The original version of this article contained multiple errors and information that was unclear, and has been changed. See the bottom of the article for additional information.
One week, it was a financial institution in São Paulo, Brazil. And another, it was a toy corporation in Los Angeles.
But these weren’t business trips. They were field trips organized by UCLA Anderson School of Management for its Global Executive MBA for the Americas, which launched in 2011.
Twenty students, many of whom spent the 15-month period traveling and working full-time jobs in their home countries, completed the program’s first cycle last month.
Through the program, a partnership between Anderson and a prominent business school in Chile, participants receive an Master of Business Administration from each of the universities.
The program is intended to give students from both the United States and abroad a wider perspective of the business models and trends specific to Latin America, said Bob Pettit, the executive director of the program.
Rather than spending two years in a university setting, the students met once a quarter for two weeks at a time to complete all the required hours for the MBA degree. They visited businesses in various cities within the United States and Latin America, including Miami, Rio de Janeiro and Santiago, Chile.
“I gained a much better appreciation for the Americas as a region, and their expansion in the business world,” said Roman Fry, recent graduate of the program and engineering manager at an aerospace engineering company.
The program’s nontraditional time frame appealed to the students, many of whom work full time, Pettit said.
Students who hold upper management positions in corporations and have an interest in North and South American business are eligible to apply for the program, according to the Anderson website.
The Anderson school has a similar program in place in Asia. With the expanding business industry in Latin America, it seemed logical to begin a program in the region as well, Pettit said.
Susan Ewens applied for the program after hearing about it from a friend who completed the global MBA program in Asia, she said.
Ewens’ own company is beginning to branch into Latin America, which spurred her interest in applying for the Anderson School’s program for the region, she said.
Ewens, who works for a graphics and printing company in the San Francisco area, added that she applied to the program because she thought it would challenge her skills and knowledge of business industries.
The students visited a variety of different corporations in each city, from the Mattel toy corporation and ESPN in Los Angeles to the world’s largest mining company in Brazil.
The time in between her class sessions, which the Anderson School calls “modules,” allowed her to immediately apply what she learned to work after returning to San Francisco, she said.
“I had never taken accounting or finance before, and I could apply that knowledge right away at work,” Ewens said.
The amount of time the students spent together in such a tight-knit environment allowed them to form friendships beyond business connections, Fry said,
“We started off as professionals, but strangers. We ended as very good friends,” Fry said.
Pettit said the Global Executive MBA for the Americas program is accepting applications for its next cycle, which will begin in April 2013 and end July 2014.
Contact Estefani Herrera at eherrera@media.ucla.edu
Correction: The name of the program is the Global Executive MBA for the Americas. Through the program, the students visited a financial institution in Brazil. Students met once a quarter for two weeks at a time to complete all the required hours for the MBA degree.