No business degree? No problem

When Heba Abou-Abed came to Montreal in 2011 with ten years of work experience as a telecommunications construction engineer and a bachelor’s degree in architecture from Damascus University in Syria, she felt unprepared to enter the local work force.

Feeling a need to familiarize herself with the Canadian business environment in order to take the next step in her career, Abou-Abed enrolled in the Graduate Diploma in Business Administration at the John Molson School of Business.

“The GDBA helped strengthen my understanding of key topics like project management and statistics and gave me a solid knowledge base in the fundamental principles of finance, marketing and accounting. This gave me the confidence to re-enter the labour market,” she says.

“Students in the GDBA program come from a wide range of educational backgrounds, from social and hard sciences to law and engineering.” says Marie Lyster, the student recruitment officer for JMSB’s graduate programs.

Lyster explains that the program was designed with three groups in mind: recent university graduates with non-business bachelor’s degrees, professionals who want to advance their careers or start their own businesses and new immigrants looking for Canadian qualifications to complement their previous university education.

Both the GDBA, a 30-credit program and the 15-credit certificate program (GCBA) can be completed on a part-time or full-time basis with a flexible daytime and evening schedule. No work experience is required.

“The programs are ideal for people seeking to become more effective managers and administrators,” says Lyster. “It provides them not only with a good understanding of the functional areas within an organization, but also with an appreciation of how those areas inter-relate.”

After completing the program, Abou-Abed felt ready to look for work, and within a month of graduation she received an offer from a Montreal-based aerospace firm.

“I use the skills I acquired in the GDBA every day,” she says.

Register for an online information session to learn more about the Graduate Diploma in Business Administration.

Hear what Heba Abou-Abed and other graduates have to say about the GDBA.