Yet another Quantic review (neutral)

I am graduating from Quantic MBA soon so I think I should write a review!

Just a bit of a background, I am coming from the Academia. I have a PhD in economics, while my BA+MA was more management/commerce/business adjacent. I am a social economist most of the time with some work here and there outside of academia.

I think it is important to put a disclaimer that I did not pay a cent for Quantic. A colleague told me that he’s getting into Valar with partial scholarship, as he’s trying to transition from academia to industry, and he asked me for my opinion. I told him that I don’t think any MBA that cost less than $40k would be very useful to open doors (my point of reference was only close friends who went to Hult, IIM-A, and Strathclyde). He was quite adamant so I checked it. Was redirected to Quantic and before long I was admitted with a full scholarship.

I will list things that I think are good from my POV: - The cohort system definitely give you a good sense of belongingness and cameraderie. This is my first point because I found a couple of people who are really great, and we talk to one another beyond the coursework. The system sort of force you to quickly determine who you want to be in a group with, because remember that most people are busy. IT means that many smaller groups are already formed and if you are not proactive you will end up alone, and doing Quantic while being alone is very very challenging. - There are in total 3 group assignments. The first 2 are with the modules (Accounting; Corporate finance) and the last one is the Capstone project in which you get to choose whether you want to do a business plan or strategic analysis. We opted for the latter, although from what I understand Quantic has a kind of funding for the best business plan. The group assignment was important in creating a bond with your groupmates, but it is tricky to manage. For the first one we managed to do everything smoothly. On the second one, I tried adding an additional person from my field who is clearly a LinkedIn influencer and it did not end up well. I stayed with the same group to the end. - There are 2 personal assignment which I thought was really really easy. I spent a grand total of 3-4 hours each and managed to finish with a 4 or 5 (out of 5) grade. The effort to make myself work through it was the most difficult part as I am a person who work with physical infrastructure, so just being told that I have to send in something was not a good enough motivation. - The course is actually very well made. I didn’t learn anything new because I went to a very intense BA in which almost everything was already covered. But i thought of it as looking at the course from another point of view. The closest comparison would be if you tell ChatGPT to ‘Explain this concept to me like I am 15’. Honestly, I am an economist and I was trained in accounting for 6 semesters but I never thought that it could be taught in such an easy to understand manner. Kudos to whoever build the courses. It is designed to be like Duolingo, so it was not intimidating. I think the biggest issue would be to motivate yourself to actually do it since it looks easy and you might just thought that you could postpone it (happened to me). - I felt that there’s a structure that is given by the schedule. Each module takes around 2 weeks, and there is a biweekly email to keep on reminding you whether you are on track or not. However, the program itself is very flexible. Although it says that the exam must be done before a certain date, in reality they are ok if you do it later as long as you finish everything before the deadline (around 2 weeks prior to the graduation date). It was great for me because although I was ahead of the schedule at the beginning, I faced some challenges from my personal life and had to stop doing Quantic for like 5 months. The team was very helpful in encouraging me to find time to finish, while acknowledging my personal issues. - It can be as little as you want and as much as you want too. Like what other reviewers have said, it is totally possible to do all the courses and get your MBA without putting too much effort. It can give you a lot too, since Quantic actually provide you with some additional readings and sessions with professors. - The exams are really nervewrecking, but you simply need to be prepared. I.e., make sure you download all the pdf and read all the documents they gave you. I failed 2 exams which I did in the same day because I had mental breakdown (and also I did it during the peak of heatwave in a region without any AC). Later, I did 3 exams in 1 day and I passed all with more than 90%. This type of exam values people who can keep their calm and be well prepared. I have never been a good exam taker, so it was quite hellish for me. The exam is for 5 hours, the clock does not stop once it starts. There is no going back, so once you answer you get to see right away whether you answered correctly or not. This can affect your psyche if you have several mistakes in a row, which was the case with me. - The capstone felt very serious because they gave us half a year to work on it, with a lot of check-in along the way. The biggest problem is the group work and fitting everyone’s schedule. This is extra difficult with QUantic since often your colleagues are in different timezone with different set of holidays.

There are things that I think Quantic can improve: - Each cohort has their own Slack group. My cohort’s slack is pretty dead, there must be something that Quantic can do about this - The meetups are rare and far in between. I am based in Europe, and I haven’t seen any meetup here. It has always been in Asia/US/Middle east. - I found the career coaching to be quite lacking. It was very general, nothing I did not know before, and seems to be too focused on the LinkedInese (find your purpose, believe in yourself, follow your vision, those kind of crap).

So in sum, I think Quantic is a great checklist MBA. If you already have a career and require an MBA to get that promotion, it is a great way to get your MBA. Learningwise, I am surprised that they can actually dumb down some complicated concept with amusing examples to make it easy to remember. The infrastructure was well thought of for an online MBA. I mean the dashboard is pretty intuitive and they have an AI advisor who can answer everything Quantic related. For example if i forgot how to register to microsoft office, I just have to ask the AI without having to go through the entire website. The team is pretty responsive and very eager to help you. It was a great experience afterall, although please remember that I did not pay a cent for it.

You should not choose Quantic if you are looking for a way to pivot your career. I still put Quantic under ‘additional courses’ on my CV, because I don’t think it is going to open that many doors compared to other traditional MBA. But hey, you get a pretty good instruction for $13k. It is definitely not a scam, although the value for money might be different from one person to another.

Feel free to ask me anything.