This article is for you if:
- you are wondering about what should be your next step on your Supply Chain career or;
- you want to learn more about Supply Chain Management or;
- you´ve heard about MIT Micromasters on Supply Chain Management but you still have some doubts about the program
For the last two years I´ve been immersed on a huge Supply Chain learning journey. I want to share my experience on taking (almost) the entire Micromaster program.
What is this program and how it works?
It´s a group of 5 modules + a final comprehensive exam that covers all 5 modules.
Every module is a stand-alone course. This means that you can take only one or two if you want and still receive the certificate (only for paid students).
The five courses are:
- Supply Chain Analytics (SC0x)
- Supply Chain Fundamentals (SC1x)
- Supply Chain Design (SC2x)
- Supply Chain Dynamics (SC3x)
- Supply Chain Technology and Systems (SC4x)
All the content of every module is free! You only have to pay for it if you want to receive a certificate by the end of the module. And, of course, you will only receive your certificate if you get a passing grade on it (>60%).
I took the courses using the sequence recommended by MIT but you are free to take it on any sequence that you want.
Every module takes about 3 months to finish and you have to do it on MIT´s pace. This means that you will have a fixed calendar to follow, with some important deadlines.
You will have graded assignments every week, a midterm exam and a final exam on every module and you have to some up more that 60% on your total score to get your certificate (for paid students).
So that’s is pretty much the “mechanism” of the program.
What are my thoughts on the program?
I took all the five modules. The only module that I didn’t take was the final exam and I´ll explain “why” by the end of this article.
I had a great overall experience. I´ve learned a lot and I was very impressed by the quality of videos and content. There´s a lot of good content, good teachers, a long list of references and articles to read, a lot of exercises to practice. If you have any doubts or discussion points you can use forums with others students and some MIT´s teachers assistants, which is great.
It wasn´t easy at all. It´s not the kind of online course that you just watch on a passive way and get your certificate by the end of it. In this case, you HAVE TO do the exercises, practice a lot, review some classes, read extra material in order to be ready for the exams. There are some easy exercises and questions but there are also some very difficult questions that you must be very prepared for.
I remember pretty clear that I had some very difficult weeks, witch I had to study and practice a lot before a get the right answer for some exercises, specially Excel programing exercises (yes my friend, you will learn how to create some optimization programs using excel solver tool).
In general, it took me 5 or 6 hours per week to watch video content and practice all the exercises. Of course in some weeks it was faster (3 hours) and in some weeks slower (12 hours). That depends a lot on what kind of content you will be studying.
The module that I liked most was Supply Chain Fundamentals (SC1x), that covers basically Demand Forecasting, Inventory Management, and Transportation Planning using models and tools to help you understand how decisions are taken on big supply chains.
I strongly recommend this program to everyone that wants to go deep on Supply Chain Management. Be sure that you will learn a lot of the most important Supply Chain concepts and use a lot of thing on your work. But also be sure that you will have to find some hours to study during your week and this is going to be hard, especially if you work full time.
Why I didn´t take the last module?
After you finish with a passing grade all 5 modules, you will be invited to go to the last step: Supply Chain Comprehensive Exam.
This exams covers all the 5 modules content. There´s a lot of rules to take this course. For example, you will have to take it with your camera open so MIT can make sure that you did it by yourself. You can´t consult any other material, open other webpage rather that the page of the exam, use your cellphone or even a notebook.
If you complete the exam and receive a passing grade, this module opens several doors to you. You can use this certificate to apply to a lot of masters degree in universities across the globe. MIT itself accept this certificate as half of theirs masters degree in Supply Chain. This means that if you have already complete Micromasters and want to continue your studies with a masters degree, you will only have to take more 5 months in campus to finish it (this is what they call Blended Master degree).
And there is a lot of universities in Europe, North America, Brazil, Asia, etc, that accepts this certificate the same way MIT does.
I didn´t take this module because I´m note interest in doing a masters degree in Supply Chain. I think this module is very focused on Maters Degree and that´s why it´s not for me. If you are considering taking a Masters Degree in supply chain, that I think that complete the entire program, including the final exam, is a very good path for you. When you think this way, the name “micromasters” makes a lot more sense, right?
Let´s talk more!
If you want to talk more about this program, please contact me. I´d love to share more about this experience.
To know more details about the program, please visit https://micromasters.mit.edu/scm/