I had been interested in pursuing an MBA for a while now when I came across an online course from the Madrid based IE Business School, so I duly gave their online course a go, it was more than just pretty good, it was excellent.

In 2016 I was in Madrid so I decided to drop in and view the school first hand and speak directly to an admissions officer. I firstly explored their full-time International MBA before heading to a different office to discuss the merits of the online MBA. Ok, so starting with the price for the part-time course, it was a whopping €55,000 for the 15 month duration course. The course required the first two weeks attendance on-campus for face-to-face classes before returning home to complete the remainder of the course online.

The online section via the Blackboard learning management system combined with weekly mandatory Adobe Connect video link sessions on Saturdays. The units are delivered on a sequential basis with only one unit delivered at a time, you place your sole concentration on that one unit – I liked that concept.

The full-time course is Monday to Friday on-campus in Madrid and priced exactly the same, the choice now is, work full-time and study part-time or no work for the next year and a quarter while managing a large student loan, living expenses combined with the cost of running my household in Australia.

I was interested in the part-time course right up to the point where I would be given no advanced standing credits for already completed units undertaken at university, their attitude is, you sign up to do our course, you do the whole of the course in its entirety. Unfortunately, despite clutching a hand full of brochures, I had already made up my mind before leaving the building.