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0:07
- Good evening everybody and "War Eagle". We're right after six o'clock, so we're gonna go ahead and get started with our informational webinar tonight. On behalf of Auburn's Harbert College of Business, I wanna thank you for joining us tonight to learn more about our new Master of Science in Supply Chain Management program. On the next slide, I'm gonna introduce our panelists for tonight and who you're going to be hearing from. My name is Jordan Holladay
0:31
and I serve as the Director of Graduate Recruiting for the Harbert College of Business. Leading our Q&A section at the end of the program tonight will be April Hurley, who is the Academic Programs Administrator for all of our Graduate Business Programs and these specialized Master's programs, including this Masters in Supply Chain Management. So, if you do decide to enroll in the program, you will work with April on scheduling your classes and getting onboarded into the program.
0:58
Doing our main portion tonight is going to be Dr. Ishfaq, who's the Associate Professor and Graduate Programs Coordinator for our Department of Supply Chain Management. And we also just wanted to make sure to introduce Dr. Glenn Richey, who is the Eminent Scholar and Chair of the Department of Supply Chain Management program. He's not joining us for the webinar tonight. However, his contact information is listed right there, so you can feel free to reach out to him,
1:23
Dr. Ishfaq, myself, or April after this webinar for any questions that you have. On the next slide, I just wanna go over some of the protocol for tonight. We invite you to ask questions at any point during our program. There's several ways of course on Zoom that you can ask questions. I think at this point, we've all done enough Zoom webinars to know, but we're just gonna ask that you use the Q&A function tonight so we can streamline all of our questions in the same place.
1:50
That will allow us to see them all there and make sure that we can get an answer for you. So instead of using chat or hand raise, if you can just put your questions in the Q&A portion, we'll try to get to as many of those as we can. Our hope is to answer all of those for you tonight. But if for some reason we're not able to get to one of your questions, if you provide your email address, we'll make sure to follow up with you via email after. But April will be leading that discussion
2:14
at the end of our program tonight. So feel free to ask any questions you have at any point during our presentation. But at this point, I'm gonna turn it over to Dr. Ishfaq who will go over our agenda for the night and talk to you more specifically about the Masters of Supply Chain program. Dr. Ishfaq.
2:32
- Thank you, Dr. Holladay. Before I begin, let me first thank you for taking the time to join us this evening. You all are probably busy with a full day's worth of work or had other important things to take care of. So we surely appreciate your interest in Auburn and you being here today.
2:59
As Dr. Holladay mentioned, I'm the Associate Professor at Auburn University, and I also serve as the Graduate Programs Coordinator for the Department of Supply Chain Management at the Harbert College of Business.
3:17
I've been teaching for over 15 years in the undergraduate, graduate, and Executive MBA programs. Prior to academia, I worked in industry for about 10 years working in production and supply management roles.
3:36
I've stayed up connected with the industry in practice during my academic career through research and consulting projects.
3:47
I bring up my background to make a broader point.
3:53
All the faculty who teach in the Master's program here at Auburn have a similar professional background. And it's this diversity in our professional and academic backgrounds that allowed us to develop a Supply Chain Management Master's program that you will hear about today. So, when we set out to design a program, a curriculum for this Master's degree, we do so with a really in depth understanding of what the industry is looking for. What would it take to train a supply chain graduate
4:42
that is ready to take on the challenge in the industry?
4:48
And this is what I want to talk about today to give you that perspective, to give you that connection
4:56
between our Master's program and what you can do
5:02
with the training that you would receive in expanding your career options. So let's do that. Let's talk about the Master's program in a very broad sense.
5:17
I will talk to you about the curriculum, the program options. Talk about how we would ensure that you get a great job at the end of this Master's program, and get the details ready for you to consider applying for this program. And I would like us to move to the Q&A session because the most important thing today is for us to answer all your questions and make sure that you get all the information that you're looking for. So, the first thing that anyone who's interested
5:55
in a graduate studies would ask: why Auburn?
6:01
What is it that would get you to come to Auburn physically or virtually online to take on a master's level education? Well, the first thing that you all would know is that Auburn University is an accredited university. All our graduate programs receive the top level approval
6:26
from a international organization called AACSB.
6:31
We are also very proud of our rankings in both in the industry, as well as in academia. You may have heard of a company called Gartner. Gartner develops a industry-based employer and recruiter-based ranking of different academic programs in the supply chain area. And we have consistently been in the top 10 program in the past eight years. US News and World Report came up with rankings of graduate programs. Our MBA concentration, our graduate certificate
7:11
in supply chain recently received the top 20 rankings. We are very proud of that and it gives, and I'm sure it gives you the confidence to say, even though I knew Auburn is a great place, others say the same thing.
7:30
From a program standpoint, we offer both on-campus and online formats so our objective is to be able to develop a program structure that matches your needs in how you would like to pursue the graduate education. How we have our graduate programs that cover both a full-time and part-time Master's degree. We also have graduate certificate options where you take a smaller subset of graduate courses to earn a certificate. And we will talk about that today as well.
8:11
And then we also have the flexibility to combine an MBA degree with a Master's degree. For a number of students that probably is an attractive thing to earn two degrees in a condensed timeframe. We will talk about that today as well.
8:32
As I have mentioned a little while back, our curriculum is practice-oriented. It is very closely connected with what industry values and that's an advantage of coming to Auburn and undertaking a graduate education in Supply Chain Management. We have a very strong industry engagement. In fact, we will get, you get complimentary membership in one of the largest supply chain organizations in the country, Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals, CSCMB,
9:10
to which faculty, students network very closely with a lot of industry association and industry professionals. CSCMP has local chapters, maybe in the city that you are in, where you can go and attend their meetings and connect with employers and industry events in your region as well. And most importantly, I think coming to Auburn gets you connected with the Auburn family, the expanded Auburn network that will open a lot of doors just because you can learn to say "War Eagle",
9:51
like we all do here. So let's get into the program itself. The curriculum for the Master's degree covers some required courses and then some elective courses. Overall, you would need to complete 10 courses, which in a technical sense, it's called a 30 credit program. Each course is three credit hours long. The Required Courses is what everybody has to take. So there are, you can see a listing of six supply chain courses that covers 18 credits.
10:29
These courses range from, you know, functional details like inventory management and demand management, and then strategic courses as well, like supply chain planning and supply chain strategy. In addition to these required courses, you will also take at least four additional elective courses. These courses could be from other supply chain courses, or you can spread around and take up some courses in business analytics or supply or information systems
11:08
just to round up your total 30 course, 30 credit hours for the program. This program can be completed in about 18 months. The full-time student is going to take three courses per semester. So that would mean that you can complete the Master's program in a full-time role between fall, spring, and the summer in the middle and maybe the spring afterwards. So about 18 months, you can finish the program. Both on campus and online, you can finish the program as a full-time student in 18 months.
11:50
The program can also be taken in a part-time setting. A lot of our online students like to do that because it gives them the flexibility to continue their work and their education alongside.
12:05
Most of our students typically take two courses per semester and then they build in all of these courses together to get to the 10 course requirement for finishing the degree.
12:20
The other thing that I wanna talk about is
12:23
the way if you decide to go with a full-time program, is the benefit that comes from working through a cohort experience. What I mean by that is that you join your group of students that start the program together in a full-time setting. And you go through the program together as a group. So you get to work together on different case studies. You work together on projects, crunching data, getting frustrated together, learning together. And that just brings a level of personal
13:06
and professional bonds that continue beyond just the degree program itself. You would definitely get a very strong network of peers by engaging through a cohort experience in a full-time setting. Those of you who would go through the full-time program, either on campus or online, will take these courses in a certain sequence that you will work with me and with April, just to get your degree plans organized in a way that all of you can complete the program together.
13:45
It's not necessary to do the Master's program as a full-time student, especially if you have a work,
13:56
job work going on or you have some personal situation that you can't just put on hold. We have a lot of our students interested in completing the program in a part-time fashion online. And that just gives you the flexibility to take courses when you are ready to organize your degree plan in a way that can match your work expectations or your family expectations and still complete the degree in a timely fashion. The University gives you six years to complete your degree.
14:33
That seems like a long time. And most of our students finish the part-time program much sooner than that. But it is important that you stay engaged with me and with April to make sure that we have a degree plan that will get you all the courses you need in a timely manner. The online, part-time classes are exactly the same classes that your full-time students are taking.
15:07
That means that you will take the same class. And most of our classes are recorded and you get to see the recordings. It's a mix of class recordings. It's a mix of lecture recordings. So you will feel as connected with the on-campus,
15:27
the instructor as anybody can offer. And that's one of the hallmarks of our program that we can give you that class experience that most people value a lot.
15:41
We also offer a dual degree option, which is popular with the MBA students. What the dual degree program does is that it allows you to combine the degree requirements for an MBA and for the MS in Supply Chain Management. So you get to earn two degrees in a compressed time, where you can use some of the credits from the Supply Chain Master's program and combine it with your MBA credits. Overall, we get to about, overlap close to four courses between the two degrees, which means that your expense
16:24
for completing the Master's program can be cut short by 40%. So four of the 10 required courses, you can take it along with your MBA courses. And that would give you a dual degree at the end of the program so you graduate with the MBA degree
16:47
and the Master's degree together at the end of this program. Typically that would include completing your MBA requirements and then spending another spring and the following summer to finish off the Master's degree as well. So that's a very popular program. It provides you the...
17:10
Provides you an opportunity to combine two degrees together.
17:16
The other part of our graduate programs that is useful for people who are not ready to go full bore into the Master's program, is that we offer a smaller certificate programs, where you can take four courses and complete a certificate. The good thing about the certificate is that you can take up all the credits that you have earned and then can work that certificate into a Master's degree. And that would give you the flexibility of starting off as a certificate student and then transferring
17:52
or completing or transferring your credits from the certificate into the Master's degree. We offer three graduate certificates. Supply Chain Management Innovation. This certificate gives you a very broad understanding about supply chain fundamentals. And then you can take the Supply Chain Planning certificate, which is a strategy-oriented, high level planning in terms of how you would organize your supply chains. And our third certificate is about Supply Chain Operations,
18:27
which is the execution level training and learning how to manage supply chains from an operational standpoint. These courses, these certificates have a four course requirement where you complete the four courses and you earn the certificate. Our certificates are popular with the MBA concentration as well. Students would take these elective courses as part of their MBA and earn a certificate. All these other programs may call them as concentrations.
19:01
So this is another graduate program that we offer in the department that you might find useful.
19:08
One of the most important things with graduate education is what happens after that, right? So you all, I'm sure, are thinking about the benefits of what you can do with a Master's degree. You would like to hear that Auburn and especially the Harbert College provide some very solid career services for our graduate students. We have a dedicated group of professionals who would get you prepared professionally. They offer courses that you can take for professional development.
19:46
You get opportunities to improve your professional skills by competing in cases. We often go to other universities and compete with them. Sometimes we win. Sometimes we come back with the good withstanding. But all of that, all of those experiences get you ready to be able to go talk to recruiters and impress them as Auburn graduates. So we have a very robust and a very detailed career services group that would help you with your career placements to make sure
20:26
that you are ready on that account when it's time for you to go hit the job market.
20:34
So, the next step in terms of what do we need to do is get your applications ready, right? The fall application deadline is fast approaching. It's going to be closing down on July 1st, so all your applications has to be in by that time. From a applications and admission standpoint, we ask you to turn in a online graduate application that you can access through the Auburn University graduate school website. The link for a graduate application is also available on our Master's of Science website
21:19
at the Harbert College of Business. In addition to the graduate school application, you would have to go and contact your undergraduate institution to get them to send us official transcripts. And while you're working on getting those transcripts sent over, you can attach the copy that you might have, a personal copy, and attach it to your online application so your application is not delayed and while you're getting the official transcripts then.
21:51
You have to arrange two letters of recommendation. These will be people that you are working with who can speak to your abilities, to your professionalism. And these could also be your university professors who know you well and can speak to your ability to do, to undertake graduate education. But we do ask for two letters of recommendation from professional connections. An important part of the application packet is a statement of purpose.
22:29
This is a statement that you write, maybe a page or two, in which you describe your motivation for graduate education, and especially, what are your future plans with a Master's degree in supply chain? Where do you see yourself after completing the degree program?
22:51
We will also look at your professional and work experience. We ask you to upload your CV or your most recent professional resume, just so that we understand your professional background. That will be a factor in deciding on your admissions. And finally, there are standardized tests that we typically ask, especially GMAT exam scores to be turned in. As an exception for the fall admissions, the GMAT exams, the GMAT test scores are optional. If you have a good score and you think that is
23:30
gonna boost your chances for admission, go ahead and submit the GMAT scores. But it is optional for fall. And that's a temporary situation because of the COVID-related delays and difficulties in arranging a test date.
23:50
So, you can take advantage of this opportunity. Come springtime, we will start asking people to complete the GMAT exam. Remember the deadline is July 1st, so it's time to get those things ready.
24:07
The other important question that everybody thinks about is the cost of the program. And that's always a big question, and I completely understand that. You can see on this slide that we have priced our program very competitively. If you look across other opportunities, other options, other universities, you would know that our costs for the Master's of Supply Chain program is very competitive, it's a great value. The overall program costs for the online degree
24:43
is 27,000 plus your fees and other expenses like textbook and case packets that your instructors might ask you to purchase. For on-campus students, the cost depend on your Alabama residence status. The Alabama residents pay about 22,000 to complete the program plus fees and textbooks. And the non-resident program cost reaches around 56,000 plus fees and incidentals.
25:20
The cost of the program, the money that you spend in earning a Master's is certainly an investment. It's an investment in time and it's an investment in your future. And that's where I think you have to think about how long will it take me to earn back the expense of earning a graduate education? Well, in the case of supply chain management, the industry rewards higher education. There is a survey that comes out almost every year from Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals,
25:55
where they gather salary data in compensation packages. And you would be, you would find it interesting and happy to note that the Master's degree comes with a premium, about $26,000 per year higher median salary is reported
26:16
for people that have a Master's degree. So in a way, your investment will pay off in these higher salaries and you will be far ahead in terms of the expense that would go into earning a Master's degree.
26:32
The survey that I was talking about also brings up some very interesting statistics. 93% of supply chain professionals said that they would recommend this profession to a person starting off their career, entering a job market, which says a lot, right? Because we have to love our jobs to be able to say that. And that's one of the things, there are so many opportunities in supply chain management these days, that there was another survey I'm just thinking of
27:08
where they said that in the next 10 years, there will be a need for about 9,000 new supply chain managers. Just think about that. About 900 new positions opening up in a supervisor and management role that would by far require a Master's degree. So not only the salaries are beneficial with the graduate education, it's the opportunities that comes with it that's just continued to expand. I think, as they say these days, these are great times to be in supply chain.
27:45
You have probably heard a whole lot about supply chain on TV and on the social media. Some of it not as good, but at least everybody knows what a supply chain is and they all understand how critical it is for companies to do their supply chain functions
28:05
as best as they can. It's becoming a utility now. Every company has a supply chain element to it. And there is a great need for well-educated, well-trained supply chain professionals, or as we call it here in Auburn, the future supply chain leaders that can come out of a program like ours.
28:30
It's kind of like the big picture view that I wanted to share with you. I took more time than I thought I would. But at this time, I think I would like to open up our session for questions and answers. You surely can use the Q&A window in there to ask questions.
28:49
I would be very happy to answer your questions. I'm gonna ask April to look through the Q&A sheet and then share your questions with me. April...
29:03
- Thanks, Dr. Ishfaq. So we do have one question. I have a prospective student or applicant who is interested in a graduate certificate, and his question is can he come back and complete a Master's after finishing that certificate? - That is a very typical approach for people who would like to enter into the graduate education sphere,
29:27
just can't get comfortable with the idea of, you know, graduate level education. So yes, you can enroll in the graduate certificate, take the four courses that will get you the certificate, and then convert or transfer those credits into a Master's degree. So what we typically do is that when you get closer to finishing your certificate program, you apply for admissions into the Master's degree. And upon acceptance, you can take those courses that you have taken as a graduate,
30:03
as part of the graduate certificate, and we transfer those courses into your Master's degree.
30:11
We just want to make sure that we do it in a way that would, the University will allow us to accept those courses. And that typically is a very routine matter, as long as we make that transition before you complete the certificate. So as long as we keep the timelines in mind, yes, we will be able to use your certificate and then move into the Master's program as if you are almost halfway through already, right? So that's a very good thing. That's a very good way to get into the Master's program.
30:46
- So another question we have is asking about background requirements. So, students want to know if they need a background in supply chain in order to apply and or be successful in your program.
30:58
- Okay, that's a very, very interesting question because I hear about people understanding the opportunities that lie in the supply chain career. And they may have worked in, on the peripherals of this industry and now they want to come in with full training and full education and start a career in supply chain management. We will certainly encourage you to join and get ready for a career in supply chain even if you have not had academic background in it.
31:29
You haven't, your previous degree is not in supply chain. We will get you in and get you ready for your career in supply chain. The only thing is that you and I, we will meet and then sit down and make sure that you understand what the supply chain career is about and you haven't, you have some understanding about the discipline that you might have worked in a relevant field or you have been engaged with some supply chain related work so that when you go straight into a full-time career
32:04
in supply chain, you go in with a full understanding. And that's the conversation we can have as part of your application process to make sure that we have all the expectations lined up correctly.
32:22
- We have another one that is asking about
32:25
course information, is it available online that specifically the content of your courses.
32:32
- So there is so much we can put online.
32:37
So right now, I think all you get to see is the description of the course. And there is a way to link up with the university bulletin,
32:49
but that's really hard for someone who's not familiar with the website. But that's not a problem. If you are interested in understanding about a specific course, it's content and what is covered in it, you can certainly reach out to me or reach out to April, and we can provide you that information.
33:11
That is, that should not be a reason for you not to move forward with the application process. These courses are, as I said, are very much grounded in practice. So if you need more information, sure. We can get that to you. Just get in touch with me or with April.
33:31
- We have another question about the graduate certificate application and it is, is it the same or different from the Master's degree application?
33:42
- The requirements are similar in a way that if you are a current student at Auburn University, then you might have had your letters of recommendation already turned in. You may have your test scores already turned in. So it's a little easier to finish off a certificate application. You don't need a statement of purpose. You don't need a long resume of sorts.
34:16
So if, the requirements are a little less stringent than a Master's program. But if you have like concern about specific aspect of the application process, I can certainly answer to that. But in general, we would ask you to turn in an online application, turn in your references, and turn in your resume. And that should be sufficient.
34:48
- One additional question I see is a student, sorry, a person is asking whether we have hybrid options. Can they be online and full-time or move back and forth between the two programs? - So if I understand you correctly is that you take some of these courses on campus and some of these courses online.
35:09
I'm trying to figure out a circumstance where that might be the case. Typically our students either would like to take the courses while they're working, or they stay engaged with the family, and they take all these courses online. And for some students who would like to be on campus and, you know, do the on-campus degree, will take the on-campus courses.
35:35
If there's a particular circumstance that is related to your personal situation, we can talk about that offline. But usually, most of our students would either take the whole program online or on campus.
35:57
- Sorry, I was answering a question directly. (April laughing) - April is doing double duty here. - Yeah, I'm having to answer some of these as we go so... Let's see, there was a question about transfer credit. Are any of our Master's courses that they've taken at a previous, at a different institution, are they able to transfer any credit in? - So the Auburn University has certain rules around how many courses or how many credits can be transferred in at the start of a Auburn degree.
36:28
And so the university would allow us to consider, evaluate credits from other universities, other institutions, and you can bring in up to six credits into the Master's program. But that has to go through a review process to make sure that the credits that you are, that you have taken at other institutions map well with the content that we would have delivered, the training that we would have given you as a substitute for those courses that you have taken.
37:01
And if that is the case, then yeah, sure, you can bring in about six credits into the program.
37:13
- All right, and one additional question that I have received from other prospective students or applicants is about the nature of your courses. Are they more project-based courses or lecture-based courses? - So, I think that's where the practice-focused curriculum comes into play, right? So, most of our coursework is case-based.
37:38
There are many projects that are connected to a consulting project that faculty might have worked on. This may be a part of their research studies. Or just some partner sponsor companies who bring in their real time practical issues and they share it with faculty and with the students. So there is some lecture component, just to get the fundamentals and the background established. So you can think about these courses as about 50% lecture-based and 50% discussion oriented,
38:16
reflection-based case studies and industry projects. There is always a good bit of a data component in our courses, so that you not only look at the art of supply chain management, you also get trained and develop skills on the science of our discipline as well.
38:43
- And one last question we have come in, is the online program completely self-paced? Or is it a hybrid where there are timely lectures to attend or on certain days as well as some individually completed? - That's a very good question. For campus students, those people who would be on campus taking physical classes, there will be a certain schedule for when the class will meet. So you're, so we expect you, if you are a campus student to attend these classes on the regular schedule.
39:20
For online students, there is a lot of flexibility. As I said earlier, we record our lectures. We have content that has been recorded before. So when you enroll as an online student, you would get access to all these materials. And you will be given a certain schedule to complete your course modules, your course contents, and finish off all the assessment and the assignments that come with it. Most faculty would try to organize this online content and around modules that last about two weeks.
40:02
And the good thing for that is that you get about two weekends to complete the work. And I teach two courses in the Master's program, the Demand Management and Supply Chain Planning courses. And my courses are such that I try to organize the work in a manner that you can take those courses on the weekend. You can review those materials and work through the assignments over the weekend so that you can finish them along the way. So there's a lot of flexibility in the online version of the program.
40:42
The campus students have to be in class at a certain time and a certain day. And that's an added value too, right? You get to interact with the instructor. You get to connect with the faculty in real time. The online students certainly have the flexibility and they will connect with the professors, too. For example, I always have these online Zoom office hours
41:09
in the evenings where I get to connect with my students online as well. And other faculty has similar arrangements where you will be able to connect with your professor. But there's a whole lot more flexibility certainly in the online program in terms of attending class.
41:28
- Great. Those were all our questions. - All right. Well, thank you all again for being here, taking time out of your busy schedules to come and hear about the supply chain program and the Master's program at Auburn. We will certainly would like to hear from you and stay connected with you. So here are, here is some contact information. You can look up more information at the Harbert website, Harbert.auburn.edu. You can email me directly, and here's my email address up there.
42:04
Or you could schedule an appointment with April using that QR code. That's pretty fun thing. I tried it. It works. And you can call her directly,
42:16
but I think she would prefer you to use the online link to schedule a in-person meeting. I know that a number of you have already reached out to me and we have set up a Zoom time to connect with each other. For others, I will invite you to do the same. My email address is right there. Note it down, reach out to me, and we would love to stay connected with you. As for now, thank you very much. Appreciate you all coming over and hanging around with us.
42:48
Let me close this session with a very warm "War Eagle!".
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