hi I'm Don py I am the director of you Al MBA for executives program and this is the first and what promises to be many conversations we'll be having with program alumni faculty and students about their experiences in the program and what they think you need to do to succeed in the program and to extract as much value as possible today we're talking with 2020 Alum Rebecca Taft who's also the owner of modern hair hair Salon 116 Wolf Road in Colony uh my name is Rebecca Taft and I am the owner of modern hair salon in Albany New York so Rebecca inquiring minds want to know why the MBA and why now well I had been in the salon industry for over 20 years and I had never had any business experience so uh years before I officially started the program I had taken a few classes in the evening MBA program I found them really interesting and then I had some life changes and as a personal goal I decided I wanted to finish the MBA in what ways has the program helped you so so many ways I uh personally and professionally I made a really great group of friends when I was opening the business I had people from various industries that I could turn to as sort of my own private Consulting Group I had a lot of insight and opinions on things like salon Decor or even products that I carried some Financial Insight from people who had a little more experience than I did um professionally I made a a little bit of a career change after the program into the financial services industry and so learning about um you know how to read a balance sheet and like discount cash flow models and things that I had never learned before were really helpful in making that change and then um I now I use them in my own in my own personal Investments and it's it was really interesting to learn like oh there's a framework for all of this that I didn't know before how else has it helped uh a lot I honestly it is it I think about it almost every day in ways that have helped me it's helped me become more aware of how to Market my business it's helped me uh expand my social group it's helped me feel com confident knowing that I can do things during the program you face a lot of challenges um there are things that you need to work you know work on projects with a team and if it's material that's unfamiliar to you you you get that whole team saying yeah you can do this so when I was having challenges opening the business it was really nice to be able to turn to former classmates people that I wouldn't have known before who would rally for me and say like yeah okay remember we learned about this and you know um organizational behavior or whatever or just to have a have a um a cheerleading group that was supportive that that saw we all saw what we could do what we were all capable of uh it was really gratifying to have that when I had some you know some challenges getting open so Rebecca why choose the NBA for executives program uh well I liked that there was um the program was 2 years so you you had a very clear finish and end as opposed to take just one class and then you'd move through maybe take another class uh it was great that there was one price no surprises included the international trip which was really um appealing and included all the textbooks and the meals and you could just show up uh with your interest and and your brain and everything was essentially delivered to you it made it very easily accessible you found this video informative please pound that like button and subscribe to our channel in the meantime thank you so much for watching we'll catch you next time