Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 864, Going to Business School.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 864.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
Our website is eslpod.com.
Become a member of ESL Podcast and download a learning guide for this episode.
This episode is a dialogue between Carla and Joaquin about going to school to get a university degree in business.
Let's get started.
I just heard that you're taking a leave of absence to go to business school.
Is that right?
Yeah.
I've been thinking about it for a long time and have finally taken the plunge.
I need an MBA to get ahead in my career.
That's great, but why don't you go part-time?
I had considered taking classes on nights and weekends while I continue to work, but I've been admitted to an Ivy League school and I want to take full advantage of the opportunities there.
Isn't graduate school expensive, especially an Ivy League school?
Yeah, but I think it's worth it, and I've been saving up.
I have an undergraduate degree in accounting and finance, but that's not enough if I want to work in the upper echelons of this or any other company.
Maybe I should be thinking about getting an MBA.
I'd recommend it if you want to go further in your career.
I'll lend you all of my test prep materials for the GMAT.
The GMAT?
I'd forgotten about the GMAT.
That may be a deal-breaker for me.
Why?
You don't like taking tests?
I like taking tests as much as I like getting a kick upside the head, maybe even less.
Our dialogue begins with Carla saying to Joaquin I just heard that you're taking a leave of absence today to go to business school.
A leave of absence is a period of time when you leave your job but are allowed to come back to your job when you finish doing whatever you are leaving your job for.
Some people may take a leave of absence because a family member is sick, or they might take a leave of absence, as Joaquin is doing in the dialogue, to go back to school and study some more.
Not all companies allow you to take a leave of absence and typically you're not paid during your leave of absence.
So it has to be a situation that is either very serious or very important for you.
Joaquin is going to take a leave of absence to go to business school.
Usually, that means going to get a graduate degree after you've already completed your undergraduate bachelor's degree.
Joaquin says, yeah, I've been thinking about it for a long time and have finally taken the plunge.
The expression to take the plunge P-L-U-N-G-E means to decide to do something that is perhaps a little scary, a little risky.
You're not sure what is going to happen, but you're just going to go ahead and do it because you decide that the
Benefits are going to be greater than the costs.
That is, it will help you more than it will hurt you.
Joaquin says, I need an MBA to get ahead in my career.
An NBA is a Master's of Business Administration.
That's an advanced degree that provides education for people who are in business or who want to go into the business world but need more education about topics such as finance marketing, management and other areas.
Carla says, that's great, but why don't you go part-time?
Part-time would be going to school, but also doing something else.
So you may be working full-time, eight hours a day, and then at night you may be going to school part-time.
Joaquin wants to go to school full-time.
He wants to quit his job and only go to school, or at least go to school for most of the day and perhaps have a part-time job at night.
Joaquin said I had considered I had thought about taking classes on nights and weekends while I continue to work.
But I've been admitted into an Ivy League school and I want to take full advantages of the opportunities there.
The Ivy League is a group of private colleges that are considered among the best colleges in the United States.
There are traditionally eight Ivy League colleges Columbia University Brown Cornell Dartmouth Harvard, Princeton Yale and the University of Pennsylvania.
So Joaquin must be very smart and have a lot of money to get admitted into or accepted into an Ivy League school as a student.
Carla says, isn't graduate school expensive, especially at an Ivy League school?
So immediately, Carla asks the question that the average person would ask, which is wow, how can you afford that?
How can you have enough money?
Graduate school is any education you receive after your bachelor's degree.
That usually leads to a master's degree or a PhD or doctorate in some topic.
Joaquin says, yeah, but I think it's worth it.
And I've been saving up.
To save up is a two-word phrasal verb meaning to be saving your money for a specific or particular purpose.
Maybe you decide not to buy a new car because you want to save up to buy a new house.
You want to save your money.
So to save up is usually when we save our money for a specific purpose.
Joaquin says, An undergraduate degree we referred to earlier is usually called a bachelor's degree.
It's something that you get after studying at least four years at the university, or in my case, seven years, because I wasn't very intelligent.
You see, it took me a long time.
Accounting is the activity of making sure you keep good records of how much money you bring into the company and how much you spend.
It's a organized, what we might describe as systematic way of keeping track of, or knowing how much money you're getting and how much money you're spending.
Finance is a When you are managing a large amount of money for an organization, making sure that the organization has enough money.
That would be part of finance.
Joaquin has a bachelor's degree, an undergraduate degree, in accounting and finance, so he knows something about business.
But he says that's not enough.
That's not sufficient if he wants to work in the upper echelons of his company.
The upper echelons, E-C-H-E-L-O-N-S, refers to the very top of a large organization or company.
The presidents, the vice presidents, the top managers we would call them the top executives who work in a company.
They are part of the upper echelon.
Carla says, I graduated with a degree in marketing and information systems.
Marketing is the area of a company or a business responsible for letting other people know about your products, of trying to get people to buy your products by, for example, having advertising.
That might be part of the marketing department in a company.
Information systems are is the part of the company that is responsible for the computer technology, especially how this information is used to help organize and run the company.
That's information systems, a relatively new part of business in the last 50 years or so.
Carla says, maybe I should be thinking about getting an MBA.
Joaquin says, I'd recommend it.
I think it's a good idea if you want to go further in your career.
In other words, if you want to get a better and higher paying job in the future.
Joaquin says, I'll lend you all of my test prep materials for the GMAT.
So Joaquin is going to let Carla use his test prep materials.
Test prep is short for test preparation.
It's the process of studying for a specific exam, learning what kind of questions will be asked, practicing your answers.
That's part of test prep.
GMAT is the Graduate Management Admissions Test.
This is the test that most business schools use in the United States. for their MBA programs.
They give it to anyone who wants to go there and you will need to get a certain score, a certain result, if you want to get into the school.
The more difficult the school, the higher the GMAT score is will be the higher the GMAT score that you will need to get into that school.
GMAT, like the SAT, like other similar tests, are used to decide who gets into the university and who doesn't.
Carla says the GMAT, I'd forgotten about the GMAT.
That may be a deal breaker for me.
A deal D-E-A-L breaker, B-R-E-A-K-E-R is something that makes it impossible for you to do something because you don't want to do it or you can't do it.
For example, I wanted to go out on a date with this beautiful girl, but she was a smoker and that was a deal breaker for me.
She liked to smoke cigarettes.
And so I decided, no, I could not date anyone who smoked cigarettes.
That's not true.
Of course, when I was dating, I would date Any woman who would say yes to going out with me, to going on a date with me.
But some people might consider smoking, for example, to be a deal breaker.
Joaquin says, why?
You don't like taking tests?
Carla says, I like taking tests as much as I like getting a kick upside the head.
A kick upside U-P-S-I-D-E.
The head is an expression used when you have done something foolish or stupid.
It's almost as though someone were punishing you by kicking you in the head because you were so stupid, you were so dumb.
Carla says that she likes taking tests as much as getting a kick upside the head.
In other words, she doesn't like it at all.
And therefore having to take this test, the GMAT, to go to graduate school would definitely be a deal breaker.
It would be something that would make her decide that she was not going to do that.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
I just heard that you're taking a leave of absence to go to business school.
Is that right?
Yeah, I've been thinking about it for a long time and have finally taken the plunge.
I need an MBA to get ahead in my career.
That's great, but why don't you go part-time?
I had considered taking classes on nights and weekends while I continue to work, but I've been admitted to an Ivy League school and I want to take full advantage of the opportunities there.
Isn't graduate school expensive, especially an Ivy League school?
Yeah, but I think it's worth it and I've been saving up.
I have an undergraduate degree in accounting and finance, but that's not enough if I want to work in the upper echelons of this or any other company.
I graduated with a degree in marketing and information systems.
Maybe I should be thinking about getting an MBA.
I'd recommend it if you want to go further in your career.
I'll lend you all of my test prep materials for the GMAT.
The GMAT?
I'd forgotten about the GMAT.
That may be a deal-breaker for me.
Why?
You don't like taking tests?
I like taking tests as much as I like getting a kick upside the head.
Maybe even less.
We hope our scriptwriter never takes a leave of absence because we love her wonderful scripts.
Thank you, Dr. Lucy Say.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us again right here on ESL Podcasts.
English as a Second Language podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2013 by the Center for Educational Development.
