Alberta’s first cohort of Master of Management students completes coursework

Nearly 30 university students are graduating with a new designation in Alberta, the Master of Management (MMgmt). They are the first cohort of the new program at the Haskayne School of Business that started in May 2019, with students completing their requirements by Feb. 28, 2020.

All Haskayne MMgmt students came to the program with a non-business undergraduate degree, moved through the program together as a cohort and learned from the diversity of the group. It ended with a weeklong intensive capstone project within organizations including WestJet and tourism industry clients in the Rockies. Banff and Lake Louise are tourism hubs for the province that attracted $8.9 billion in tourism revenue in 2017 with ambitious plans to double these revenues by 2030.

Tourism Calgary, Travel Alberta, Banff Tourism, Canmore Cave Tours, Lake Louise Ski Resort and the Fairmont Banff Springs brought the students behind the scenes to provide insights into how they uniquely define their organizations and maintain a competitive edge. Students had lectures in the morning and applied their learnings to cases in the afternoon.

Designed for graduates with no more than three years of work experience, the Master of Management builds on the knowledge and expertise that students developed in their undergraduate degrees by teaching them business principles and management competencies.

“Coming from political science, you take a regulatory or government perspective coming into everything,” says MMgmt student Courtney Lee. “We talked about several different cases that do involve tourism, but also they are controlled by the rules and regulations set out by the governments that they work within.”

“We focused on how firms can introduce market-based experiences into their organizations,” adds Dr. Scott Radford, PhD, Haskayne’s associate dean of teaching and learning. “We examined how to set the stage for these experiences, how to gain market insights, how to turn strategy into front-line execution through blueprinting, how to price and generate revenue, and finally how to balance profitability with the environment.”

Radford says he taught the MMgmt students twice throughout the program.

“The development of their business skills and knowledge in the last six months has been excellent. In this course we were not simply introducing concepts, but instead we were able to wrestle with more complex and nuanced challenges,” he says.

Not only did the students gain real-world business experience, but they also found time to have a bit of fun along the way.

“The capstone puts you through a lot of shared experiences,” says Lee, who completed her undergraduate degree at the University of British Columbia. “My personal favourite was the caving experience we had at the end. I think a lot of people were stepping out of their comfort zones when they were doing that. I think we built a lot of trust with each other.”

Lee has already secured herself a position at HSBC as a corporate banking analyst starting this July, interviewing for the position when she was halfway through the program.

“The program really focuses on career development and networking opportunities from the get-go,” she says. “In my final interview with HSBC, I felt well prepared and was able to capitalize on the skills I’ve developed through the program. “

Applications for the September intake of the MMgmt program are now open. Learn more about the MMgmt program, or attend the Haskayne Graduate Programs Open House on Saturday, March 7, 2020 from 2 to 6 p.m.