Online MBA concentration in Project Management

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Good afternoon everyone. Thank you so

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much for watching our video today

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my name is Kimberly and I am the Ohio

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University

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online MBA program specialist and today

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I have a special guest with me

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I’m joined by Dr. Neil Littell who is the

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head of our

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newest concentration project management

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so hi Dr. Littell can you tell us a little

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bit more about you

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yeah sure thank you very much it’s a

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pleasure to be here Kim.

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so uh yeah so I worked in industry for

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about 15 years as a project manager and

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I

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ended up becoming a program manager uh

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working

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at a company launching new products and

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and managing it

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projects and doing some other things it

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was my dream to become a professor so i

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came to ohio university in 2014

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and um yeah so when i got here i i

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realized that

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that I really wanted to develop and grow

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project management programs to share my

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love

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for project management with as many

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people as possible so

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through that that uh that desire i

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created an undergraduate project

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management certificate

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it just sort of grew and grew and now we

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created a graduate level certificate and

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we partnered

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with the MBA to uh to bring that that

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experience to everyone in the MBA

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program

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project management is certainly one of

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those fields that is constantly growing

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i know that

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just seeing job opportunities out there

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there’s a lot of them so why would you

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say

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a student might be interested in project

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management concentration through

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through their MBA that’s a great

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question Kim so

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you know when i think of an MBA i think

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of people who aspire to be

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in the c-suite doing really great and

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really big things and setting the

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strategy for

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their their company right but with

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project management we

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focus on enabling that strategy

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implementing that strategy making that

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strategy a reality and so

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for me the the project management

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emphasis

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and project management skills in and of

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themselves are

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a really great skill set for anyone to

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have especially if you’re

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uh with an MBA because then you’ll be

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able to take all these big ideas

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and the big strategy that you have and

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make them a reality right so do you

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think that it would be

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beneficial for someone like starting out

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in their career

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mid-level managers or or is it for

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everybody

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i think it’s for everyone you know from

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from working with my my undergraduate

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students

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i think it’s really interesting because

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what i found with them

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is you know project management is really

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a mindset

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and it extends beyond it transcends

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beyond the workplace and so

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i have many students who leverage their

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project management skills just in their

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normal lives and so

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after they they go through the project

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management uh

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classes they realize that hey wait a

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second i can apply some of these

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principles to better organize myself

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to be more effective in everything that

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i do and so really you know

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i i i really like to help people um

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become better and and you know a lot of

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times people just need a little bit of

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help

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getting uh you know across the finish

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line a little bit or

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figuring out you know strategies for not

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procrastinating

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or just being you know being able to

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like okay like set some goals and

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and and attack those goals it sounds

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like

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that’s a great fit i mean we know that

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our business bobcats they are so

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passionate about what they do and

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they’re very

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great business leaders so this sounds

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like it would just take them to the next

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level in terms of project management

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and helping their organizations be a

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little bit more strategic and

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goodness knows everyone needs a little

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bit more project management in their own

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personal lives right

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right so talk to us a little bit about

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the curriculum you know

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we have this very strong MBA core but

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then there’s three courses with this

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project management concentration that

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you

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will be teaching oh yeah excellent so

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there’s three classes uh our project

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management one class

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project management two and our change in

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risk management class so

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project management one is really just

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sort of a skeleton

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back to basic sort of project management

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approach

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high level this is what project

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management is about project management

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too

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i think of as strategic project

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management so really

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taking the the core project management

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that you learn

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in project management one and really

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applying the strategy

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to that core and then we have a change

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in risk management class and so

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so change and risk management are really

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helping address

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the high level strategy for making sure

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that your projects are implemented

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in the ways that that you want them to

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be implemented when i was a project

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manager it was always

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really challenging with my projects

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especially the it projects if i was

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trying to implement a new way of doing

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something or a new technology

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and you have all these people that are

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using the the current technology or the

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current method and a lot of times

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they’re like well why would i want to do

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that

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and so so the change management

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component

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addresses that and Kim i i should point

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out

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one of the things that that i did with

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my

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my uh those three classes is i i built a

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primer in project management so even if

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you can’t take them

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in that order you can still jump in at

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any time you can complete the primer and

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it’ll set you up

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for taking any of the classes in any

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order because you want to be as flexible

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as possible

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that’s awesome that i mean we talk about

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flexibility a lot about

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being an online student in general so i

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love that

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do you find that um your coursework is

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going to be like practical

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or is it very academic based so

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for me everything is about adding value

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if it doesn’t add value i don’t want to

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do it

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so a lot of our our stuff is

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is really applied in terms of taking a

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case study

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dissecting the case study discussing and

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evaluating it and asking questions like

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so

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what should the project manager do next

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and why

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and so the other you know so so those

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are those are really the kind of the

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kind of the the deep discussions that

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that we like to have

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of course the lexicon for uh project

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management

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as published by the project management

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institute is there as well for people

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who want to go even further

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and and maybe do some stuff with without

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getting a PMP

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or a different uh certification we can

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help with that

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as well maybe and maybe it’s a little

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bit beyond the skill of the certificate

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but we could we could talk about that

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when when the time comes

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um but yeah so so really it is more of

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an applied approach to

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project management and it’s about

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building a tool set

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you know so that when you so a good

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project manager

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understands all the tools a great

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project manager knows which tool to grab

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and what situation and so that’s really

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what we’re trying to do is give people

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the tools

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and the context for using the right

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tools and not using every tool

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because that’s just as bad as grabbing

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the wrong tool

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for sure that that’s perfect i think

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that a lot of students and

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just people in general would really

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benefit from not only understanding

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you know the background behind it but

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when

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as you said yeah right so do you have

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any like

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last minute words for someone who might

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be considering the project management

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concentration versus another

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concentration

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follow your heart i mean if you think

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about think about where you want to be

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in the future and how to get there

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and think about um you know a strategy

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that’s not

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executed is it’s it’s just paper

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right and so so so think about what

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where you want to be

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and what you want to do with your life

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and figure out if project management is

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uh

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is is the direction that you want to go

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and if

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if anyone has questions about that i’m

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very happy to work with anyone

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who would like to discuss project

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management even more i love talking

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about project management as you can tell

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so

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here we are awesome well thank you so

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much so our

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project management concentration we

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start

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cohorts um every three you know every

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year so spring summer and fall so make

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sure that you get in touch with your

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enrollment advisor

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if you have any further questions and if

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you have very deep questions

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we can also put you in touch with Dr.

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Littell so thank you all so much for

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joining us for this very quick video and

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we’ll see you soon

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great bye.