Anahita Pajuhesh, MBA Strategic Carbon Management 2011

Anahita gave us her opinions on the Strategic Carbon Management MBA in an interview in the business school building at UEA when she was only two weeks from finishing her degree –

‘I’m pretty happy with the carbon MBA, I feel like I got what I expected out of it.  I’m satisfied it was properly sold to me too – I think the programme was well represented to me when I was in the process of choosing a course.’

But before the course started, Anahita was by no means certain that she wanted to study the carbon MBA at all.  She had some personal reasons to come to the UK from her home town of Farmington, Maine in the US and selected the carbon MBA because it looked interesting – it was completely unlike anything else she’d come across -

‘I’d done a lot of different things since I graduated with my first degree – immediately before coming to Norwich I spent six months teaching English in India, before which I worked in New York City for an education company, arranging personal and professional development courses.  Most of the work there was setting up the finance and logistics for their education courses.  After my undergraduate degree, I worked with two ‘non-profits’ (the National Iranian American Council and the Middle East Institute) so I’ve never felt as if my career had just one path.  I’ve always been open to new challenges and when I saw the Strategic Carbon Management MBA, I thought that sounded interesting and was worth exploring.’

‘Then I looked into it a little more and found out that it would be something I could really benefit from.  I wasn’t sure, with my arts background, that I’d always be able to keep pace with the work.  But the lecturers, particularly the Course Director, are very good at making sense of the exercise material, bringing together the different disciplines and setting a context for our studies.  So although it’s not always been easy, I never felt as if I couldn’t properly tackle any of the modules.’

‘I think this was especially true of the consultancy modules.  Both my consultancy projects went well - the second one was particularly successful.  Our client reported that they were very happy with our research and report and now I feel very confident about delivering the consultancy process.’

‘Because of this I feel I have more options about what I might be doing in future.  I may not be able to work in the environmental sector or on climate change issues in the immediate future, but with my new found confidence with the consultancy projects, for the first time in my life I am thinking that I could run my own business one day.’

‘For me, the consultancy projects were one of the best parts of the whole course.  The Thomas Paine Study Centre (TPSC) is a new building and my fellow MBA students and I have half of the second floor entirely to ourselves for lectures, private study and for working in small groups - in both my consultancies I was working in teams of four.  I like being in this building.  In fact, I have to say I really enjoyed staying in Norwich too.  I didn’t have time to explore the entire city but from what I’ve seen I’d say Norwich was really wonderful little city.’

‘There is something about UEA and Norwich Business School’s study centre which makes it a really nice environment to study in.  I am looking forward to going home to Maine at Christmas but I also know that I’m going to miss Norwich, the business school, the learning and some of the people I’ve met here in the last 12 months.’