Student profile
Bing Cao

Bing Cao

"The most useful skills I learned during the MBA programme are the ways of innovative thinking and creative problem-solving skills...Surrey’s MBA modules also have a focus on digital economy and innovation, which helps me keep updated with the latest market trend and technologies." 

Course

Master of Business Administration MBA

Entry year

2018

Bing Cao, Senior Business Development Manager of an Australian State Government Representative Office, shares her experiences studying for a Full-time MBA at Surrey. 

"Having worked in the field of international trade and investment facilitation for over 12 years and being involved in broad sectors, I felt like my mindset had entered a set patterns at work, which might limit the space of my career development and weaken my competitiveness in the job market. Since 2017, I had been eagerly seeking an opportunity for systematic education on the latest business management tools and to get new ideas to refresh my mind.

I did research into higher education providers in the UK, comparing the rankings, awards, teaching quality, student satisfaction, transportation convenience and cost, accommodation quality, safety level of the city, tuition fee, scholarship and brand potential of each university, weighting the factors and getting a score of a list of 50 universities. University of Surrey was the one with highest price-performance ratio in the list.

Surrey’s teaching quality is one of the elements I valued most. In my research I understood that Surrey was the gold award winner in the Teaching Excellence Framework. When I started my study here, I did meet and receive education from world-class professors and good teaching staff, most of whom have both academic excellence and industrial experience.

Surrey’s MBA modules also have a focus on digital economy and innovation, which helps me keep updated with the latest market trend and technologies.

The modules of Surrey’s MBA programme provide us with practical tools that can be easily applied in real work. With problem solving skills, it is now easy to establish a frame work to analyse a problem and allocate proper tools which can assist me to address a problem.

The MBA programme equips us with a tool box to solve any kind of problem at work, instead of just reading about them.The most useful skills I learned during the MBA programme are the way of innovative thinking and creative problem-solving skills. I seldom thought that a creative mind-set could be trained, but the practice I took in this year proved that systematic training sharpens one’s mind and helps generate creative ideas.

I was longing to learn some accounting and financial analysis skill but had no opportunity to get in depth coaching due to my previous busy working schedule. In Surrey, I had a chance to access related information in this field, and to solve problems in real business cases. These skills will benefit me in the future as I aim at shifting my focus at work to the investment side.

Surrey Business School provides an excellent career development service and mentor program. Our CVs have been polished by the Career Advisor, and we’ve undergone mock interviews. Mentors from industries are happy to share their insights on our projects and business trends in the UK. Access to these sessions give us competitive advantages in the job market.

Students in the Full-time MBA class are also highly diversified. Studying and working with cohorts from different countries and industrial backgrounds broadened our knowledge, improved our understanding of different cultures and activated our leadership skills in multinational contexts."

 

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