Brodie Bower Online MBA Alumni Interview

 Brodie is a chemical engineer and undertook her MBA studies as an opportunity to further develop her career and gain a holistic understanding of business operations. Thanks to her MBA, Brodie was offered a secondment into a different department which enabled her to explore new and exciting areas of her field. 

‘I chose an MBA to help progress my career and open up some doors to diversify what I was doing’.

Expand upon your skillset with real-world learning

The Master of Business Administration Online allows students to delve into areas of study that they may not have encountered previously, but are linked to their current working roles. 

As someone with a primarily engineering-focussed background, Brodie's decision to study an MBA was based on her limited experience within the business realm, and it meant an opportunity for growth. 

'I've always been fairly technical, and I wanted to grow that side of my learning where I could see more about how a business operates and move more into that sort of space', Brodie said. ‘The role that I am in gives me exposure to budgeting and KPI setting opportunities, so I found that the MBA complimented that really well and set me up with a good understanding of why we do the things we do at work. It enabled me to put my learnings into practice quite quickly'.  

Applicable study 

Brodie enjoyed the capstone project as she was able to delve deeper into her own organisation, understand business decisions, and implement learnings. 'I thought that it was particularly valuable with the MBA program that the assignments were based on your own organisation, so there were a lot of takeaways there - mostly because I was investing the time to do the assignment, it meant that I had already done the groundwork to directly implement at work'. 

As well as the capstone, Brodie appreciated the range of subjects offered that allowed her to apply her knowledge to general work areas. 'I enjoyed accounting as I hadn't had much experience with the economics side of things, and I also enjoyed the leadership subjects as I could look into our KPIs and alignment between teams'. 

'The system's thinking course challenged some of the conventional ways of approaching problems, so I took away some valuable problem-solving skills there'. 

High levels of support and flexibility 

Working FIFO, Brodie needed quick responses from her tutors and found comfort in their level of responses and the level of support that she received. 

‘I work 8 days on and 6 days off, so it was valuable that my tutors were able to reply quickly’, she said. ‘I usually try and get as much done on my days off as possible, so it was helpful that they would be able to get back within that window'. 

'I found that the workload was quite good as I could align it with my work schedule and apply learnings in real-time. When I'm at work, I'm just working, and then I can study when I'm home'. 

Brodie also found that the flexibility offered by studying online was instrumental in her decision to study at The University of Adelaide. 'Studying online meant that I was in control of the pace. The lectures are all recorded too which meant I could watch when I was able to, which definitely made online study possible for me'. 

Network with those outside of your field

Brodie was able to further connect with her peers via group assignments and external group chats. She found that due to the diversity of her peers' industries, she could apply their business lenses to her work and in turn teach them about her industry.

Join our Master of Business Administration alumni

The University of Adelaide’s MBA is the best way to kick start the next chapter of your career. Visit the Master of Business Administration program page to learn more or make an appointment to speak with an advisor today.