Marcin Skibiński

1. What influenced your decision to pursue an MBA at PJAIT?

I started my studies with the intention of gaining new tools in the area of managing and monitoring introduced organizational changes in the IT company where I was working at the time. The organization urgently needed actions aimed at stabilizing structures and processes, defining its own DNA, and establishing a long-term strategy allowing for controlled growth. In the longer term, I saw benefits related to my own personal development, deepening my knowledge about management in IT-focused organizations, and the opportunities associated with a broad perspective on these issues.

2. How do you look back on your time spent on the MBA for the IT industry at PJAIT? What was most important to you during the studies themselves?

I would mention two key issues:

• The exchange of experiences between students – which had a tremendous impact on later decisions and knowledge.
• Lectures, joint exercises, and the exchange of experiences in the area of risk assessment, finance, and building organizational strategy that interested me.

3. Which areas of the curriculum covered during the MBA studies were most important to you and proved most useful in your professional life?

I was looking for answers to questions regarding responsible management in an IT company, which is why the areas related to controlling the development of the organization based on hard data and the tools obtained for this purpose seemed most important to me. Secondly – building soft skills allowing for efficient work and, above all, cooperation with people.

4. How do you evaluate the cooperation of MBA students during classes and the contact between the student and the lecturer. Are the relationships that you managed to build important to you?

Some of the relationships managed to be carried beyond the studies, some also function on a professional level, so in retrospect, the evaluation is high. During classes, lecturers often focused on the needs verbalized by the group, which allowed us to face real problems and examples, gain new perspectives, and acquire knowledge from the experiences of other students

5. In what way did the MBA studies contribute to the development of your professional career?

Currently, I run my own business, which significantly changed my thinking about a career as such. The MBA studies convinced me that knowledge is worth acquiring and confirming with one's own intuition to gain confidence in the actions taken.

6. What values, apart from the curriculum itself, were most important to you during the MBA studies?

I assumed, and rightly so, that I would meet new people and their experiences. I would learn their perspectives, resulting from various histories in organizations, on management processes, real problems, and ways of dealing with them. This exchange of experiences took place both during and outside of classes, and that is a great value of MBA studies

7. What advice could you give to potential candidates for studies?

Experience first. This is the basic tip. There is no point in starting an MBA without experience with people, with working with a team. The bigger – the better. Which means it is worth waiting until you "grow up" to an MBA. This is where the strength of this type of studies lies – drawing from stories written by other people and creatively processing them into your own management methods.