Where Should My Wife (thai) Study An Mba?

[Nepal4me]

My wife, who has taken time off studying for a few years while making babies and breast feeding etc. wants to get back to studying. She has a degree from Ramkhamheng in Political Science with a 2.8 GPA. Actually she is very smart, she was working full time and only took the courses at Uni to pass them rather than to acheive a high GPA. She is planning on going back and redoing some of the courses to improve her GPA. 6 years ago when we started dating, she wasn't close to being able to hold a conversation in English. Today she is conversant in English but makes the many common mistakes that Thai people make when speaking English. While her speaking improved dramatically in these years with very little study, just speaking with me, her reading and writing is quite atrocious. She understands an MBA program has tough questions that are difficult to understand for a native speaker let alone an ESL person plus the answers have to be written in proper English rather than in Thenglish.

So firstly she needs to improve her writing and reading in English so we are wondering where might be best for that.

Secondly, where would be the best place to get an MBA here in Bangkok? She would be open to distance learning Uni's as well.

Thanks for any help and suggestions.

Edited May 31, 2009 by Nepal4me

[Pierrot]

I'm actually surprised, with the number of so called english teachers roaming this forum, you didn't get any answer.

If you want to learn French, you have the Alliance Francaise, for German, the Goethe Institute. For english, in Hong Kong the British Council as good reputation, In Bangkok, I don't know. Anyway, for the fans of dear Abhi, you can listen to the talk he gave about 'International Education for Future Global Citizens and Leaders' on the British council website

http://www.britishcouncil.org/thailand-you...t-vejjajiva.htm

[scorecard]

I'm actually surprised, with the number of so called english teachers roaming this forum, you didn't get any answer.

If you want to learn French, you have the Alliance Francaise, for German, the Goethe Institute. For english, in Hong Kong the British Council as good reputation, In Bangkok, I don't know. Anyway, for the fans of dear Abhi, you can listen to the talk he gave about 'International Education for Future Global Citizens and Leaders' on the British council website

http://www.britishcouncil.org/thailand-you...t-vejjajiva.htm

Also surprised that no English teachers have responded.

In fact, from your description I wonder whether a private (but very experienced and professional, perhaps mid aged) tutor might be the way to more quickly bring your wifes reading and comprehension up to date, and to iron out her conversation skills.

In terms of MBA, there are many many choices in Thailand, but can I suggest that your wife be careful to 'match' with a realistic and workable option.

For example, with a bachelor (prinya) from Ram. University she might not be very well accepted at some of the more 'prestigious universities', which would not be pleasant. As a better example, in many of the MBA programs at the 'prestigious universities' pretty much all of the students are already in top of middle management or senior management positions in high profile organizations.

Further, her age could perhaps mean that she's out of the typical age group for MBA students, and this might be difficult to handle.

However, a fairly good option is the International College of Management Studies at Ramkamhaeng University.

This operates completely separately from the mainstream Ram.

- All programs are in English

- All programs are week-ends

- All lecturers are western and quite a few are flown in every week-end for the duration of a course from good US and other offshore universities.

- No classes are ever conducted through TV, old videos etc. Every class has a live lecturer.

- As mentioned above this college is run completely separate from the mainstream Ram. and looks / fells / and is totally different.

- The Director is Thai, very pleasant and easy to talk with, has many years of experience in lecturing and business school administration in the USA. He is totally focused: on the students and their learning journey, quality, and inists that all lectures are run to a typical western university approach.

- Always available for student counselling (in fact your wife may perhaps be able to get some practical ideas about how to go about raising her GPA for her prinya from the director or his staff)

- Reasonable fees.

- A sizeable number of the students in each group (normally total of about 30 or less in a group I think) are from offshore (China, Vietnam, Indonesia, Australia, Burma, South Africa, but of course this mix changes with each program). Classes tend to have a wider age span than the Universities I mentioned earlier.

I've given some guest lectures in a couple of programs, the students are sharp, pleasant, very focused on their studies and hard working and there is clearly added value from the diversity of the students in the class groups.

The main college is on Ramkamhaeng Road, Bkk, but I know they also have satellite campuses across Thailand, but I'm not sure of the locations.

[Nepal4me]

Thanks Scorecard for the detailed response. Interesting you mention the "prestigious" Uni's may not be ideal as she's not in management and may be a few years older than the other students. Probably not a lot older, she's 29 now so would likely be 31 when she starts her MBA. I didn't think about other students or even faculty having a negative attitude towards her. She is from the North but speaks Passaa Bangkok without an accent.

I was actually thinking about Chula but don't know what GPA is required to get in, nor do I know any other Thai "issues" that may present themselves. I have heard that it's about US$50K for a 2 year full time program. Also it's affiliated with Wharton in the US.

Your info on Ramkhamheng is good, however we are looking for a full time program rather than a weekend program.