Keep on learning

No matter how inundated you are with work, enriching your knowledge through a quality learning programme is always worth the effort, writes Esther Lee

Ten years ago, I returned to Hong Kong from the United States and joined an international public relations agency as an account coordinator. It was an exhausting life, with tonnes of work and irregular working hours. I had no time to sit down and think carefully about my career and my personal development.

This hectic work pattern remained very much the same, even after I changed jobs a few times. One day my boss, who was Chinese but born in the Netherlands, caught me working in the office at around nine p.m. "No matter how much time you spend on your work every day, you can't finish everything. There's no end to it, as more work will be coming in tomorrow. You're not a robot! Please go home," he said.

My boss held the view that the quality of work would be determined by the quality of co-workers. He encouraged us to keep learning whenever possible as, with better knowledge, our horizons would be broadened and we could contribute more resources and creative ideas to the company.

At the time, I enrolled in a Master's degree programme in international marketing, jointly offered by the University of Strathclyde and a local institution. My boss recommended this open learning programme, as its business school was both famous in Europe and internationally recognised.

The programme covered a wide range of studies, including marketing issues in Europe, strategic marketing and research methodology. Numerous case studies were discussed during the lectures. Each module took about eight weeks to complete and professors from the university travelled from the UK and conducted a series of intensive seminars over a two-week period.

What made me appreciate the programme the most was that it offered students a great deal of flexibility in their studies, allowing them to complete the whole programme within three to six years. Although it took me five years to finish the course, at least it was achieved at a pace that did not affect my demanding job.

Looking back, I have come to the opinion that taking a Master's degree does not only enhance one's academic background but it also provides good training for working executives. It offers a chance to analyse situations and handle the same tasks from different angles and approaches. It also provides a good opportunity for working people to polish their skills and techniques for when they deal with real-life experiences at work.

Look for the right programme and the most affordable method of study that you can commit to before you decide to sign up for a course. In my opinion, information through word of mouth and recommendations by friends or people you trust can help best in making the right choice. There are numerous advertisements in newspapers and magazines for different educational courses offered by local and overseas institutions. It is obvious that you can never know if these advertisements are telling the truth or if their programmes are truly of a high standard, but you can always do some research about the school.

What I believe is important is to decide in advance about the kind of knowledge you really want to obtain from the course, what mode of study and duration you can afford and, of course, that very materialistic element - the tuition fees. Once the above is all clear, I would concentrate on searching for programmes by using the Internet, discussing with friends or talking to someone who has taken this course before. I think this is the safest way for all working executives to choose their part-time study programme.

Taken from Career Times 2004/01/09
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