Anne Magloire Anaba lives in Newark, Delaware and is a full-time MBA candidate studying business analytics at the University of Delaware’s Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics. Magloire Anaba, who plans to graduate December 2020, shared her experience choosing the Lerner MBA program and how it has impacted her both personally and professionally.
Q: Why did you go back to school to pursue your graduate degree? Why did you choose the Lerner College for your studies?
Magloire Anaba: [I had] the desire to take one step forward towards my career goals. I chose Lerner for its inclusive culture and award-winning professors, from whom I believed I would get qualified training.
Q: What did you learn through this opportunity that you wouldn’t have learned anywhere else?
Magloire Anaba: The most valuable lesson I learned so far is perseverance; to keep pushing until a breakthrough happens.
What is an example of a course or concept that you were able to apply directly to your life and/or career?
Magloire Anaba: Operations management is a course that I enjoyed taking. We learned the concept of bottlenecks and how to handle them. Bottlenecks are the isolated things or activities that slow down an overall process. No matter how fast everything and everybody else goes or works, the overall activity can’t go faster than the speed of the bottleneck. So when I go to Newark Farmers Market on Kirkwood Highway, I first order my fish and while it is being cleaned I go around shopping. This helps me save time!
Q: Can you describe an important connection you have made through your graduate program?
Magloire Anaba: I joined the Lerner Executive Mentoring Program and my mentor, Senior Manager at Customer Value Partners Maureen Henry, UD Class of 1985, is a very resourceful person. She sets me on track whenever I am not and she is a social person. I like the work we do together.
Q: If you were to describe your classmates in one word, what would that be?
Magloire Anaba: Smart.
Q: How do you balance your career with your studies?
Magloire Anaba: As a part-time worker with MBA classes in the evening, the strategy that works for me is that on the day I have classes I will work during the day and go to class at night. The rest of the week I engage in my assignments, readings and extracurricular activities.
Q: Fill in this sentence: “My graduate program helped me become…”
Magloire Anaba: better at building my critical thinking, problem solving and analytical skills.
Q: What was the most impactful hands-on project or case competition that you were able to participate in?
Magloire Anaba: The 4th Annual MBA Student Association Conference.
Q: What are your plans or next steps for the future?
Magloire Anaba: In the next three years I seek to make good use of my STEM extension and to be fully engaged in the professional world.