Students at St. Thomas University are taking advantage of the school’s partnership with Harvard Business School and say it’s intense, but rewarding.
Third-year student Jimy Beltran spent his summer evenings in 2015 studying business on his laptop until midnight and waking up at 6:30 a.m. to walk to his 40-hour-a-week job.
He was enrolled in the HBX CORE Harvard business program, an eight- to 18-week online program where students study business analytics, economics for managers and financial accounting. Students can take this program independently, but STU is the only university in Canada where it is offered.
It’s a demanding program students hope will make them stand out to employers and graduate universities. Despite its quick pace and high expectations, Beltran said he found it to be worthwhile.
“It was very intense, but definitely something I’d recommend,” Beltran said.
Students study approximately five hours daily and do weekly assignments, quizzes and participate in a chat forum for marks. They also take a cumulative exam. The program doesn’t tell the students the percentage value of the quizzes, assignments and participation, so they have to put equal effort into everything.
“That’s why it keeps you very engaged,” said Beltran. “You have to keep participating every day to do well.”
He doesn’t recommend working full-time while taking it, as it can be overwhelming.
Jiachen Qian, who took the program and worked as an intern during the summer, found it time-consuming as well. She spent every Monday to Wednesday evening studying in the library until midnight, when she finally turned the screen off and headed home.
“It seemed like we couldn’t stop and had to keep working on the course,” Qian said.
Qian hopes to find a job relating to finance and economics between China and Canada and she’d like to own a coffee shop when she retires too.
“I felt the courses were too hard to take and I even wanted to give up because I did not get good marks in my economics for managers course,” she said. “But I feel it was worth it and I’m really proud of it.”
Beltran took a minute to think about what he didn’t like about the program.
“Actually, I don’t have anything to complain about,” he said.
He said the online platform once collapsed because it was overwhelmed. Besides that, Beltran said it was well-designed overall and the approach to teaching the material was accommodating for students from any field.
Beltran said he enrolled in CORE thinking adding it to his resumé would make him look more impressive to graduate-school programs and employers. He said he now feels more confident in his prospects and said he’s gained a better understanding of the world from a business perspective.
He said having this program isn’t enough to automatically get him into any graduate school or score him his dream job, but it’s a good start.
“The more chances we get to extend our knowledge … the better chances we have to be more significant in the world.”
