MBA Experiences

The life of an MBA is not all work

Yawning and stretching sixteen MBA students and three staff set off early on Friday 23 March to explore a number of businesses and tourist attractions in Stirlingshire, an area close to Glasgow and an area noted for its beautiful scenery. Fifty minutes after leaving the university we arrived at Glengoyne distillery, one of Scotland’s oldest whisky distilleries. The distillery nestling beside a 50-foot waterfall has been described as one of Scotland’s most picturesque distillery. The distillery welcomed us with a dram of Glengoyne whisky, before providing us with an entertaining insight into the process of making whisky and the opportunity to further test the distillery’s products!

This informative tour had given us all an appetite and luckily a restaurant was only a short distance from the distillery. Following a hearty lunch we continued our travels, driving through the Stirlingshire countryside an area that had once been a shallow sea, but now is a patchwork of large arable farms.

Leaving the countryside behind we arrived in Stirling, a popular tourist town and home to the Scottish Business Crime Centre a not for profit organisation. This organisation is collaboration between business, police and the government and aims to provide practical advice to organisations on how to proactively prevent and reduce crime. The chief executive’s lecture provided the students with an invaluable insight into the organisation’s activities, but more critically from an MBA student’s point of view he discussed the complexities of developing strategy against a backdrop of environmental turbulence, issues which could be directly related to ideas and concepts learnt on their course.

A visit to Stirling would not have been complete without a visit to the Wallace monument, a memorial to William Wallace of ‘Braveheart’ fame. Two hundred and ninety two steps later (one of the students counted them through his panting and gasping!), and you arrive at a viewing platform that provides fantastic views of the mountains 40 miles (65 kilometres) away.

So seven hours after leaving we set off back home to Glasgow hopefully all a bit wiser to the delights of whisky distilling, strategy in a not for profit organisation and the Scottish landscape!

Stirling photos courtesy of Peng Wayne, Caledonian MBA student

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Updated: 26/03/2007 | Site editor | Legal