Mark Soloway
MBA - Accounting & Finance

Meet Mark Soloway: Making Himself More Marketable

Mark Soloway already had a Bachelor's of Science degree and a Master's degree in Electrical Engineering, but he still felt he needed more tools in his skill set. He graduated with his MBA with a concentration in Accounting and Finance from AIU in June 2005. A few months after graduating, he landed a corporate job as Director of Software Development with a large company.

"I didn't need an MBA to get this job, but I think having it gave me a real leg up on other candidates."

But Mark doesn't feel he just got a piece of paper. "I'm finding that I learned a lot that I was, and still am, able to take to work with me."

Mark says the accounting and finance concentration he picked within AIU Online's MBA program has made a difference in a number of real world areas for him. "I can look at financial contracts, spreadsheets for budgets, and accounting pages now and understand them. And it seems like a little thing, but I learned a lot more about using spreadsheets. We used them extensively in AIU Online coursework and projects and all of that hands-on practice really honed my skills. Like I said, it is a minor thing, but it has made a huge difference."

"The education I received from AIU Online has added balance to my view of the commercial software world. Previously I focused on technology issues. The MBA has given me the breadth of education to see the big picture - the technology side and the business/financial/sales/marketing side to have a more integrated view of the business and technology needs of my company."

Having earned his Bachelor's and Master's degrees from one of the top-rated traditional universities in the country, Stanford, Mark is in a unique position to discuss how online education stacks up.

"I learned just as much online as I did in traditional classrooms. The only thing I maybe missed out on was face-to-face contact with classmates, but that didn't even turn out to be a major shortcoming." Mark says he exchanged contact information with several of his classmates and has even met one who lives about an hour from him. "I still made contacts I can network with."

Mark didn't just commit to AIU Online blindly. He researched his options thoroughly. "I knew that because of my busy schedule I wouldn't be able to attend a physical class on a very regular basis during the week. I looked into a lot of online universities and AIU Online looked like the best match for me. I felt they hadn't just taken a classroom curriculum and retrofitted it to an online scenario; the curriculum was designed specifically for online learning."

"I also liked that AIU is an international school; I was involved with international companies at the time in my work and I thought that going to an international school would benefit my worldview. I am very pleased with my degree and the school."

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