Safwat Kabany, Syria
For Safwat Kabany, from Syria, doing his MBA with Edinburgh Business School was the most logical choice. "I'm in the petrochemical industry and Heriot-Watt University is one of the world-leading academic institutions in this field of industry. I therefore knew a lot about the high standards at Heriot-Watt and these are certainly evident in EBS's MBA programme."
Safwat decided to do the programme as a full-time on-campus student, which was not without its challenges, particularly for a foreign student. "I had to cope with both language and cultural differences, which at first were quite daunting. EBS, however, is very skilled at dealing with people from different backgrounds and cultures and it wasn't long before I felt very comfortable in this environment. The faculty are extremely helpful and take a keen interest in every individual. The facilities at Heriot-Watt for resident on-campus students are excellent and not having to worry about where I would live or how I would feed myself ensured that I could devote all my attention to my studies."
Recognised today as one of the world's leading MBAs, Edinburgh Business School also has a significant number of off-campus distance learning students. Safwat said that while being on campus was more suited to his personal needs, he felt he would have coped had he opted for the off-campus programme. "I am sure I would have achieved the same result had I chosen to do the course as a distance learning student, perhaps taking a little more time. By being on campus one has almost immediate face-to-face access to faculty members, but EBS's new online technology will no doubt enhance the university's capacity to communicate with distance learning students in the near future. Perhaps the most impressive aspect of EBS's MBA programme is its flexibility. A lot of universities make this claim - to be truly flexible - but I believe EBS is one of the few which live up to it."
Safwat intends to continue studies in human resource management with EBS. But this time he'll be taking the programme off-campus, as a distance learning student.
