The prizes were given out by Programme Director Chris Saunders, to the students who had battled through the recent bad weather and power cuts to attend their graduation ceremony this week.

For the one-year Full-Time MBA Programme, the Dean’s Prize for Best MBA Project, is awarded to the student group achieving the highest mark for their client project, was presented to Jason Brindle, Bernardo Molley, Samuel Wakama and Swee Yin Tan for their project with United Utilities.

Swee Yin Tan from Malaysia said: “The MBA was an amazing opportunity to learn from a culturally diverse range of nationalities across a wide range of industry sector experience. The Mindful Manager modules helped open my eyes to new opportunities. I built a great network of contacts and we were really well supported throughout the year by our dedicated MBA careers team.”

Matt Oliver and Ashleigh Dueker were joint recipients of the Programme Director’s Prize for Best Dissertation/Reflective Essay, both scoring 85%.

British student Matt said: “Studying the Lancaster MBA enabled me to learn so much more about myself as a person and as a manager which has equipped me with a fantastic set of skills to take back into my career. It pushed me to excel and go far beyond my comfort zone every week with new modules in new subject starting from scratch, so we had to learn really quickly. The great thing about the Lancaster MBA is that is so friendly and has a real family aspect to it but is so easy to reach London for our modules and events there. The campus learning environment is second to none.”

Ashleigh, from the US, reflected on her experience on the Lancaster MBA, saying: “The Lancaster MBA pushes you beyond what you think you are capable of intellectually and in ways which you don’t expect. The learning that you gain by being so far out of your comfort zone is incredible. Working with such a culturally diverse cohort plus the focus on presentation skills and the feedback I received were incredibly valuable in my current job where I am always presenting to clients.”

From the Executive MBA (EMBA) cohort, Sara Fleming was the proud winner of both the Best Student Prize (chosen by academics) and the Student of the Cohort prize (elected by her fellow students).

The Programme Director’s Prize, which is awarded to the student who has made the most significant progress from the first two assignments to the final dissertation, was awarded to Chris Hunter.

Prizes were also awarded to students who had completed the Global MBA in Jordan and Singapore. The winners were:

• Best Student Prize (Jordan): Khalil Elias
• Best Dissertation (Jordan): Khalil Elias
• Best Student Prize (Singapore): Jinkun Li
• Best Dissertation (Singapore): Jinkun Li

MBA and EMBA Programme Director, Chris Saunders said:  “It was fantastic to see our Full-time and Executive MBA students returning to Lancaster for graduation having successfully completed the Lancaster MBA.

“The Full-time MBA were a great cohort who worked very collaboratively together during the year. Many of them have already gained new jobs that have enhanced careers.

“The Executive MBA were a very dedicated and impressive group. They have coped very well with the difficult task of balancing their work, study, and family commitments over the past two years, and deserve all the praise they have received today.  Congratulations to them all and best of luck for the future.”

To keep up to date with the Lancaster MBA, you can follow them on twitter and Like them on Facebook.