Video - Matt Krise

MBA student testimonial

Video of Matt Krise at the MBA Residential School in Brussels, 2011.

Transcript

Q1. Tell us about yourself.

I live in Arizona in the United States right now so that’s where I'm from, but I grew up all over the US. I was born in Alaska and lived in various big states there in the mountains and so forth, and now I'm in the desert. 

I come from a product development background so originally I was a designer and really enjoyed those types of challenges of creating objects and understanding people and solving problems for them, and I think that kind of came from my adventures of being an outdoorsman and enjoying rock climbing and surfing and all that, so... and when I needed to take that adventure and apply it to a career I found that was a good fit for me.

Q2. Why did you choose The Open University for your MBA?

Coming from that product development background I wanted to balance that with the logics of business and that type of thinking and find a balance between the two, and I found in addition to that knowledge base I wanted a more worldly perspective, so I thought the ability to enrich my education with people from different backgrounds and different countries would be a way to understand their perspective and their point of view and just apply it from a different context that I knew I would get in the United States.

Q3. How has it gone so far?

It’s been a really interesting experience. The online part is new to me, but it forces you to articulate what it is that you want to say at the moment that it comes to saying it, where in a normal classroom you can just say something off the top of your head and it’s not so well thought out, so I find the conversations very well articulated, and the readings have just been excellent, really applicable right away, so I really appreciate that. 

There's been a lot of thought put into what goes in there, and I don't want to say condensed, but it’s well concentrated, so I find that very beneficial.

Q4. They call it distance learning. Is it distance?

It is, but it isn’t in other ways. The internet allows you to interact in ways that make it not so distant. I think it’s more... self-disciplined learning is another way to think about it where you have to be very focused but you immediately have somebody you can reach to when need to.

Q5. Early days but would you recommend it to others?

I would. I think it provides a different way of learning, and if that works for someone then it’s perfect, because it allows you to pair it with what else you have going on in your life, you know, and that’s really valuable.