MSc iBusiness Smurfit

helimachoptor

Hi folks, has anyone done this course or doing this at present?
Would you mind sharing you thoughts on it?

MrMatisse

Seems a bit waffley, not quite sure what you will get out of it. Seems like a marketing course

100

This is nearly the same course as last year's MSc E-Business & Information Systems (EBIS), which was previously split into two MBS courses i.e., MBS MIS and MBS E-Business.

The course has nothing to do with marketing nor apple (the i factor). It is essentially the business driven information technology course with strong focus on theory. The i in iBusiness stands for Innovation, that's also evident in full title of the course, MSc iBusiness - Innovation through ICT.

My two cents, its extremly valuable if you have number of years of IT experience and don't want to do the MBA. On related note, if you are looking for purely business or techy course, this is not really what you would want as this is a blend of both, see more here.

mrbig73

Hi 100!

I am interested in this course. I have about 15 yrs business management (retail & service industry), and am looking to move into a more tech industry probably in sales or acc mgt position. I've a BA in Business Studies, but that was many many moons ago. I'm 37 now, so realise trying to move into a more tech world is going to be tricky

Just wondering if an MBA from DCU would be more beneficial to me, or would the MSC in iBusiness stand to me in trying to get into the ICT world.

100

mrbig73 wrote: »

Hi 100!

I am interested in this course. I have about 15 yrs business management (retail & service industry), and am looking to move into a more tech industry probably in sales or acc mgt position. I've a BA in Business Studies, but that was many many moons ago. I'm 37 now, so realise trying to move into a more tech world is going to be tricky

Just wondering if an MBA from DCU would be more beneficial to me, or would the MSC in iBusiness stand to me in trying to get into the ICT world.

Hi,

My two cents -- if you have 15+ years of a specific industry experience then a degree in another discipline will not make any change. The degree only helps the fresh graduates or people with significantly less experience who want to use degree as a switching point. The iBusiness course is intense ICT related exercise and some modules are extremely theoretical (even somewhat philosophical aspect of ICT), I can see it would give you a good starting point in ICT with your business management experience but…. I wouldn't recommend it (to you), for the only reason that with 15 years of business management experience, you will be better off with a MBA specialized in ICT side (rather than ICT with Business).

Not sure about DCU MBA but do try Smurfit MBA, they are among top MBAs of Europe and definitely a career boost (especially if you already have business management experience)

On a final note, if you are honestly (even passionately) looking to switch from business management field and want to explore pure ICT, then iBusiness is for you. Likewise, if anyone has 15 years of tech experience and want to understand the business side of ICT, iBusiness is ideal as well.

Hope it helped.

Kram76

hi

I'm also interested in this course - there's an open evening in Smurfit on 23rd February where you'll be able to meet past students on the course and find out more...more info on the open evning on their website

cheers

deisedude

Quite interested in this course. Anyone know what the employment rate is like for the course?

100

deisedude wrote: »

Quite interested in this course. Anyone know what the employment rate is like for the course?

It all depends on your previous qualifications and status, if you’re:

Irish/EU Citizen and 0-2 years experience: High
Irish/EU Citizen and 3+ years experience (unemployed): Medium
Irish/EU Citizen and 3+ years experience (employed): Very Low (see note below)
Non-EU Citizen with/without experience: Makes no difference

Based on personal experience, if you plan to use this course (or any other such specialist course from any other university) simply to switch career or hoping to get a new employment solely based on your new-and-improved qualification, then you are on wrong track. Once you have 3+ years of experience, the MSc degree is not going to quick-boost your career, nor will university help you secure a so-called better employment. Also, at the end of the course, most of the jobs advertised internally (or via job fair or company presentations) are specifically targeted at fresh graduates with no experience (of course, already authorized to work in the country!).

deisedude

100 wrote: »

It all depends on your previous qualifications and status, if you’re:

Irish/EU Citizen and 0-2 years experience: High
Irish/EU Citizen and 3+ years experience (unemployed): Medium
Irish/EU Citizen and 3+ years experience (employed): Very Low (see note below)
Non-EU Citizen with/without experience: Makes no difference

Based on personal experience, if you plan to use this course (or any other such specialist course from any other university) simply to switch career or hoping to get a new employment solely based on your new-and-improved qualification, then you are on wrong track. Once you have 3+ years of experience, the MSc degree is not going to quick-boost your career, nor will university help you secure a so-called better employment. Also, at the end of the course, most of the jobs advertised internally (or via job fair or company presentations) are specifically targeted at fresh graduates with no experience (of course, already authorized to work in the country!).

Just finishing up the BComm in UCC so sounds all good to me! Thanks for your help 100!

Same As

Digging this up again lads, did anyone end up doing this course? Quite interested and considering it as an option for next year...

MuddyDog

I did this course 2 years ago. Got a job straight away. The course itself is fairly easy and doesn't take much effort tbh. If you've done any sort of business degree before doing this you'll do great in this course.

Same As

MuddyDog wrote: »

I did this course 2 years ago. Got a job straight away. The course itself is fairly easy and doesn't take much effort tbh. If you've done any sort of business degree before doing this you'll do great in this course.

Thanks for that! My main worry was actually coming from a relatively generic Commerce degree with limited exposure to IT. Was your own background a Business degree?

krautmick

Having done this course, I wish I hadn't wasted my time on it.

- It's subsidized, which makes the faculty think they don't need to deliver the same standard as in other degrees, even though they still get the same fees. Part-timers in particular get a raw deal with lectures held during the day and unreasonable fees structures.

- It's focused on maximum numbers (for maximum fee intake), very poor student to lecture ratios and the marking schemes are heavily geared towards maintaining a steady 'bell curve.' Very hard to fail it, and hard to overachieve as well.

- While there are one or two excellent lecturers, others are extremely questionable, bordering on the vindictive and incompetent.

I agree with '100's statement before. If you have experience, it may be better to invest in an ICT MBA. I'm sorry I wasted my money, and more importantly my time on this course. This course will not offer you much in return.

If you have no ICT background and hope to gain some through this course, it won't work either. It's extremely superficial with respect to ICT, pandering to the trendiest topics with little usable substance. There are better options than this.

If you are coming from an ICT background hoping to get a business grounding, it might work to some degree, but again, there are far better and possibly quicker options.

In my opinion, this course (and probably like many other specialist masters in Smurfit) is purely riding on the reputation of the MBA programme. The actual delivery falls very much short of even the most modest expectations of such a prestigious Business School and I would not choose to do this degree again if I had the choice.

Postit

krautmick wrote: »

Having done this course, I wish I hadn't wasted my time on it.

- It's subsidized, which makes the faculty think they don't need to deliver the same standard as in other degrees, even though they still get the same fees. Part-timers in particular get a raw deal with lectures held during the day and unreasonable fees structures.

- It's focused on maximum numbers (for maximum fee intake), very poor student to lecture ratios and the marking schemes are heavily geared towards maintaining a steady 'bell curve.' Very hard to fail it, and hard to overachieve as well.

- While there are one or two excellent lecturers, others are extremely questionable, bordering on the vindictive and incompetent.

I agree with '100's statement before. If you have experience, it may be better to invest in an ICT MBA. I'm sorry I wasted my money, and more importantly my time on this course. This course will not offer you much in return.

If you have no ICT background and hope to gain some through this course, it won't work either. It's extremely superficial with respect to ICT, pandering to the trendiest topics with little usable substance. There are better options than this.

If you are coming from an ICT background hoping to get a business grounding, it might work to some degree, but again, there are far better and possibly quicker options.

In my opinion, this course (and probably like many other specialist masters in Smurfit) is purely riding on the reputation of the MBA programme. The actual delivery falls very much short of even the most modest expectations of such a prestigious Business School and I would not choose to do this degree again if I had the choice.

Interesting post. Haven't read such a negative opinion about this course before. Was your undergrad in business or ICT?

In terms of jobs, have many found employment afterwards? Were the jobs of good quality?

How many are enrolled on the full-time option?

Would you say that your opinion was typical of graduates on the course?

krautmick

My undergrad was business, but that's a long time ago. I'm at home in both areas, ICT and Business.

As for employment after the course, I think this is somewhat skewed by the graduate programmes. I would gestimate that approx. 50%-60% of the students are 'recent grads' who tag another year onto their undergrad. Most of these will slip into one of the many, many graduate schemes that will be advertised and promoted within weeks of starting the course. Some of the schemes have closing dates as early as November, and the freight train of 'recruitment shows' doesn't really stop until May. As a result, most of the recent grads end up in some graduate program. How many of these will turn into full-time employment is a different metric and clearly allows the college to claim very high employment rates post course.

As for the full-time option etc, there is a lot of misinformation out there and one of the things Smurfit is rightly criticized for:
There is no real part-time option. The college has been unable (or unwilling) to field lecturers to run parallel PT and FT streams, so it has tried to facilitate both. This means lectures for FT can end up being in the early evening and PT will end up taking time off work to attend lectures starting at 2pm etc. It's been a mess, and that is despite some modules being as large as 60 participants.

Part time simply meant that instead of 3 modules, you may only do 1 or 2 modules of the FT course, reducing the workload but it doesn't mean its in the evening. FT is three semesters (in 12 months) and PT is 6 (in 2yrs), but the part timers end up paying double for that.

Rumour has it, that they are now finally running some modules in the evening for PTs, but I wouldn't hold my breath on that.

As for my opinion: It may be more cynical than the average, but criticism, complaints and even outrage have been plentiful, especially amongst more experienced students.

ucdperson

There is no real part-time option. The college has been unable (or unwilling) to field lecturers to run parallel PT and FT streams, so it has tried to facilitate both. This means lectures for FT can end up being in the early evening and PT will end up taking time off work to attend lectures starting at 2pm etc. It's been a mess, and that is despite some modules being as large as 60 participants.

I think you are confusing a part-time programme with an evening programme here. People may wish for an evening programme, but where full and part time students are in the same class, not all of the lectures can be in the evening.

In 2011-2012 this MSc had a very large demand and also had a much higher take up of offers than other programmes. As a consequence the class size did end up rather large. For 2012-2013, we split the full-time and part-time classes and closed applications in the early summer. As a consequence the class size is reduced by a third and the PT timetable is now much more evening friendly.

As for my opinion: It may be more cynical than the average, but criticism, complaints and even outrage have been plentiful, especially amongst more experienced students.

If outrage has been widespread, it is a pity that people did not take the opportunity to use the student evaluation processes to reflect this. On the contrary these indicate a high level of satisfaction.

However, it is the case that people have different needs and expectations from a Masters, especially people with substantial work experience. Consequently, people need to assess carefully whether any programme meets their particular needs, and the fit may not be a perfect one.

Postit

ucdperson wrote: »

However, it is the case that people have different needs and expectations from a Masters, especially people with substantial work experience. Consequently, people need to assess carefully whether any programme meets their particular needs, and the fit may not be a perfect one.

Can you tell me what would be a typical job on offer after completion of this course for both a recent undergrad graduate and maybe someone with a few years experience in non-related field?

I understand there may be some variety, but I would be interested to find out what is on offer.

iBusiness Smurfit

krautmick wrote: »

My undergrad was business, but that's a long time ago. I'm at home in both areas, ICT and Business.

As for employment after the course, I think this is somewhat skewed by the graduate programmes. I would gestimate that approx. 50%-60% of the students are 'recent grads' who tag another year onto their undergrad. Most of these will slip into one of the many, many graduate schemes that will be advertised and promoted within weeks of starting the course. Some of the schemes have closing dates as early as November, and the freight train of 'recruitment shows' doesn't really stop until May. As a result, most of the recent grads end up in some graduate program. How many of these will turn into full-time employment is a different metric and clearly allows the college to claim very high employment rates post course.


As for the full-time option etc, there is a lot of misinformation out there and one of the things Smurfit is rightly criticized for:
There is no real part-time option. The college has been unable (or unwilling) to field lecturers to run parallel PT and FT streams, so it has tried to facilitate both. This means lectures for FT can end up being in the early evening and PT will end up taking time off work to attend lectures starting at 2pm etc. It's been a mess, and that is despite some modules being as large as 60 participants.

All iBusiness PT modules are now offered in the evenings ensuring students do not have to take time out of work in order to attend lectures.


Part time simply meant that instead of 3 modules, you may only do 1 or 2 modules of the FT course, reducing the workload but it doesn't mean its in the evening. FT is three semesters (in 12 months) and PT is 6 (in 2yrs), but the part timers end up paying double for that.

Rumour has it, that they are now finally running some modules in the evening for PTs, but I wouldn't hold my breath on that.

As for my opinion: It may be more cynical than the average, but criticism, complaints and even outrage have been plentiful, especially amongst more experienced students.

Although, some of the iBusiness graduates enter the employment market through graduate programmes, most secured full-time positions (Project Manager, ICT Analyst, Online Media and Marketing Specialist etc) with high profile organisations both in Ireland and abroad (Google, eBay, PaddyPower, Accenture, PwC, Microsoft etc).

It's a pity that those alleged complaints have not been expressed as part of the student forum meetings or the "end of semester" student feedback process. We are always encouraging students to provide constructive feedback allowing us to improve the iBusiness programme.

iBusiness Smurfit

Postit wrote: »

Can you tell me what would be a typical job on offer after completion of this course for both a recent undergrad graduate and maybe someone with a few years experience in non-related field?

I understand there may be some variety, but I would be interested to find out what is on offer.

Hi Postit,
Have a look at LinkedIn's MSc iBusiness Alumni group or http://www.smurfitschool.ie/mastersprogrammes/innovationthroughict/mscinibusiness-innovationthroughict/careers,114125,en.html to get an idea about career opportunities and organisations recruiting our graduates (with or without previous work experience). Please contact me if you need any further information.

krautmick

iBusiness Smurfit wrote: »

It's a pity that those alleged complaints have not been expressed as part of the student forum meetings or the "end of semester" student feedback process. We are always encouraging students to provide constructive feedback allowing us to improve the iBusiness programme.

They were

Postit

iBusiness Smurfit wrote: »

Hi Postit,
Have a look at LinkedIn's MSc iBusiness Alumni group or http://www.smurfitschool.ie/mastersprogrammes/innovationthroughict/mscinibusiness-innovationthroughict/careers,114125,en.html to get an idea about career opportunities and organisations recruiting our graduates (with or without previous work experience). Please contact me if you need any further information.

Thanks. I had a look at both and to be honest the descriptions aren't great.

Can you tell me why I would be better off with Msc iBusiness than with my Business undergrad degree in terms of employment and job quality?

It will cost (living expenses & fees) several thousand euros to complete the MSc. Will I see the benefit of that in terms of a job when I graduate or will I just be applying for the same graduate schemes I can apply for this year?

vinomano

krautmick wrote: »

Having done this course, I wish I hadn't wasted my time on it.

- It's subsidized, which makes the faculty think they don't need to deliver the same standard as in other degrees, even though they still get the same fees. Part-timers in particular get a raw deal with lectures held during the day and unreasonable fees structures.

- It's focused on maximum numbers (for maximum fee intake), very poor student to lecture ratios and the marking schemes are heavily geared towards maintaining a steady 'bell curve.' Very hard to fail it, and hard to overachieve as well.

- While there are one or two excellent lecturers, others are extremely questionable, bordering on the vindictive and incompetent.

I agree with '100's statement before. If you have experience, it may be better to invest in an ICT MBA. I'm sorry I wasted my money, and more importantly my time on this course. This course will not offer you much in return.

If you have no ICT background and hope to gain some through this course, it won't work either. It's extremely superficial with respect to ICT, pandering to the trendiest topics with little usable substance. There are better options than this.

If you are coming from an ICT background hoping to get a business grounding, it might work to some degree, but again, there are far better and possibly quicker options.

In my opinion, this course (and probably like many other specialist masters in Smurfit) is purely riding on the reputation of the MBA program. The actual delivery falls very much short of even the most modest expectations of such a prestigious Business School and I would not choose to do this degree again if I had the choice.

I've successfully completed MSc E-Business & Information Systems (EBIS) 2010. this is well structured and standard course. Lectures are fine and they delivered the course in the well manner.. I have no doubts if anyone who does this will end up with great knowledge about IS interact with Business. I'm working now at Ericsson as a Software Engineer. this course helps me a lot.