White slide with navy text that says, "Welcome! Chat with the Chair of Project and Program Management." Below, a person in business attire looks at a workflow process projected on a wall.
Thomas Screnci speaks: All right. So thank you again for joining us for this chat with the chair of project and program management with Brandeis online. I want to jump right into our introductions here.
Slide changes to show headshots of Ed Anderson, MS, PMP, Program Chair of Project and Program Management (edanderson@brandeis.edu) and Thomas Screnci, Associate Director of Admissions and Enrollment (tscrenci@brandeis.edu).
Thomas Screnci: So I am, Thomas Screnci. I am the associate director of Admissions and Enrollment, so I'll be your primary contact for anything related to admissions, applications, things like that happy to help you through the registration process as well. So I'm always here to give a hand and help students as they need fit.
And also joining us is Ed Anderson, the program chair of project and program management. I'll let Ed introduce himself, give us some information on his background. Ed, please.
Slide title switches to say "program chair" with bullet points of Ed's experiences listed below.
Ed Anderson speaks: Right. Thanks, Tom. So I've been now program chair here at Brandeis for the last 4 years. Since 2021 I've been part of the Brandeis family. Now, probably. What is it? A little over 20 years I received my master's degree here I was part of one of the original cohorts that went through the program, and then from 2015 to 2021. I also served on the Advisory Board of this program and then had the opportunity to take the program chair position back in 2021.
But I've been doing project and program management now for over 30 years. Most of my work has been around managing. It projects. And over the last 20 plus years more. Specifically, you know, in the cyber security space and working with many financial services companies over those 30 plus years. I also received my bachelor's degree in business at the University of Connecticut, and now been also certified as a project management, professional PMP, since 2003. So, you know, a lot of background with project and program management and a lot of experience with Brandeis.
Slide switches to say "Agenda." Below, bullet points list: About Brandeis Online, Program Overview, Curriculum Information, Marketplace Information, Program Expertise, Admissions Info, Open Q&A.
Thomas Screnci: Thank you. Ed, alright. So before I hand it over to Ed to talk about the program we'll just go through the agenda, which starts with our just general introduction into what Brandeis Online offers and kind of what our program setup is program overview curriculum information. We then dive a little bit into the marketplace information and the program expertise that Brandeis online offers through our faculty our advisory board things like that, wrapping it up with the admissions information in the Q&A. So we likely not take the full hour this is booked for, but it's always good to have plenty of time for questions.
Slide switches to say "Brandeis Online Overview." Bullet points list: Master's degrees, 10 courses; Master's certificates, 4 courses; Four 10-week sessions/year, switching to five 8-week sessions in 2025; 98% of our students are working full-time while in program; 12:1 student-faculty; Rolling admissions; Take up to two courses before applying for a program."
Thomas Screnci: So with that, just jumping into what Brandeis Online offers to you as a student. So when it comes to the project and program management program. This is a 10 course Master's degree. We do offer 2 different master's certificates, which are both 4 courses. If you decided to get a master's certificate. It is actually stackable. You can roll those credits into a Master's degree if you decide to go in that route. So we offer those routes for master's certificates and degrees for project and program management, among others, which I'll show in a second.
Currently, all of our classes are 10 weeks long. We have 4 10 week sessions per year. However, starting later this year in late August, we're switching to a smaller condensed academic schedule, which will be 5 8 week sessions per year. So a little faster in terms of the program length, how long it takes you to complete a program in a class so definitely advantageous to allow you to to move forward through this as needed.
We are absolutely geared towards the working professional 90% of our students working full time, so that might be people who are fresh out of college, who are 1015, 20 years, or more into their career. So it applies in every which way in terms of that regard, and for whatever employment status you are, if you're very full time with a very busy life, or if you have more time, of course, that might make it easier to attend classes online.
All of our classes are on the smaller side, 12 to one student to faculty. Ratio is what we aim for average classes around 10 students typically capping off our classes at around 20 to have more in-depth personable conversations. through all of our classes. Admissions is rolling, meaning as you complete your application for whatever you're applying for, decisions are sent out. There's no deadline. We have to. We have to wait for. And if you wanted to just try out our programs, you can take one to 2 courses just as an independent student, not part of any program or anything like that.
Slide switches to say "Overview of Programs." All Brandeis Online Master's Certificates and Master's Degrees are listed below. Master's certificates include: Cheminformatics, Drug Discovery Informatics, Genomics, Healthcare Analytics, Jewish Professional Leadership, Digital Accessibility, Content Marketing, Digital Marketing, Marketing Analytics, Agile Project Management, Project Management, UX Research. Master's degrees include: Bioinformatics, Business Analytics, Digital Marketing and Design, Jewish Professional Leadership, Project and Program Management, Software Engineering, User-Centered Design.
Thomas Screnci speaks: This just quickly covers all of our programs that we offer. I put 2 asterisks next to our project and program management certificates, and of course, the full list of degrees there as well, just giving you some some background and perspective of Brandeis' online program, and how we educate our students, all of our classes, all of our programs are asynchronous. They're 100% online. So there are no set meeting times each week you have weekly postings and work to do, but it's asynchronous. So it's very flexible for your schedule. So that's an important note. To toss out toss out there right before I hand it over to Ed to kind of start to dive more deeply into project and program management. So with that, let me hand it over to Ed to 1st jump into the defining features of our project and program management program. Ed.
Slide switches to say "Program Defining Features." Chart below lists four features: 1. Lead and manage projects, 2. Communicate effectively, 3. Manage project stakeholders, 4. Foundations of project management.
Ed Anderson: Yeah, so in terms of our program. You know, one thing is is, the program is balanced, effective project and program managers, you know, need to balance hard skills, such as scheduling, let's see, and technical skills. Yeah, scheduling, planning, estimating, budgeting as well as soft skills, such as leading, negotiating, and communicating
And let me just see something. I'm wondering if I might have hit the wrong I'm on the wrong slide. I apologize. But anyway, yeah.
Part of you know, what we have here is, yeah, leading and managing projects and programs as well is understanding what it takes to do that, managing, effective, or communicating effectively, which is also very important now, especially as as a leader to be able to also manage those project stakeholders, and there's so many of them, and understanding what their various needs are, and being able to cater to that, and then is also to lay out the foundations of project management. So whether it's, you know, scheduling, cost, planning, risk, quality, any of those.
Those are all important aspects of project management. We also introduce students to agile project management, because that has now become much more relevant in in our industry.
Slide switches to say "Program Curriculum." Required courses are listed: Foundations of Project Management; Project Scheduling and Cost Management; Risk Management in Projects and Programs; Negotiating and Conflict Resolution; Program Management: Theory and Practice; The Human Side of Project Leadership; Demystifying Agile Project Management."
Ed Anderson: So here are the courses that we have. We have 7 courses that are required. And so, yeah, some of the key ones. Yeah, such as scheduling and cost management, risk management, negotiating and conflict resolution program management. And you know, one of the things that distinguishes us from many other similar programs is that there's also the focus on program management here. And then we have the human side of project leadership, and then, finally, is an introduction to agile project management, and that that really is something that you know, all students, you know, do go through so that they have exposure to that type of project, because more and more organizations are implementing agile into their projects, even though many still stay with traditional waterfall. But knowing agile is also very important.
And then there's a series of electives where you could take at least 3 of these elective courses. We are also in the process of at some point of bringing in a capstone program, so that if you choose at the end of your program to do a capstone that will be also available to you.
Slide switches to say "Required Course Details." Text below says RPJM 101: Foundations of Project Management. Assignments include: Project charter, scope, planning, and project management tools.
Thomas Screnci speaks: Excellent. Thank you, Ed, so we'll have, you know, time at the end. So if you have more questions on the curriculum or program experience. We're happy to answer that. But for now, Ed, would you mind diving into a little more detail about one of these foundational courses for PPM 101: Foundations of Project Management, please.
Ed Anderson speaks: Yeah, so in terms of the foundation. So this is the starting point. And this really lays, as the name implies, the foundation of project management, understanding all the different areas of it and going through the entire project lifecycle. So you learn how to create a project charter, how to scope a project, the various aspects of planning a project, and then also implementing or being able to utilize different project management tools.
You know. But this really gives, you know, just a little bit of a taste of each area of project management, and then prepares you for some of the other courses like the scheduling and cost management course or risk management, where we take deeper dives into these courses.
Slide switches to say "Marketplace Information." Fields that employ graduates with this degree include construction, engineering, financial services, technology and more. Job titles of graduates include program/project manager, planning director, senior consultant, senior program manager, and more."
Thomas Screnci speaks: Thank you. Ed, so shifting gears like to focus now on the industry insights marketplace information. So Ed will jump into that. Starting with marketplace information. Please.
Ed Anderson speaks: So students here do work in many different fields, and one of the important aspects of the program is that the program is not geared towards any one industry or any particular set of industries. So we have people who are involved in construction, engineering, financial services, technology. You know, Pharma, what have you. What we teach really is portable to all these various industries. And in terms of also the types of positions that people may take after graduation program manager, project manager are, you know, very common, you know, project or planning director consultants, and, you know, and then some people may still be in the early stages of their career and may take some other project management role. But you know this program will help to, you know, guide you or lead you towards some of these positions. That, you know, are really relevant.
Slide switches to say "Industry Expertise." Below, text lists positions held by project and program management faculty, "Chief Communications Officer of Central Park Conservancy, Director of Applications and Assurant, Director of U.S. General Services Administration, CEO of Vicenna."
Slide switches to say "Professional Advisory Board." Below, logos of companies that the professional advisory board members work at, including Google, MassDEP, State Street, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, Novaratis, and more.
Thomas Screnci speaks: Thank you, Ed, so I'm going to jump in here now and talk a little bit about our advisory board or industry expertise before jumping into admissions here. So, as mentioned previously, one thing we really try to do is keep our courses and curriculum current and relevant to what's happening in the real world. It's kind of the reason you're here is to progress careers. So we do this in a few ways. We're proud to have vast industry connections, a variety of industry connections through our faculty, through our advisory boards, which we'll talk about in a second. All of our instructors also are experienced professionals in their field. They engage with us part time. So they are working full time in their field and teaching part time. So with that, they're bringing the most relevant, up-to-date experience into the classroom to their examples. So it's a phenomenal way to be engaged academically. So that's 1 way we try to keep high online standards. And of course, as I talked about before the variety, this is a sampling of some of the faculty, you see, and the various backgrounds they're bringing to the class and to the online classroom.
With that our advisory Board it comes, is fulfilled by faculty, by members rather of a variety of backgrounds, each brand of online program has professional advisory boards, consisting of various executives from different companies. So really to help offer strategic guidance and expertise on the latest advances and demands in the industry job seeker information possibly really contributing to these meetings, we have to really further develop our program as we review our program strength from the curriculum to the to the course material. Members hope to identify trends, to align educational courses with emerging areas, and also how the industry is being challenged.
As a Brandeis Online student, you have many opportunities to network with those in your field through the Advisory Board, through your faculty, through your classmates as well. One of the best benefits of a smaller class size is having the ability to more intimately get to know your classmates on a personal, more deeper level, find those connections. So that's an added benefit for us as well. We'll offer expanded programming networks, events, webinars share job postings, LinkedIn activities as well, kind of building into that meaningful connection in a variety of different ways and platforms.
Slide changes to say "Application Checklist." List below says: Online Application; Official transcripts; Resume or CV; Statement of goals; Letter of Recommendation." Text below says, "No application fee. No GMAT or GRE required."
When it comes to admissions process, and our final piece before our Q&A section here. It's very straightforward, as you can see the application. Excuse me on the screen. The application is very straightforward. No application fee or standardized testing requirements. We're looking for an official transcript which is available on our website brandeis.edu. Sometimes it's easier just to search Brandeis Online through Google. But brandeis.edu is our main homepage for Brandeis University.
We require all transcripts from all previous institutions, all official transcripts. We can review applications with copies, but we really do request official transcripts by the end of your 1st academic term. So if you transfer schools a few times, we would require a transcript from each institution.
Your update of your current resume, or CV. This kind of breaks from the traditional norms of resumes. It can be 2, 3, even more pages length. If you want it to be highlighting the different projects, experiences, professional development, and so on. Experiences you have in great detail is wonderful to see. It's great to have as much perspective as possible on you as a student. So please feel free to really go past the traditional norm of one page, length, resume and go as far as many pages as you. If it really encapsulates your professional and academic experiences.
One statement of goals, which is 500 words or more just explaining why you're applying to the program. Why, Brand? Nice what you hope to get out of it. Maybe what your past has brought you here through education or background, or family, or whatever it may be, so please feel free to do 500 words or more. It can be many pages. It can be 501 words. It's totally up to you as to how exactly long it is. But as long as you get past the 500 minimum. That is perfect.
One letter recommendation for this program. So a current or former manager or supervisor is ideal. Others who know you in a professional capacity is, are acceptable if former managers or supervisors are not possible, so this that completes the application process, as you can see, pretty straightforward. Once applications are completed. As I mentioned in the beginning, we are rolling admissions. So once this is done, we can get you a decision in typically a week's time or so we try to have a very fast turnaround time for decisions, and you can start at any of our 4 soon to be 5 sessions throughout the year for the master's degrees, which is what this application here is most relevant for. For certificate programs as well. The certificate program is an online form. You fill out. You are not doing all of these steps for a certificate. There is a form on our website which is a very much condensed application for this certificate program which you would fill in.
So please note that if you're thinking of a certificate and that completes the application kind of section of this presentation.
Slide changes to list headshots and contact information for Ed Anderson (edanderson@brandeis.edu) and Thomas Screnci (tscrenci@brandeis.edu).
Tom Screnci speaks: That leads us to our Q&A session, if you do have any questions, feel free to ask them in the chat, feel free to unmute yourself and ask questions as well. But before we do, I just wanted to say thank you for your time, and, Ed, thank you for making time for us. I know how busy life can be, so thank you for your time here.
Ed Anderson: Oh, my pleasure!
Thomas Screnci: For our guests. If you're if you're all set, you're free to sign off. Thank you so much for coming, and, please, I'll be in contact if I can help, and if you have questions I'm happy to answer as many as I possibly can, so please open yourself or use the chat. If you do have questions.
Ed Anderson: Oh, also, just one thing is just to build on what you talked about our faculty. And, you know, working one of the other things about the faculty is, most of our faculty have been here for many years, I would say probably 5 to 10 years. Most of them have been around, and they have, you know, had much. You know. They've had much success with our students, and we've always had very good feedback on them. So it's a faculty that's pretty consistent and very stable.
Tom Screnci: Excellent. Thank you. So with that, I'm gonna stop the recording and we'll end right there.