucking awesome to study.

I had to take a social science elective, and a friend’s older sister taught an intro to Psychology course. Pre-med me thought, “nice, easy 90!” and I signed up for it. I, like many, thought Psychology as the Freudian bullcrap we see in pop culture. When I took the intro course at 17, I discovered Neuroscience, and to me, Psychology seemed like a beautiful extension of Biology. There’s only so much you can tell from the molecular level, and that’s where circuits and networks come in and create who we really are, our beautiful brains. I fell in love, and the next semester, I signed up to Arne’s “Behavioral Neuroscience” course, then took “Cognitive Neuroscience” with him and even History and Systems.

I was teetering on the edge of belief, and lack of it. I felt guilty for losing faith after discovering how wonderful nature is, and how there is no need for a creator. The elegance of it all, though tough to swallow at first, made life make sense. It made people’s behavior make sense. It was all so elegant and imperfect and beautiful. I was on a ledge when I started, but I was on the far side of that valley by the end of it, and I loved it.

That’s when I became a happy person. I felt the good things more deeply, and focused less on the bad ones. I was less angry, less hateful and extremely tolerant and understanding. If I met pre-Biology me, I’d probably slap the shit out of him.

The serotonin tattoo on my wrist was the moment when I finally was convinced with who I am and how I see the world and myself in it. And even though it definitely wasn’t Arne’s doing, I was lucky enough to study under him when I needed it the most, and for that I will be forever grateful.

New Age People, Watch This

With the rise of the yogi and vegan trend, a lot of people feel enlightened and become anti-science, believing fodder and pseudoscience and “metaphysics” and other stuff that I feel is counterproductive to our progress and awareness as a self-reflecting species. My personal belief is that these people took too much LSD or mushrooms, and feel “enlightened” and bombard us with conspiracy theories and testimonials that are just as annoying as the religious kind. The preachy, evidence-less, anecdotal, feel-good, self-help, new age stuff that replaced the boring, rigid religious beliefs of yesteryear. But reality and nature is so much more fascinating, and understanding is so much more fulfilling…

So, this TEDx is for you. Grab a cup of coffee or tea, and focus for a few minutes. Follow Arne’s line of thought, and go in with an open mind. I promise it will make you think, and appreciate a lot of things you never even considered. It also is a nice slap in the face back to the reality many of us ignore and never really embrace. So, I help this can help you snap back to reality and understand consciousness and its altered states better, and in that, yourself and your brain better. It really helped me at one point, and I really hope it helps some of you too.

And if you like it, and I’m sure you will, Arne’s published a new book: “How Creativity Happens in the Brain” which you can buy here.