Tolu shares most of her MBA experience and more...

Tolu Onasoga, MBA10

Friday first of September 2011, remains evergreen to me, I remember the excitement and scepticism that crept through my mind knowing that I was beginning a masters programme at the prestigious Lagos Business School. I could barely wait to be part of the MBA experience.

The session started with the usual introduction and tour, I clearly remembered Henrietta asking us why we were in LBS- Ayoola talked about kicking Apple out of business(even though all his phones are Apple brands), Babawale (Sales for short) talked about becoming the South West regional manager of First Bank in a few years, Chuka mentioned wanting to learn about business after some failed attempts, and so many other fantastic dreams. To be candid, I had no idea why I was there so I mumbled something nice which I cannot recall at the moment. My fears were allayed when she told us that our mindsets were going to be changed by the time they were done with us (I thought it was a joke).

The brush up was just a warm up but sincerely I was intimidated with so many business jargons from my Chinese colleague Toyin Sanwo (Tpay) - “Six Sigma”, “Tripple bottom line”, “USP”, “Subliminal _***”....I felt like an alien on earth, Google instantly became my friend. As if that was not enough we had presentations to make as a group, thank God for Tomi and Chuka our team of ten individuals had the best score. Then came the individual presentation for Personal Social Responsibility, I came up with a wordy PowerPoint presentation and was practically staring at the projector (still better than some people that only had one slide and one sentence as theirs).

Brush up was just the beginning, the real course was even more demanding- Thad came up with Microsoft excel, Owolabi with his CFA, Kemi with Business Ethics, how can I forget ABP with Yetunde and MC with Uchora. Then the scramble for class participation marks, the never ending assignments, extra classes....Whew!! I got more than I bargained for.

As a strong advocate of work-life-balance, it has also been a mixture of hardwork balanced with some fun- we’ve had several outings as a class and as groups. These forums have provided avenues to discover special talents among colleagues- Uzoma our guitarist, Nono and Azeezat our dance queens, Rume a dance crooner a.k.a supply man (still wondering what he supplies), Ozue our chess master, Gbemi and Itunu  your angelic voices still echoes in my heart, Segun Dada our hard core businessman/comedian (can see business opportunities even in the bathroom) and with Pastor Toks you’ll realise that indeed the age of Methuselah has nothing to do with the wisdom of Solomon.

Now to football, don’t be fooled by the cool business appearance of these guys, meet them on the pitch and you’ll understand what I mean, MBA 9 can testify. Let me introduce you to our defender Bolarinwa his stamina is incredible, try Kunle and you’ll understand that the strength of Samson has nothing to do with the size of David. True or false – True! True!! True!!!

How I love month ends celebrations with the gazebo rendezvous thanks to the welfare team they’ve been on point and this is “Key” for effective performance. As for spiritual development, join us every last Monday of the month at our happyland parish you will be greatly refreshed.

Exposure.... we’ve been privileged to meet business moguls, MDs, CEOs, Financial analysts and even the state governor on a platter of gold. These meetings have been exciting, informative and enlightening,

I’ll summarize now and leave you to anticipate what yours will look like- At LBS, I’ve witnessed several positive transformations of personalities, met great minds, gotten million dollar advices, made new friends, learnt professionalism and hardwork and most importantly to have fun while achieving targets.

Looking back at the journey so far, in Thad’s words “we’ll brush in and brush up...”, and Owolabi’s “Oh yes, I swear.....”, LBS has indeed made a more confident, proficient, solution providing, more objective and better personality of me.

If you doubt my experience, let’s see what yours will look like in the next 10 months..











Tolu Onasoga is a full time MBA student of Lagos Business School. A member of the MBA10 class, she can be reached via email; omololu.onasoga@lbs.net.ng