Majoy Clemente's MBA path began with a Professional Certificate

Majoy Clemente takes life one step at a time. It’s how she became a fitness instructor, senior manager and Melbourne Business School MBA student.

Majoy loves helping people in her job and her free time. Her people skills have taken her from gym junky to qualified group fitness instructor and call centre leader in the Philippines to senior account manager in Melbourne at major Australian technology company Datacom.

Majoy’s Datacom team looks after customer inquiries for major business and government clients across Australia, which sparked her interest in learning more about how organisations operate.

“My background is psychology, so I feel like I’m good in managing relationships, and that's why my role involves client relationship management. But I feel that there's something lacking on the business side of things.”

Finding the right path

Her busy life in and out of work (where she leads regular fitness classes) made an MBA seem impossible. But by applying her step-by-step approach to life, Majoy enrolled in our part-time Professional Certificate in Business Administration, an introductory program that feeds into our Part-time MBA.

“I researched and looked at possible options. I know MBS is the number one MBA school in Australia. I know I want to do an MBA, but I know it's a big commitment," she says.

“The Professional Certificate, it's a preview of what to expect in an MBA. It’s a 10-week course that included marketing, operations, managing people, financial accounting and finance. I think it was a really great program to give full-time professionals who want to understand more about business, or maybe if they want to do an MBA."

Majoy’s enthusiasm for the Professional Certificate program stems from its relevance to her work, which convinced her to continue into the Part-time MBA.

“That's a really good starting point. You get to learn a little bit about all those business areas and just end up wanting to learn more. And that's what happened with me.”

First steps

Melbourne Business School’s Professional Certificate in Business Administration is the first step toward a Part-time MBA. Designed to provide a flexible study option for busy professionals, it leads into the next stages on the path to a full degree, which are the:

• Graduate Certificate in Business Administration (6 months+)
• Graduate Diploma in Business Administration (12 months+)
• Part-time MBA (24 months+).

Majoy says her classes at Melbourne Business School provided knowledge that she could apply instantly at work – and knowledge that didn’t just come from her lecturers.

“Every day after class, I would go back to work and there’s something that I would experience that was discussed in class. And then the best practices that are shared by my classmates, I would draw on ideas and opinions from that to be able to manage my work. That's really helping me a lot, and that's what I really like about what I'm doing; studying an MBA and being able to link it, pretty much, straight on with what I'm doing.”

Asking the question

The moment Majoy knew she wanted to go all the way to an MBA came early in the Professional Certificate’s Business Essentials course.

“In the Business Essentials course, the marketing professor asked the question, ‘Why are you here?’ And then I was silent and really, seriously thought about this question. And then I said, ‘Yes, I'm doing it for myself. I want to improve the quality of my thinking. I want to learn more about the business side of things.’

“And then, when he said, ‘If you're here because you want to improve your quality of thinking, raise your hand.’ And then I knew, yes, I am where I should be.”

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