Well, sort of. I just completed my Oxford Executive Strategy Program online through GetSmarter. It is an 8 week program that was gave me a taster on the Oxford approach to strategy. It is not my first online only executive learning I did although as I did an Open University MBA before but it had residential classes.

The sessions were delivered and released on a weekly basis and consists of videos, reading materials and assignments to complete. The assignments are time bound and you will need to follow the guidelines and submit it before the next course. You are highly encouraged to reflect on those theories presented on your workplace or recent work experience.

You are taking the courses with a large group of students but are allocated a smaller sub groups. This will all be explained to you during the introductory session on the first week. You get to interact with the tutor and teaching staff through forums and zoom sessions.

Here are some short pros and cons of the course.

Pros

You actually get access to some faculty members and curated content that they have written

We had several Zoom sessions throughout the course to ask questions and interact

There are marked assignments every week and will receive feedback to check your understanding and engagement of the management theories

Cons

Like most online courses, you lack the opportunity to engage with students like you are in campus and build relationships. There is nothing stopping you from connecting outside of the online sessions.

You don’t have access to an online library with published journals for further reading or research

Once you completed your course, you only have a couple of weeks of continued access to the content and will have to download and store them offline

Summary

I thoroughly enjoyed my time with the course and although it being virtual, it allowed me to use whatever free time I had in between work and family live to study. The deadlines for the submission of the assignment works well in putting the pressure to complete the course as there are times where I would have otherwise get distracted. The course itself is pricy and I am fortunate that it wasn’t self funding. However, how can you put a price on education and knowledge.

I hope this gives you a bit of a taster of how the course will look like as I wasn’t sure it was even a legitimate organisation when I was registering.

Till my next post!