SMU MBA Alumni Interview: Why an MBA, and Why SMU in Singapore?

Updated 2026/10/16

Howel started out in life science at National Taiwan University, far from the usual business school track. After graduating he went into digital advertising and e-commerce, spent years in demanding, results-driven jobs, and worked his way into roles that required strategic judgment and cross-team collaboration.

That was when he realized work experience alone wouldn’t carry him to the next stage of his career. He needed a more complete, systematic business education.

Howel chose the SMU MBA in Singapore, completing a move from life science through industry work to formal business education. In this interview we go through why he decided to apply for an MBA, how he shaped his application story, and what made him pick SMU over other programs. Howel also talks about what studying at SMU is really like: learning alongside a multinational cohort, the challenges and payoffs of cross-cultural group work, and how the program changed the way he thinks about his career direction and long-term plans.

If you’re wondering whether to apply for an MBA, whether a non-business background is a good fit, or whether the SMU MBA suits a career focused on Asia, this interview gives you an honest, concrete account to compare with your own situation.

Howel’s background:

National Taiwan University, Life Science, GPA: 3.57 / 4.0
TOEFL 100, GMAT (10th Edition) 700

Work Experience:

• Digital advertising network
  • Account Executive → Digital Account Manager → Account Executive Supervisor (about 4.5 years)
  • Handled large skincare and health supplement clients, managing over TWD 12 million a year in performance advertising and SEM budgets
  • Worked across teams (media, analytics, engineering, creative) and led regular business reviews and performance optimization
• Digital advertising agency
  • Digital Account Manager (about 1.5 years)
  • Built in-house programmatic buying, cutting Google Ads costs by about 30%
• Tech equipment vendor
  • Specialist / Product-side role (about 1.5 years)
  • Worked with the engineering team on product planning and early system architecture for an international price comparison platform

Other Experience:

• Years of experience working with multinational clients and Japanese brands
• Experienced in performance marketing, CRM, data analysis and business decision-making
• Languages: Chinese (native), English (fluent), Japanese (JLPT N1)

Admitted to:

• Singapore Management University (SMU) MBA (enrolled)

About the Singapore Management University (SMU) MBA

Singapore Management University (SMU, official site) sits in downtown Singapore and is one of Asia’s best-known business-focused universities. It is known for highly interactive teaching, close industry ties and an international campus. Its Master of Business Administration (MBA) belongs to the Lee Kong Chian School of Business (LKCSB) and aims to train managers in strategic thinking, cross-cultural communication and practical decision-making.

The SMU MBA has held steady global visibility in international rankings. It is ranked 41st in the world in the QS Global MBA Rankings, a sign of its teaching quality and international reputation, and a reason many applicants who want to build a career in Asia consider it.

The SMU MBA is a full-time program centered on the Asian business environment with a global outlook. Students come from many countries, industries and functions. The curriculum emphasizes case-based learning and small, interactive classes, and students are expected to discuss in depth, analyze real situations and weigh different viewpoints when making decisions in class, rather than just study theory.

The SMU MBA curriculum is built on 8 core modules that cover the main skills needed to run a business: corporate finance, financial accounting, business analytics, marketing, operations management, strategic management, organizational behavior and leadership, and leading digital transformation.

This lets students connect finance, data, strategy and organizational management instead of focusing on a single function.

The SMU MBA is a 15-month full-time program with a lot of flexibility, and you can finish in as little as 10 months. That suits professionals who want to finish the degree quickly and move on to the next stage of their careers.

Overall, the SMU MBA is less a program for switching careers than one for professionals who already have work experience and want to make higher-level decisions, gain an international perspective and grow as leaders. That positioning is a big reason applicants like Howel, with years of industry experience, choose it.

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From Life Science to an MBA: How the Career Shift and the Decision to Study Took Shape

What made you decide to pursue an MBA?

Q: You went from life science at NTU into digital advertising and e-commerce, which is already a cross-disciplinary path. At what point did you realize you needed more systematic business training, and why did you end up choosing an MBA?

A: I first started thinking about further study around 2019, after I was promoted to digital account manager at my second company. I joined an ad agency hoping to learn marketing on the job. But at an agency, we mostly handled only the promotion part of the 4Ps, and most projects were fairly self-contained, so you usually didn’t see the big picture.

At the same time, my main client back then was a Japanese company that cared intensely about ROI, and its ad budget went almost entirely to lower-funnel customer acquisition (I later found most e-commerce clients are like this). The scope of my work felt more and more limited, so I started thinking about going back to school.

I originally wanted to do an MSc in Marketing. But after I joined my third company, I worked and communicated much more with teams in other functions, and I saw that I needed broader business thinking, not only marketing knowledge. So I decided to apply for an MBA. Then the pandemic hit, and the GMAT and other tests went worse than I expected, so it took a long time before I actually went back to school.

What skill gaps did you feel at the time?

Q: Was it making decisions at a strategic level, coordinating resources across departments, or understanding business and market structure as a whole? How did that thinking lead you to an MBA, step by step?

A: The biggest gaps were probably strategic-level decision-making and cross-team coordination. On the strategy side, agency work meant clients usually already had a clear idea before handing things to us to execute. Lots of constraints were added before a project even started, so projects stayed small and shallow. They were easier to execute, but the range of things I could influence or contribute to was limited. My degree was also in science, so I always felt my business knowledge fell short and I wasn’t very confident about higher-level strategy. That pushed me toward further study too.

On cross-team coordination, I once worked on a project to simplify the tracking setup used to attribute ad performance. The actual fix wasn’t complicated, but the people involved rarely worked together, and the requirements defined by the users never matched what the web engineering team understood them to be. The project had stalled for at least six months with no progress. I joined the team midway to help move it forward.

In my first job I had worked with web engineers, so I knew how they like requirements written. After joining, I first gathered the exact use cases from the other users and redefined the requirements clearly. Then I presented a solution at a meeting with both the engineers and user representatives, got both sides to agree, and the project started moving again. I also ran a workshop on the changes to the workflow so every user understood the new process. Two months after I joined, we had replaced the old tracking setup and saved at least 50% of the time and cost. That experience showed me again how much cross-disciplinary knowledge matters, and it’s why I chose an MBA: to learn well-rounded business thinking and to meet people from other professional backgrounds who would broaden my perspective.

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MBA Application Strategy and Positioning: Telling Your Career Story Well

How did you work out the main theme of your application and your career narrative? Which part of the application did you focus on most?

Q: In your application, how did you connect your academic background, work experience and future goals so the school would see why an MBA fits you? Looking back, which part of the process was most worth the time (for example clarifying your career motivation, structuring your resume, or choosing recommenders)?

A: Every MBA program wants a different portfolio of students, but most share two goals: a diverse class and strong career growth after graduation. In my case, a science degree combined with business work experience isn’t extremely rare in an MBA, but it is relatively uncommon. In programs that value diversity, I thought this combination showed I could bring a different way of thinking and add to the mix of the class. It also showed I could adapt to the MBA’s diverse environment.

On the other hand, my science background lacked complete training in business thinking. That’s a weakness an MBA can fix, and once it’s fixed I’d have room to grow further in my career. Combining those two points was the strategy behind my application.

As for the whole process, I think clarifying your career motivation and goals is the part most worth your time. It helps with the MBA application, and more importantly it helps you sort out your own direction. Along the way, make sure the program you’re applying to can give you what you need and can actually move you toward the career you want. That matters most. Otherwise you’re wasting your own time and money, and maybe the school’s resources too.

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Choosing a School and Making the Final Call: Why the SMU MBA?

What criteria did you use to evaluate MBA programs?

Q: With so many MBA options, what did you mainly compare (for example location, curriculum, industry connections, learning culture)?

A: One factor was program length. I was already over 30 when I applied, so I didn’t have time to study slowly, and I wanted to finish within 1 to 1.5 years. The other big factor was location. I wanted to work in Singapore, so I mostly looked at schools there. Where a school is has a big effect on the network you build, which helps when you look for a job locally afterward.

What won you over about the SMU MBA?

Q: Looking back at your decision, which features of the SMU MBA actually made up your mind?

A: With those two main criteria (program length and location), I had only 4 options left: SMU, NUS, NTU and INSEAD. INSEAD requires a higher TOEFL score, and mine wasn’t high enough. I didn’t plan to spend more time retaking the test, so INSEAD was out.

Compared with NUS and NTU, SMU’s classes are more interactive. SMU also requires an internship (you still have to apply to companies yourself), which at least gives you a chance to try working in Singapore. And since the campus is downtown, it’s easier to get to class when you’re interning. So it became my first choice. One more advantage I only learned after starting at SMU: core courses run during the day for the first half year, but later electives are in the evenings or on Saturdays. So even though the MBA takes about a year, you can still do a 3 to 6 month internship at the same time, which few other one-year MBAs allow.

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What Studying in the SMU MBA Is Really Like: Classes, Classmates and Learning Style

How did the SMU MBA’s diverse cohort affect your learning?

Q: How did classmates from different countries, industries and functions concretely change how you learn and think?

A: In terms of learning itself, different backgrounds didn’t make a big concrete difference. But during class discussions or group work, I often had moments like, “Interesting, I never thought people from another country would see it this way.” The main effect on how I think is that I now consider more carefully whether the listener will follow what I’m about to say. I often assume they might not know the context, so I add more background.

That sounds obvious. But in Taiwan, where people have very similar backgrounds, we often assume the other person already knows and forget they might not, so what the listener receives ends up oversimplified.

The other side of diversity: how did you handle communication costs and team challenges?

Q: In group work, when someone dominated or participation was uneven, how did you adjust your role and mindset? How has the diverse cohort affected your international career path since?

A: Uneven participation didn’t bother me much. As long as the group report got done and I learned something along the way, I don’t think everyone’s contribution has to be exactly equal. When there were free riders who contributed nothing, I did feel it was unfair and complained. But each term is only 10 weeks, and complaining doesn’t finish the report, so you just put up with it, do their share, and avoid grouping with them next time. Word about free riders spreads fast, and in later terms they usually had a harder time finding teammates.

I don’t think I ran into anyone who forcefully dominated discussions. (I heard a few classmates were like that, but I never happened to be in their groups.) It may also be that in courses outside my strengths, like finance, I’d have my own opinions but trust the final judgment of teammates with relevant experience. So even if someone else led, as long as I agreed with the outcome and learned something, I didn’t see it as a problem. (Actually, in areas I know well, I’m probably the one who dominates 😅)

Honestly, I haven’t felt a big effect from the diverse cohort on my career path yet. I chose an MBA to meet more varied people and learn more, so this was the environment I expected. What I can say for sure is that it did broaden my perspective, which was what I wanted.

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Course Design and Learning Format: The Cohort System and Mixed Classes

What difference does the SMU MBA’s core and elective structure make in practice?

Q: You take core courses with your fixed cohort and electives together with part-time students. How does that affect the depth and breadth of what you learn?

A: Part-time MBA students are working at the same time and are mostly older, so what they share in class often comes from things that just happened at their jobs. Compared with full-time classmates, their questions and examples are sometimes more practical, which gives you a different view.

SMU’s classes are also small, so taking courses with part-time students gives you more chances to meet people from other fields and build connections.

Is this course design close to the real workplace?

Q: From your point of view, does the SMU MBA’s way of learning bring you closer to how people collaborate and make decisions in real business settings?

A: Honestly, yes and no. Yes, because teammates on MBA projects are equals, and discussions are usually constructive. When opinions clash, you have to persuade the other side, and you only reach a conclusion when both sides agree or one gives way. In flatter teams that value creativity, that may well be how they work and decide.

But at work, power between teams is usually unequal, and decisions sit with the key stakeholders. If you don’t have decision rights, all you can do is try to persuade the key stakeholders, which is different from the MBA. Even so, the frameworks from MBA courses do help with defining problems, analyzing the situation and making decisions.

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Cross-Cultural Teamwork and Personal Growth: What the MBA Gave Him Besides Knowledge

Which skill do you think changed most during the SMU MBA?

Q: Beyond professional skills, did your communication, pace of thinking or leadership style change noticeably? Was it how you communicate, how you reason through decisions, or how you find consensus among different views? Was there a project or course that made you especially aware of the change?

A: To be honest, I didn’t feel a big change. If I had to name one, it would be how I think through problems. Education in Taiwan basically trained us to look for the one objectively correct answer. In business decisions there often isn’t an absolute right answer, and the answer is often “it depends.” The same question can lead to different conclusions in different situations, and every option has pros and cons. Often you don’t choose something because it’s objectively best. You make a subjective choice and accept a trade-off after weighing the pros and cons.

We think this way all the time in daily life, like deciding where to travel or eat, but I didn’t use to do it so deliberately. I started doing it more consciously in my third term, in the elective Entrepreneurship and Business Planning. The project was to propose a startup plan. With an open topic like that, uncertainty was high, and our group discussions usually opened up first and then narrowed down. That’s how I got used to thinking this way.

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How the SMU MBA Has Actually Affected His Career

What concrete changes did the MBA bring to your career plans? How did SMU help?

Q: After finishing the program, how has the way you see career choices, your role or your long-term goals changed?

A: Overall, not much. It mostly confirmed that the career direction I had in mind when I started the MBA is the one I want.

Which skills have you “actually used” most since the MBA?

Q: Whether analysis, communication, strategic thinking or cross-team collaboration, which skills do you see as the most direct return on your MBA investment?

A: Right now the most useful is problem solving. In daily life and at work, solving problems is still what you do most often. But I think what will help most in the future is a wider perspective and broader strategic thinking. Seeing things with more breadth and from a higher level is what I feel I gained most.

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Advice for Future Applicants: If He Could Do It Again

Looking back, what do you wish you had started preparing earlier?

Q: If you had to pick the 3 things most worth starting early, what would you recommend to future applicants?

A: Career planning, networking and storytelling skills. Career planning has a big effect on which schools you choose. While planning, you work out what you lack and need to reach your career goal, which helps with choosing schools and also with preparing your application and interviews.

Networking helps you understand schools, which helps with choosing schools, interviews and your application materials. Later, when you’re job hunting, your network is a useful channel too.

Storytelling is probably the most important interview skill, for school interviews and job interviews alike, and you’ll use it in case study discussions too. A framework like STAR makes your explanation easier to follow. I mention it because my thinking tends to jump around, and when I’m nervous I struggle to organize what I want to say, so it took me a while to internalize.

Any tips for those planning to stay and work in Singapore?

Q: For people hoping to use the SMU MBA to find a job and stay in Singapore, what experiences or thoughts can you share?

A: Honestly, I can’t give advice on this yet, because I haven’t found a job here. Singapore’s job market isn’t great right now. The government requires most companies to consider locals or permanent residents (PR) first, so foreigners who need a visa have had a hard time finding work lately. Many of my classmates ended up going back to their home countries.