Beyond the Degree: Why Skills-Based Education Wins
In this bonus episode of Unstoppable Stories, UMGC's Cathy Francois, Director of Career Services, moderates a conversation on the benefits of skills-based education with Dr. Patti Phillips, CEO of the ROI Institute and adjunct faculty for UMGC's MBA program, and Chava Roberts (BSc, MHS), a clinical trial manager and UMGC MBA student with eight years of experience running complex oncology and translational research trials.
Dr. Phillips draws on decades of global consulting work across nearly 70 countries to explain how skills-based education differs from traditional, test-driven learning, and why closing the capability gap matters more than ever as organizations face rapid technological change. She walks through how business simulations, case studies, peer review, and community-partnered projects give students real opportunities to practice, not just memorize, the skills employers are looking for.
Chava shares her own path from working across complex, cross-functional clinical trial teams to pursuing an MBA at UMGC to learn the "unspoken language" of leadership and decision-making. She reflects on how the program's emphasis on communication, collaboration, and problem-solving has translated directly into new confidence and responsibility in her career, and offers advice for anyone weighing a graduate program that promises real-world skills over theory alone.
Episode Information
Lauren Cardillo
Hi and welcome to a bonus episode of the UMGC podcast Unstoppable Stories. Today, we feature a topic that should interest current and prospective students the benefits of a skill based education. We will hear from UMGC, Cathy Francois, as well as Adjunct Professor Doctor Patty Phillips and UMGC MBA student Chava Roberts. We hope you enjoy this episode.
Cathy Francois
Hello, Doctor Phillips. Hello. It's nice to meet with you today and talk about skills education. Really excited about this conversation. And to learn a little bit about your background and your thoughts on skills education impact, both on the curriculum and both in your professional lives. I wanted to start with a brief introduction. Just so people know a little bit about you, I have just some brief bio.
Cathy Francois
Doctor Patty Phillips is the chief executive officer at the ROI Institute in Birmingham, Alabama, helping organizations build capacity in measurement, evaluation and ROI, and also collaborates with UMGC faculty on their courses for the MBA program. Also joined by Chava Roberts, who works as a clinical trial manager with eight years of experience leading complex phase 1 to 3 clinical trials across oncology and translational research.
Cathy Francois
She is earning her MBA here at UMGC. Thank you both for joining. So I'm going to start with a question that I'll ask both of you to ask. I'll start with Patty first. If someone met you for the first time, what part of your background would surprise them?
Dr. Patti Phillips
I think.
Dr. Patti Phillips
The part that would surprise them most is the reach of our business and the experience from an international or global perspective that I've had over the years. Because I'm in Birmingham, Alabama, when I first meet someone, what we do is not the first thing that that we talk about, and then we talk about the work and how expansive it is.
Dr. Patti Phillips
I think it's sometimes a surprise to people because the issue of, you know, skills based education, application of skills, the impact on the organizations and the communities these organizations serve, and the interest in efficient use of resources, or ROI, is so big. I think it's sometimes surprises people. So I think it's really about the work that we do in the reach that we have.
Dr. Patti Phillips
That would be most surprising.
Cathy Francois
Excellent, excellent. And how far is your reach? You mentioned different countries or global aspect of your of your business.
Dr. Patti Phillips
Yeah. Thank you. It's a we're currently so I've worked in personally and then you know my business in about 70 countries. So we have partners in different countries. They represent our business. But I've actually had the opportunity to work in those. And so pre-pandemic, in a given year I might work in 35 different countries, different organizations, and then my partner would work in another 35.
Dr. Patti Phillips
And then we have our other partners throughout the world. So we work in a variety of countries and then also across industry. So private sector, public sector, nonprofit, NGO work. In the end, all of these organizations face the same issue. And that is capability bringing on the right people, the right talent, and ensuring that the talent they bring on can do the job sooner than later.
Dr. Patti Phillips
And that's why this conversation is so important, and why I'm so interested in is the skill based education. Because in the past, higher ed was more about the theory, which is important. So not discounting that, but the need for the capability and closing that capability gap is so incredibly important, regardless of industry or sector or country they are all looking for.
Dr. Patti Phillips
The same thing is, how do we bring on talent that can deliver value sooner than later? And then who can adapt to the ongoing change that we as organizations and communities are facing?
Cathy Francois
Excellent. And we'll definitely touch more on that. Chava. So I'm going to ask you to extend question if someone met you for the first time, what part of your background would surprise them?
Chava Roberts
Yeah, I think the first thing that they would hear is my accent. I think that's the conversation starter because they usually hear like, where's that from? And that usually takes me on this round to where I was born and that being the Bahamas. And then they're meeting me for the first time. They asked me, well, what are you doing in Maryland?
Chava Roberts
Like, why are you using Maryland and not? And I think that kind of coincides with this topic of being skill based education and just being someone from abroad and moving into the United States to pursue my education. It has been important to me to continue nonlinear track of, you know, picking up those skills along the way and reinforcing them into my career.
Chava Roberts
And I think that usually stems from any 4 to 2 that I picked up along the way. My my goals in general, that has really driven me all the way here to run GC to pursue my MBA. So back to your question. What is something that someone would like notice about me for the first time? It would just be my capability to continue on the track that I've been going on, and then reinforcing the fact that I've always brought from as a part of who I am today or what I'm choosing to pursue.
Cathy Francois
Thank you. So I have a question for Patty. So over the course of your career, you've seen management education evolve significantly. How do you define skills based education and how does it differ from the more traditional, knowledge focused approaches that many of us experience in the past?
Dr. Patti Phillips
So skills based.
Dr. Patti Phillips
Education is one where students learn what they need to know, so they learn the theory, they learn how to, but more importantly, they are putting it to practice. Traditional education was all about the textbook. It was the true false quiz. It was the textbook. Performance was defined based on the score on the test. Skills based education doesn't discount the value of the test.
Dr. Patti Phillips
But that's not the focus. The focus is on performance with the skill in the classroom, either on an actual project. So working with your advisory council, with your boards, your businesses in the community to give them a real project or at least a simulation. One of the programs that I taught years ago in an MBA program was an international business program.
Dr. Patti Phillips
We partnered with the University of Alabama. We used their Globus, their global business, or Globus is what they called it, their business simulation. And in that simulation, the teams, the classroom actually broke out into teams. They ran a global enterprise and then competed with each other. And it was such an opportunity for them to not only apply what they had learned in finance and management, but also put it to work.
Dr. Patti Phillips
In addition to putting that textbook knowledge to work. They actually worked on those skills to work together. Collaboration. Ability to work with diverse teams is so important. So tools like that give them real world experience. Although it may be simulated, they at least give them some experience that they can then take away. So I distinguish the two between actually using what you're learning in a classroom versus you've passed the test, which of course, as you know, is the more traditional approach to assessing success in the classroom is that, you know, multiple choice test, again, not discounting the value of it, but it's more important for the students to apply what they learn so they can
Dr. Patti Phillips
do the same when they go into the job, the job market, and they and they take on that new job.
Cathy Francois
Absolutely. That real world simulation is very important. I think also to help the students build confidence and lies, the skill that they're learning in the classroom shifting to you. You're already managing a very complex career in a highly specialized field. What made it what motivated you to pursue an MBA at UMGC, and how has that experience shaped your perspective on a skills based education or on skills based education?
Chava Roberts
Yeah, that's a really good question, Kathy. And giving my background and experience, I learned that I was stepping into a lot of rooms where there was an unspoken language that I've never heard before, and at first I thought it was a lack of, you know, a particular skill. So I started picking up courses at my university things, just regular modules to see.
Chava Roberts
I could apply them to my daily tasks. And then I realized I'm still not grabbing it. And I thought, okay. I took a step back as just somebody who I would not say early in my education career, but still a way, a ways away, a ways away from my field or a niche that I want to be in long term.
Chava Roberts
And I realized while pursuing a doctoral degree in the line with my future goals, and I felt like I had a lot of skills already that I had developed along the way. But I still wanted to learn about that unspoken language that the physicians and the principal investigators and all these highly experienced individuals in my field were speaking.
Chava Roberts
And I took a step back, and I spoke to some of my advisors and my mentees mentors, and I thought maybe an MBA might be, you know, the key to that door that I unable to unlock and rest assured, it was that it was that key to get into that door, because I realized that was the leadership that came with those conversations that I was having, that I wasn't aware of.
Chava Roberts
It was the ability for, you know, employees and trust their higher ups to advocate and leave for them. Those are the things that were were being spoken, the undertones of those conversations that I weren't getting. And as I started to pursue my MBA here at UMGC, I realized that helped pull in all those skills that I picked up and tucked under my belt along the way.
Chava Roberts
So I was actually really intrigued by what Doctor Phillips was saying, for what skill based education is. And for me, skills based education is really about learning things you can actually use in the real world, in your career right away. And I think a lot of times people focus on much, so much on the theory like Patty had mentioned.
Chava Roberts
But in reality, skills based learning gives us the practical experience as well. And that's what we hone in on right away in our career. And I think as I started to pursue my education here in the US, I started pulling and grasping for as many tools and resources as I can because, you know, I don't know when I have to reflect that in the daily task with my with my advisors or when I'm working with these cross-functional teams.
Chava Roberts
So instead of just learning concepts as we discuss, we're also building things like skills, leadership, problem solving, teamwork, the same various skills that I'm learning in my MBA today, and all these things you actually need when you step into the workforce, especially in healthcare clinical research, I've seen how important it is to know how to apply what you've learned in those real situations.
Chava Roberts
When you're dealing with real individuals, individuals who are looking to you to advocate for them about things that they don't understand, they don't know. And especially as a minority, when I work with under underserved communities and under underrepresented individuals, they look for someone like style to advocate well for them. So in turn, skill based education has really taught me how to put those practical skills into into practice, but also rely on the theory based knowledge and along the way, when it's required.
Cathy Francois
Thank you. Now, Patty, in your previous response, you alluded to that it's no longer enough for students to take a quiz or just acquire knowledge. Why is that? And what are some of the leadership decision making, problem solving skills that universities should be intentionally building into their MBA programs today?
Dr. Patti Phillips
Well, I think in loaded to it as well. I mean, one reason that just taking the quiz is not enough is because performance is based on what people do, not what people know. There's a value chain that occurs when we invest in our people. Yes, you want them to learn it, but more importantly, you want them to do the thing, do the job, apply the skills and more importantly, the application of those skills should lead to some outcome, to some impact.
Dr. Patti Phillips
Is it helping us improve output quality, cost, time? Customer satisfaction? Job satisfaction? Work habits? You know, what's it bringing to the table. So what's the so what of it all. So in higher ed when we're in our programs where the MBA program. Yes you need to learn how to do it. But to the employer it is more important that you are doing it and doing it well.
Dr. Patti Phillips
So that is moving the needle on the measures that matter to that organization and doing so efficiently. And that's where ROI comes in from a programing project, individual perspective. So knowing something is important. You know we talk about knowledge is power. Knowledge is only powerful if you put it to use. And that's what education should give us. The usability and the utility required in the organization.
Dr. Patti Phillips
So that's why I mean the knowledge is important because you can't do what you don't know. So step one know it. But performance is not based on the test score. Performance is based on the application of the knowledge and how we assess that. And that could be a performance assessment of some kind. But it's not the true false test is not the two.
Dr. Patti Phillips
You know that's just an indicator. They know it. So that's that. And then two you know employers things are moving fast. You know we used to think they were moving fast when I got in the workplace. They were so slow compared to what's happening today. And so our ability to get into an organization and think critically about the problems and the issues that they are facing is so important.
Dr. Patti Phillips
We have AI, right? We have all this help at our fingertips. But how good is it? What is it really doing for us? Can we evaluate the situation and come up with solutions in a logical way? And so that's where your critical thinking and your problem solving come into play. And those are some of the top skills organizations they're looking for.
Dr. Patti Phillips
They can get the job done. They can build it. They can get answers to their questions immediately using the technology available to us. But how do we discern what is meaningful and what is not, and what is truly relevant given the context in which we're working? So when we think about the critical skills that organizations are looking for, it is that critical thinking?
Dr. Patti Phillips
It is that problem solving, but it's also resilience. Can we bring someone in who's gone to the University of Maryland? She has an incredible pedigree from an academic standpoint. Can we bring her into the organization so that she contributes value immediately? But also, has she learned how to learn again? Does she know how to unlearn what she now knows and learn something new?
Dr. Patti Phillips
Because that resilience, that ability to adapt is incredibly important because things are moving so rapidly. So, so back to your question is all about critical thinking, problem solving, but it's also that resilience and that lifelong learning, those skills that will enable someone to continue to grow and change as an organization grows and change changes.
Cathy Francois
Yeah. Let's talk about ROI or return on investments. The learners, they want to see a return investment in their education with a fulfilling career. And employers want to see a return on investment in their hires and making sure that they get their desired outcome. So on that note, a question for you. Was there a moment in the program when you realize you were learning a skill that you immediately applied to work, and what is one specific skill you develop that you use now on a regular basis in a professional setting?
Chava Roberts
Yeah, yeah, I think that's a really great question. And I would say while we think that we're great communicators and we're great collaborators, until we have to communicate well and collaborate well, and actually I just finish my summer 2026 term here at young D.C. and for one of my classes, I had a group project. And funny enough, we we had about 5 or 6 group members across different time zones.
Chava Roberts
You can imagine what communication looks like while someone's working on the latter end of the project. It's a 8 a.m. where they are and the other half of the team, it's like 2 a.m. so it's just like, what do we do in this situation to meet the same goal that we need to be? And so I would say that has been the biggest two skills that I've had to learn and where I had to learn and immediately apply to what I'm doing here at the university, but also in my career and currently in my field, I work with a lot of different teams.
Chava Roberts
I'm talking physicians, researchers, sponsors, coordinators, the operations team, and everyone has different priorities and different perspectives, of course. And one thing the program really helped me to improve, asserting how to communicate effectively across those different complex groups and keep projects moving forward because there are deliverable deliverables. Sorry, there is timelines. These are things that do not change. Those are fixed.
Chava Roberts
And being able to pivot and prioritize those timelines are important, and especially meeting those requirements for individual. While a physician has a patient that needs to be enrolled in daily. I have a sponsor meeting in about an hour and a half that I need to prepare for, so being able to communicate where needed and being able to pivot on the fly has been something that has been really monumental to my career here at JHU, but also as a student I don't like long learner is being able to prioritize those tasks when needed and being able to communicate and collaborate with those teams.
Chava Roberts
While it's important and honestly, I use those skills just about every day. Clinical trial because so much of my my current job depends on teamwork and being able to problem solve together.
Cathy Francois
Yeah, most definitely. In the work that you do, a breakdown in communication could be devastating, right? You're talking about clinical trials. This is very serious work. You know, even though they might be an aspect of your work and knowledge that is technical. But those critical skills, those foundational skills are really essential, coupled with those highly specialized technical skills.
Cathy Francois
Question for you, Patty. From your perspective, you mentioned earlier about that, an example about that simulation that simulated competition. Java mentioned the group work that you did in your most recent course. What are some other ways universities can ensure that the skills being taught remain aligned with what employers are actually looking for in today's rapidly changing workplace?
Dr. Patti Phillips
Well, in addition to the team based work and the simulation is, you know, partnering with the businesses in the community, whatever community, they get real, real projects for them to work on, whether it's with a corporation or a nonprofit. You know, we see organizations and programs where you take on the problems of the local nonprofit. Now, many universities, University of Maryland is one of them.
Dr. Patti Phillips
You have students from all over the world. So to work on a community project from a, you know, team based approach with the student is going to be more challenging for sure, because you're not all there in the community. But we live in such a virtual world, right? There's a way to make it worse. We give them real problems to solve.
Dr. Patti Phillips
That's one way to do it. Others, you know, you can always rely on case based method. You know, Harvard's been doing that forever. Giving them a case study to really analyze together on that is another approach we can take. And then also, you know, from an assessment standpoint, assessing their performance with the use of these skills, especially the collaboration skills where we're working together is peer based review peer based performance reviews is another way to do that.
Dr. Patti Phillips
But I think your simulations, your case study applications when you can, your community projects or partnering with businesses to solve their business problems is one way to do it. And then to, from a faculty standpoint, using the faculty, using the corporate execs to come in and offer up these opportunities or provide scenarios, or working with the students in a round table format to have them help talk through some of these issues is another approach that you can take to provide students the opportunity to apply what they're learning.
Cathy Francois
Yeah, thank you for that. And it also seems like, you know, students themselves, like Chava just mentioned, find opportunities in their current workplace to apply immediately. Apply some of those skills that they are learning along the way. With that being said, Chava, as a working professional, what you found most valuable about the MBA experience. What surprised you the most about the skills that you're developing along the way?
Chava Roberts
Yeah, that's a great question. I think for the MBA program, I think it really invoked the confidence I knew I had, but I didn't see it coming into practice until I was really placed in those realistic situations where they came to life. And for me, it helped me become more comfortable with leadership, decision making and adapted quickly to when things change.
Chava Roberts
And obviously in healthcare research, things are constantly changing and being aware of bills, being aware of the changes and pivoting when those occur has been something that has been really helpful in the past. I want to say eight months since I started this program. I realized when it came to making decisions, I immediately jumped on it. I was immediately the person that helped delegated billions of difficult situations and collaborating with others and letting them know this is how we're going to move forward.
Chava Roberts
And that is very monumental with clinical trial management considering that patient advocacy, patient advocacy is the main point of, you know, clinical trial management, meeting sponsor requirements. Those are the main aspects of clinical trial monument. So being able to be a beacon in these spaces has been something that has been very helpful. And what I've learned has been very monumental for the business world in general, and just being in species of leadership like that.
Chava Roberts
So having an education that is focused on those practical cells, that made me feel more prepared for those bigger responsibilities and being able to contribute immediately, instead of spending years and spending years in specific roles trying to figure out what to do. In reality, I had all these tools under my belt for my program, but, you know, in previous roles before.
Cathy Francois
Excellent. It's great that you were able to tie those pieces together between what you were working in the classroom. You need some previous experience and draw out those skills that were already there and having that, building that confidence along the way. Patty, a question for you. Given your expertise in measurement evaluation, what does success look like in a skills based learning environment?
Cathy Francois
How can faculty and institutions determine whether students are truly developing and applying these skills?
Dr. Patti Phillips
Yeah. So and I think I'll do two to it. One is pure based feedback is one one that we see working in teams and having the team members provide that feedback, how they apply, what they learn through those case studies. So be simulated presentations to an executive team. Or it could be demonstrating or defending a project or a piece of research or their case study in terms of in front of the faculty.
Dr. Patti Phillips
So that sort of things competitions like this simulation, this business simulation I mentioned, it was a great we ran that three years and it was such fun for them because you actually keep score. It's whether or not the organization meets the metrics, meets the standards, meet success or not. So you're working off actual data and actual metrics that an organization would work from, and then you're competing against the others, because that's what we do in organizations.
Dr. Patti Phillips
So these simulations give great opportunity. So things like that, you know, put people to work. And I think students want that. I think those people going to programs, whether it's in a university, in an organization, people want usable skills. They do not want to waste their time learning something, one they may or may not use. Right. But two, something they know they're not going to use in three.
Dr. Patti Phillips
Something they don't have the opportunity to practice before they use it. So much of the time we bring people into a program of any kind, and we think it's going to stick and it's going to pay off, and they pass the test and we've been successful. And that's not the case, is our responsibility. Those of us who are leading the programs and designing the programs is our responsibility to get clear on what does the organization need, what does the business need or whoever your stakeholder is, what do they need, and how do we design the courses so that students learn what it is they need to know and are able to do what the organization
Dr. Patti Phillips
wants them to do in order to address their needs? So it's all about aligning the coursework and the curriculum to the needs of the organizations. And unfortunately, as you all know, you know, higher ed has never been one a sector to move quickly. It doesn't move historically. It's just not moved as quickly as it should to keep up with the need.
Dr. Patti Phillips
The good news is all that's changing now because we are bringing others into the picture. We are trying to find ways to leverage technology to do things a little more quickly. And that's what we need to do. The courses, the programs need to align to the needs of the organization, not what we think they need to know, but what they're telling us that they need.
Dr. Patti Phillips
And that's why these advisory boards are so important to hire it, especially bring the business to them. What are they telling us that we need? And then how can we execute it?
Cathy Francois
Yeah, absolutely. We have an advisory alumni advisory board here at UMGC. I agree with you. It's really important for universities to stay tethered to the industry needs and be nimble, which is there is a challenge, but I think technology is really helping us do that more quickly. Passing this question to you, and you've eluded to this and previous responses on how an education that emphasizes practical skills rather than just theory made you feel more prepared and more confident as you advance in your career.
Cathy Francois
And tell me, how does that help? How did that help you take on new leadership responsibilities?
Chava Roberts
I would say it helped me be more comfortable when it came to being in front of individuals who were really trusting my advisory and my understanding of the task in front of me to make decisions that they can, but they needed to put onto me to make make sure that I'm aware of what I'm doing. And I think that's important because I work with so many complex teams that, again, have their own priorities and really need strong individuals in leadership to make those decisions, to carry out those priorities at our working sites.
Chava Roberts
With clinical trials, you have so many working sites. We really rely on having strong decision makers at each site to ensure that our research studies are working and adapting well to the complex changes and protocols, changes in institutions, any patient advisory boards and any requirements are required to ensure that our patients are safe during the beginning of the clinical trial to the end of study enrollment.
Chava Roberts
And I think that has allowed me to be sure in myself to make those decisions and being able to trust myself in the process so I can ensure that our study goals and the primary goal at hand is met. And again, this has been something that I had teetered with for a while, considering that I'm like in the midway point of my career in educational development, and I found myself with a fork in the road.
Chava Roberts
I had a fork in the road where I needed to ensure that I was getting a good return on my investment based on my education, but my career as well, and just being around so many bright minds, I felt like I was. I was teetering on wavering in my own strengths and in my own capabilities because everyone else was doing something different than what I was doing.
Chava Roberts
And just as a like a triple minority, very common to find yourself trying to reach for the next best thing, because you're trying to get to our internal investment pretty quickly. And I had to sit down and realize what is something that if I was able to achieve right now, I'd be content with that. And I realized quickly that I wasn't a PhD because there was no doctor.
Chava Roberts
You have to like what you are learning to go ahead and do a PhD, of course. And at the time I felt like there there wasn't anything that, you know, gravitated to me strongly for me to go ahead and pursue a doctoral degree. And while I was pursuing my master's, I had a lot of individuals who were getting their masters in health science who go off to med school.
Chava Roberts
And I thought maybe that was another, another opportunity that was, you know, specific to me. And I realized quickly while working in healthcare that I don't want all that responsibility. You know, I love it, but I love it from a distance, what it gets. And after speaking with my mentors and my advisors, I realized I wanted to just use exactly what I had and actually put it to work.
Chava Roberts
And again, speaking with that unspoken language, I realized quickly that was an MBA. And it wasn't that. It wasn't that I wasn't able to utilize the current skills I had, but I wanted to find someone those skills that actually bring them to life. And I want to say, that's what this MBA program has done for me. It helps fine tune the things that I learned in theory through my master's in health science, and I actually put them into the space and actually use them in my daily life, in my career.
Chava Roberts
And I'm hoping that this will continue to advise my career working knowledge and again, skilled space and skills focus education to help me be more successful and role on in my career as well.
Cathy Francois
And you mentioned a couple of time have being able to reach out to mentors and advisors, and I would be remiss if I didn't mention that UMGC has a great mentoring program, alumni driven program called Community Connects, where students and alumni like can find on Career Costume Edu, where we have over 30,000 alumni, faculty, and staff who raised their hand to serve as a resource.
Cathy Francois
So while you're learning, you can tap into our global community, global and diverse community with alumni in a myriad of different walks of life career paths that you can talk to to get that that industry insight. So preparing for the future. Patty, a question for you. Looking ahead, what skills do you believe will become increasingly important for future business leaders?
Cathy Francois
How does a skills based MBA help prepare students not just for their next row, but for the long term career, for their long term career growth and adaptability?
Dr. Patti Phillips
Well, I think they think critical thinking, something we're going to have to embrace and master for the duration. Because technology is here, right? AI is here and it's just going to ramp up even more so. So our ability to discern, you know, what is good, what is bad data, our ability to evaluate a situation and make a lot, you know, come to logical conclusions.
Dr. Patti Phillips
But a big one for the future is that adaptability in that lifelong learning, our ability to unlearn what we now know and relearn again. And I think it starts in that classroom. It starts in higher ed in the MBA programs because change is inevitable. Progress is optional, as we like to say at ROI Institute. But the change is coming so fast.
Dr. Patti Phillips
So while we may know something today, how useful is that knowledge tomorrow? It's the same with the skills. There are people who have capability and skills now that while they are important and they contribute to those organizations who have not adopted the technologies and the artificial intelligence that can do the jobs, it is happening. So how quickly can those individuals with those capabilities maybe not learn what they now know, but how quickly can they move on to the next?
Dr. Patti Phillips
Because that upskilling is a big thing is a big conversation. And logically, if you can get a job done for a lot less money and it come out at a higher quality or at least equal quality, why wouldn't you do it? From a business standpoint, that doesn't mean you don't value your people, but it does mean we need to take those people and upskill them well.
Dr. Patti Phillips
Part of the upskilling is the person being willing to do it and the person being adaptable enough to do it. I was having a conversation today with my partner in the Netherlands, and we were talking about this topic, and we were talking about the need for the critical thinking, but the need for the adaptability. And he positioned it, you know, as a generational thing.
Dr. Patti Phillips
He said. Younger people need to be able to think critically and not rely just on the output of Claude and team. Right. Those of us have an older generation need to be more adaptable because we learned what we know and it worked for us. But is it working today? So you might look at it generational, I don't I think we need both.
Dr. Patti Phillips
I think it's all of us need it. We all need to think more critically. We all need to be more adaptive, but think from the future. And how do we continue forward? Again, critical thinking is something we just have to that just embrace it. We just have to be good at it. But is that adaptability in that lifelong learning?
Dr. Patti Phillips
And if in an MBA program, people can learn that process of how do we learn? How do we unlearn what we know and learn what we do know? Given the new context? I think if we can add that to the portfolio of what an MBA program brings, we are really positioning our students for the future, for what's needed today and what's going to be needed tomorrow.
Cathy Francois
Yeah, thank you for that. I think, you know, the world is changing rapidly before our eyes just thinking about the world of work where it started like just even a decade ago. It's not the same when you take a look at the landscape or previous generations. You think you learn one skill. You stay at that job, you get your golden watch at the end of your 3040 year career, and then you retire and live the rest of your life.
Cathy Francois
Where now it's very common for someone to change their career and pivot seven times in their lifetime. It might be even more so that adaptability, resilience, I would say, is also, you know, very important. And seeing how those previous skills can stack on new skills to make an individual more marketable, more valuable in the in the workplace. So question for you, Savva.
Cathy Francois
So based on your experience, what would you tell someone considering an MBA or any graduate program about the value of choosing a program that focuses on developing real world skills?
Chava Roberts
I really love this question because I found myself at that very crossroad, like a year and a half ago. So and I probably had alluded to this several times in the previous question, but I definitely tell them, look, for a program that gives you the opportunity to actually apply what you're learning. That is important because as you move into graduate studies and as you see so many individuals that look like you or don't look like you, knowing exactly where they want to go and what they want to do, that is a very, very daunting experience.
Chava Roberts
And I remember this so fondly during my masters Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. All of my peers knew exactly what they're doing, and I felt so lost. I felt so unsure of myself because I felt like I was the only person there that didn't know where they wanted to go and what they wanted to do. And the crazy part was, I was capable of all the things that they were doing.
Chava Roberts
I was able going medical school, but I wanted to do something that I was sure of, and at that moment, I felt like I was being ignored by my peers, because maybe that's why I want to do it, because they're doing it. And obviously with living between two countries, I have family and relatives giving me their opinion on what I should do with my life.
Chava Roberts
And I'm just like, I really want to do something that I could go to bed with tonight and feel like I made a good decision. Instead of being four years into a medical program and realized I really hate what I'm doing or a post-doctoral program, I don't even know what I'm talking about any more. I don't even know I like this.
Chava Roberts
So I would say taking the time to step back and really look at everything that you have, you have in your belt, put it out on the table and look at what you can actually use with that. I think of it like a refrigerator before you have to go get groceries. Like what? What can I use that really quickly and make a really delicious meal out of it?
Chava Roberts
And all that comes into play when you think about theory and education, theory matters because it gives you the foundation. But practical skills, of course, are what really are going to help you grow professionally. And I think the best programs are the ones that help you connect what you're learning in the classroom to the real world situations. And I know I mentioned a lot about what I do, but I feel like this is the most I've ever felt like I've utilized any of my degrees is because day by day, I'm pulling out experiences from my bachelor's degree or my master's degree, or even current MBA that I'm working on, and I'm trying to align with
Chava Roberts
this task that I'm doing or working with this patient or anything that I'm doing. I'm trying to really apply them. And I've never felt so fulfilled in a degree yet, you know, because I'm actually using the things that I have picked up along the way. And this is what I've been working towards, feeling some type of return on my investment even.
Chava Roberts
It might not be financially, financially, but it's just making me feel fulfilled in myself that I know exactly what I'm doing and I'm working towards that. And for me personally, being able to take things that I learned and immediately apply them in my life and my career makes a huge difference. Developing the confidence that you need to continue showing up in your workplace and continue doing well.
Chava Roberts
And I think that's what really sets skills based education apart from any other education that you can adopt along the way.
Cathy Francois
I really like your analogy about the refrigerator in assessing thinking about your skills, about what do you have in your refrigerator, what do you have in your pantry? And and sometimes you might be missing an ingredient or two to really get that outcome that you're looking for, right? That, that that recipe. So really great analogy there.
Chava Roberts
Also also with the analogy, I love a good analogy, but.
Cathy Francois
We're always so quick to just go.
Chava Roberts
To the grocery store and just pick up new things that we need. And I think of that like education is like you can get like another certification or you can get another degree if you have the capacity to do so. But I found myself just gravitating from more things. In reality, I hadn't really used what I had, and I was like, maybe if I glean a little bit more, I could probably find something or something I could refine.
Chava Roberts
I tweak a little bit, and that's exactly what it is. And I feel like that happens a lot with individuals like myself in this position where, you know, they want to pursue more, but they don't want to obviously spend more resources to get that. What can we do and what can we take away, but what we currently have and refine and again, I think feels this is the best way to do so, because whether you like competitions, like Doctor Phillips mentioned from, you know, institution, putting those things into place so individuals can really hone in on the skills that there are on the way or being in the workforce where it's actively calling on onto.
Chava Roberts
you for those experiences that you've grabbed along you, that you've picked up along the way, regardless of the outcome, the these are the real world situations that really help us look at what we have and tangibly find, you know, a positive outcome and some type of linear direction to go to when we're actually looking to applying those skills into the real world.
Cathy Francois
Thank you so much for your time today, Shaba Roberts. Thank you so much for sharing your experience as a student. I'm sure our community will find it very, very valuable. And thank you, doctor Patty Phillips for your expertise, bringing your industry expertise into the classroom, impacting the curriculum. I really appreciate you. You to our very special part of our global UMGC community.
Cathy Francois
Thank you so much for your time.
Chava Roberts
Thank you. Thank you.
Dr. Patti Phillips
So much.
Lauren Cardillo
Thanks for tuning into this bonus episode from UMGC. Be sure to like and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform to hear more. Until next time.