Hybrid MBA Program Student Profile: Q&A with William Jarrell

William Jarrell, Accounting Manager at Thrive Communities, is part of the Hybrid MBA Program inaugural cohort. We wanted to know what made William an early adopter of Foster’s new online MBA Program and what he thinks it’ll take to be successful in the program. William shares his answers below.

What is your current job and location?

I am an accounting manager at Thrive Communities, a local multifamily property management company. We are located in Seattle with our home office in SODO.

What made you decide to pursue an MBA?

I decided to pursue an MBA to make myself a more well-rounded business professional. To evolve beyond my technical skills and hopefully become more valuable to my employer.

Why Hybrid MBA?

The Hybrid MBA Program checked off all the boxes I was looking for in a program. Flexible enough to keep working full time, yet being able to attend a top 20 business school, learning from the highly respected faculty and everything else that comes with it.

What kinds of skills, habits, outlook, do you think you’ll need to be successful in a work-compatible, mostly online program?

I think organization will be the number one component in being successful in this program. The program workload is intense and keeping all of your responsibilities in perspective will be important. Being able to lean on your study team for support is also a great component of the Hybrid MBA Program structure.

What classes are you most looking forward to?

In the first quarter I am looking forward to Leading Teams & Organizations with Bruce Avolio. It’s going to require me to come out of my comfort zone and should be really rewarding. Onward, I am looking forward to Decision Modeling and Global Strategy. Also, really interested to see what the International Study Tour offers.

William Jarrell and his study team

Study teams are an integral part of the cohort-driven Hybrid MBA Program. What are you hoping to get out of our study team experience?

Learning from the diverse backgrounds that are on my study team will be a great experience. We all come from different industries with a variety of work experience and bouncing ideas off of each other will be invaluable. I also look forward to having the support of my study team through all the stages of the program.

Later on in the quarter, we’ll touch base with William to hear how he’s balancing his work load and how he likes the online portion of his coursework.

Read more from the Hybrid MBA Program

Published 09.28.2017

Updated 07.21.2021

1 Response

Leave a Reply