Interview - Rakesh Kumar

MBA student testimonial

Video of an interview with Rakesh Kumar at the 2012 Student of the year awards. He was highly commended for the Award of Outstanding Contribution to an Organisation.

(Edited transcript of the interview)

My story starts when I moved from Cyprus to the UK. Me and my wife were both looking for a job, then one day my wife asked, why don't I do an MBA from The Open University? And the one thing that came into my mind was the quality. The second thing when I was looking at the book on The Open University, they had a great knowledge and there was very practical knowledge which you would implement into the workplace. That's why I applied for an MBA from The Open University. After studying the MBA with The Open University, I got job in HSBC, I got job in Sainsbury's, and I worked with BP. What I learned from my MBA I was trying to implement, so it really helped me. It helped me to make lots of decisions; it helped me to make a difference to my organisation. It's about thinking in a leadership way. It's involving people in the decision making process. Think of the bigger picture and how we can make a difference into real life, how we can use models, how we can put theory into practice, and it helped me to make other people's lives better. While working as a manager, I developed many people to their next stage as managers. This only happened because of what I learned from The Open University, how to implement into practical knowledge and make a difference to people's lives. So I can give credit to The Open University.

An Open University qualification is often referred to as distance learning. What was your experience of this?

I do not agree with this one. It's not distant because we had many seminars, we had many classes. I still remember that I used to go to the hotel next to my flat. We had our Sunday classes there. We had a big spot from the centre, lead centres, local centre, so the university has centres all over the UK so you can go any local centre. If I had any problem I would speak with them. We have a five day school, a four day school, and online now we have a very good relation with our tutor. So I never found it to be like distant learning. I always found we have a very good contact because they always help us and always guide us, and also the network from other people who are studying with you. They meet outside of the day schools. We normally meet sometimes on the weekend in the pub and share our feelings and share our knowledge.

Do you have any plans for further study in the future?

I think it looks like I'm addicted to The Open University now. I want to keep studying and studying, but at the moment my circumstances have not allowed me while working on my new project, but I definitely want to come back to DBA. I want to do a DBA from The Open University and the finish on the right time. So I want to commit to myself first and I want the right time slot so when I can come back, but I'm definitely passionate to study more at The Open University.

Would you recommend The Open University to others?

I have lots of achievments in my career that only happened because of the university. I'm holding the Olympic torch next week and I can give that credit to The Open University. So I wanted to say that if people have a dream and if they have a confidence they definitely should go to The Open University and they'll definitely get back all the hard work.

Rakesh Kumar receiving his Highly Commended Student of  the Year Award for Outstanding Contribution to an Organisation from the Dean, Professor Rebecca Taylor.