For MBA student Leona Yiu, learning through experience is nothing new.
As an undergraduate student, the Ottawa native studied biopharmaceutical sciences before making the decision to continue her education with an MBA.
With her background in science, Yiu was used to conducting experiments and studying results to learn concepts. She regularly stepped up to volunteer in her community and took on leadership roles within the university.
When it came to business education, she was looking for a university and program that would take a similar approach and allow her to continue to learn through experience.
She chose Brock’s Goodman School of Business for its MBA in Business Analytics, an increasingly popular area for students looking to capitalize on the power of big data.
Brock University is known for its course-integrated experiential learning components that help students to learn concepts and make connections within their communities.
Yiu describes the Goodman School of Business as the perfect fit for her as she looks ahead to her career options in the field of data analytics.
I chose the Goodman MBA for this unique specialization, and I’d like to use business analytics to leverage the data available in the healthcare sector to reduce waiting times, operating costs, improve healthcare quality and efficiencies, and forecast opportunities within the field,” she said.
Through her classes, Yiu has actively worked as a consultant for two not for profit organizations in Niagara, an approach called Service-Learning at Brock.
Service-Learning pairs local not for profit or small businesses with business classes where students work in consulting teams to help them overcome business challenges.
The approach works to benefit both parties, as students benefit from gaining experience through working in a professional capacity with clients and from having a real impact on business outcomes and decisions. On the other side, clients benefit from gaining new insights and fresh solutions from students who are applying concepts they have learned in class.
Yiu has also taken advantage of several co-curricular experience opportunities at the Goodman School of Business and now serves as the president of the Goodman Graduate Business Council, the representative student body for graduate business students.
In this role, she has been able to gain experience managing a team and running programming to help improve the student experience. This has included offering services like Wall Street Prep and Advanced Excel training sessions to students.
She also volunteered as supervisor of the Brock University Tax Clinic, a free tax return service run by students. Once again, Yiu demonstrated the power of experiential learning through her successful term in this leadership role.
Brock provides students, like Yiu, with countless experiential learning opportunities. Through Service- Learning, co-op, international exchange, student clubs, case competitions, volunteer opportunities and more, students are regularly given opportunities to differentiate themselves and lay the foundations of career success.
An aerial view of the Brock University campus in St. Catharines, ON.Yiu stands out as an example of a student leader who continually goes above and beyond, but her story is not unfamiliar to the hallways of Brock University, where experiential learning programs help to shape the careers of thousands of students each year.
The Goodman School of Business offers course-integrated Service-Learning in the Bachelor of Accounting, Bachelor of Business Administration and Master of Business Administration programs, as well as the Bachelor of Business Administration International Dual Degree program — which provides students with a way to earn two bachelor degrees within 4.5 years while studying both at the Goodman School of Business and their choice of NEOMA Business School in France, EBS Business School in Germany or DCU Business School in Ireland.
