Laurie Pickard's Blog

*Note: This post contains affiliate links.  Most business schools start their first-year students with a set of courses that get everyone on the same page, teaching certain fundamentals that serve as a foundation for the rest of the education. If you are considering putting together your own business education, I recommend that you do what […]

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I believe that every career (and every life) is a story in progress. The better you become at piecing together the bits of that story into a coherent narrative, the more easily you can convince other people (potential employers, bosses, investors, etc.) of what your next step ought to be and why you are ready to take it. I suggest approaching your career as a series of hypotheses and experiments, just as an entrepreneur who uses Design Thinking would approach designing a new product. I also emphasize the importance of innovation, creative thinking, and storytelling. What is the next chapter in your story?

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Chris Haroun has found a calling. Having spent time in a variety of high-profile business careers, including financial analysis, management consulting, and Silicon Valley venture capitalism, he now spends his days creating courses as one of the most popular instructors on the learning platform Udemy.

I first wrote about Chris Haroun's blockbuster Udemy course An Entire MBA in 1 Course back in 2016. Especially after having taken so many academic business school courses from the major MOOC platforms, I was impressed by how comprehensive, practical, and enjoyable Chris's course was. Since then, Chris has created a veritable business school on Udemy. In addition to An Entire MBA in 1 Course, he now has courses on finance, management, accounting, personal productivity, job interviews, and many other topics. Here are the three courses he recommends as follow-ons to his original course.

The post After “An Entire MBA in 1 Course” Chris Haroun Still Has You Covered appeared first on No-Pay MBA.

Have you heard of the 100 Days of Code Challenge? This incredible concept leverages the power of social media to help people stay motivated to learn something new. This month, I will be starting my own challenge, 100 Days of Business Education. I’m using the hashtag #100DaysOfBizEd. This post explains how it works and how you can join in.

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Over the past several years we’ve seen a variety of business education options tailored toward price-sensitive students. Starting around 2012, MOOCs made it possible to get a top-tier business education for free (minus the degree of course).

Since then, there has been an explosion of MBA programs and other business credentials, all costing less than a quarter of a traditional MBA.

Still, none of them has managed to do what Smartly has done. Smartly offers the only truly free MBA degree. Not a scholarship, not free-to-audit, but a fully free business education resulting in an MBA degree.

Learn more about it in this blog post.

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Four years ago, I hatched a plan to do my own “MBA” composed of free university courses (what I called a No-Pay MBA). At that time, MOOCs were just becoming more widely known, and many famous business schools were introducing new courses. I had an intuitive sense that a fully featured, prestigious MBA with all the bells and whistles (and all the debt) wouldn’t serve me as well as a more stripped down business education, designed and administered by me. That hunch turned out to be right, but it is only with the benefit of hindsight that I can fully account for the ways in which my decision not to pay for a regular MBA was a good one.

The post What’s My ROI? Calculating the full return on a business education appeared first on No-Pay MBA.

So you're not getting a degree? Then what's the point? Here are the top five reasons why I don’t worry about the fact that I didn't get a degree at the end of my No-Pay MBA.

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