Find The Best Arizona MBA Programs and Degrees

An online MBA offers many advantages to the career-minded student. Unlike a traditional, full-time program, students can still work and take care of their family while advancing their careers. Online education also allows you to search for programs from business schools based in nearly any state, and more and more top programs, with top faculty and cutting edge content, are expanding to the online platform for their advanced MBA programs.

While stodgy academics at many colleges may have previously derided online education, they now seem to be embracing it. Educational software now supports multiple media channels including live chats, email, discussion forums, streaming video, and more. Some classes even reach out to support each other through social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter.

While the chief drawback to an online MBA seems to be the fact that you miss out on the collegiality of a traditional program, even that can be overcome. It is possible to interact directly with fellow students to give feedback on homework, and the peer-review process for papers thrives online. This does require a good deal of initiative on your part, but you are sure to find that your fellow students are eager to continue classroom discussions outside of the formal assignments. MBA programs are also starting to recognize this issue and have begun addressing it. After all, a chief advantage of the degree is the opportunity to make professional contacts with other corporate leaders in your field.

You’ll find that more and more online MBA programs have a policy for including opportunities for real-world sessions for networking and learning throughout the year. These might consist of a weekend seminar series or international travel to examine how business is done elsewhere. Such programs offer you the opportunity to enjoy the advantages of online education while also benefiting from real-world bonding with the brilliant minds you’ve met online.

You should consider gaining admission to an online MBA in Arizona if you want to advance your career in the region. That might seem like a simplistic statement, but is very true. It will be to your advantage to study in an Arizona institution if you have an interest in moving to or staying in that state. Arizona has a vibrant and growing economy and there is a lot the state has to offer you and your family in terms of recreation and general lifestyle.

Another reason to consider an online MBA in Arizona is that the state offers so many great schools. The W.P. Carey School of Business, for instance, is one of the top MBA programs in the nation. U.S. News & World Report ranks the Carey School at #4 for supply chain management and #10 for information systems. That puts them up in the rarefied air with many Ivy League institutions. What’s really great is that you can attend from anywhere in the world.

Arizona offers more institutions with top MBA programs as well, such as:

Arizona State’s Thunderbird School of Global Management
University of Arizona’s Eller College of Management
Grand Canyon University’s Colangelo College of Business
University of Phoenix

Each of these institutions offers online MBA programs with unique curriculums and student experiences. Just as there is an infinite number of unique websites, each online MBA program has its own character and flavor.

The Thunderbird School’s online program specializes in applied leadership and management. Their focus is global, as businesses must increasingly take into account a worldwide marketplace. You will learn how to translate the micro-economic principles that fuel your day-to-day operations into use for the global economy. Their Global Marketing Strategy course, for instance, will help you learn to introduce products and services into international marketplaces in a way that best suits your product and its targeted customers. Since foreign cultures and traditions can be perplexing, you need to establish practices and procedures that will help you avoid costly mistakes. Consider Chevrolet’s famous foreign gaffe. When it introduced the Nova automobile to the Mexican market the company was stunned to see dismal, if any, sales. Spanish speakers would never purchase a car whose name was “doesn’t-go”, thus Chevy’s marketing team learned something about how to introduce products to foreign markets.

Thunderbird does not technically offer an MBA degree, however. Rather, they offer a MALM: Master of Applied Leadership & Management. Such a specialized degree will make your resume jump out at recruiters and hiring managers, as your very degree indicates a specific focus and the sort of determination employer’s value.

The Eller College of Management offers a robust online degree program that offers both flexibility and top quality to those who have already completed a bachelor’s degree. If you wish, you can complete their program in as few as 14 months. If you need more time for your present job and family matters, you can prolong the degree for four years. You also have loads of options when it comes to selecting a concentration for your studies. Eller offers the following focus areas:

Entrepreneurship
Healthcare
Finance
Management and Organizations
Management Information Systems
Marketing

Eller’s core curriculum likewise offers focused learning and a foundation that will springboard your job performance to the C-suites. Their core courses revolve on a 14-month schedule, which is available on their website. Study their offerings and how those are distributed when plotting how you wish to approach their program. If a must-take course is a semester or two away, you can take your time and catch it when it rolls back around. As an online student, you have the opportunity to take the courses that best suit you when you want to take them. If you need to wait out a term, you can still work and integrate what you’ve learned to your real-world projects.

Grand Canyon University’s MBA program offers a comprehensive MBA curriculum that you can complete online, or through their night school program. Their Colangelo College of Business offers a wide range of degree options. The variety is a bit overwhelming, but if you have a specific focus in mind, there’s a good chance that your degree will reflect your business passions. Their degree concentrations include, but are not limited to:

If you decide that you’d rather diverge from the rubric of an MBA program, but are still seeking to enhance your business career, you might consider one of these degree options:

The road to a brighter business future starts when you find the right Arizona MBA for you. Start reviewing the application materials today. Good luck!