Global business: gateways to the international community through a full time MBA degree

These days, it's hard to find anyone who'd be content to restrict their business by avoiding the international sphere. With communication and travel easier than it ever has been before, it makes sense to expand your outlook past your own shores and take advantage of different markets worldwide.

So where's the best place to start if you want to become more familiar with the international business community? There are a number of options you could try, from hiring a consultant to just throwing yourself in at the deep end and praying for success, but one of the most sensible ways is to enhance your international experience while developing your other business skills.

Whether it's a further degree before beginning your career, or a case of wanting to improve on your existing knowledge and bringing it back to your workplace, targeted business education is becoming more and more popular. If you decide to embark on a course of study that is directly relevant to your chosen career (such as a full time MBA degree) you are automatically surrounded by future contacts, mentors, or even business partners in the form of your fellow students. Some extremely successful business collaborations have been formed during university days, perhaps most notably Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook team.

The application process for a full time MBA degree is fairly rigorous, so practically everyone you come into contact with will have some common goals and aspirations, and will be bright, motivated, and entrepreneurial. In other words, exactly the kind of people you'll want to know in the future. But it's not just the similarities that make this kind of student community beneficial, it's also the differences.

Wanting to develop better business strategy and gain a more thorough understanding of the underlying theory is not something that's restricted to just one kind of industry, career level or country. Applicants are drawn from an extremely diverse pool of nationalities, so you suddenly have within your reach an encyclopaedic collection of talent and knowledge with regards to international business practice.

Through sharing previous experience and discussing what you're learning, you could gain valuable insight from someone higher up the ladder, or even become inspired to plan out a new career path. In addition, many full time MBA degrees take into account the need for international experience and offer study abroad schemes, exchange programmes, and speakers and lecturers who specialise in global business.

There's a widespread perception that the academic and social sides of being a student are completely separate and opposite, that you're either out on the town or stuck in the library. However, in practice, that's not always the case. Don’t underestimate the power of networking during your academic studies, as building up a strong relationship with clients, employees and colleagues is vital to good business strategy. Getting to know your peers and gaining personal, practical knowledge of the international community is the gateway to a worldwide business.