Ep. 107 - What is the Master of Science in Human Resource Management?

In Ep. 107 of the CSUSB Advising Podcast, we are joined by Dr. Craig Seal to discuss the new Master of Science in Human Resource Management. This program is AACSB accredited and consists of 30 units over two years, with five core classes and flexible electives. It targets a wide range of individuals such as professionals already in the industry, those interested in starting their own company or consulting, and individuals looking for career advancement opportunities.

Interested in applying? Applicants are encouraged to contact Dr. Seal directly at cseal@csusb.edu for more information.

Subscribe to the CSUSB Advising Podcast on Apple, Spotify, and more!

Follow us on social media:

Instagram - @csusbadvising
Tik Tok - @csusbadvising
YouTube - @csusbadvising

https://csusbadvising.buzzsprout.com/

Transcript

Matt Markin  
Welcome to another episode of the CSUSB advising podcast. This is Matt Markin, and with me, as always, is...

Olga Valdivia  
Olga Valdivia. 

Matt Markin  
So Olga and I are excited to welcome back to the podcast. Dr Craig Seal, to talk to us more about the new Master of Science and Human Resource Management. Dr. Seal, how are you? 

Dr. Craig Seal  
I'm doing well this afternoon. Thank you for having me on today. 

Matt Markin  
And even though you've been on a previous episode, we were wondering if you could tell us a little bit about yourself and kind of your path into higher ed.

Dr. Craig Seal  
So it's interesting in my field, mostly in business, usually not a plan. Usually life happens. We get into industry, and eventually there becomes an opportunity to pivot. I had such an opportunity, went back and got my doctorate degree, fell into being a college professor, and it has been a wonderful marriage from the start. Really, it is a blessing to be a faculty member and to have had opportunities to work in various administrative roles. So I've been a faculty member and a director. I've been a dean, back to faculty and now back to director. And so I've kind of bounced around a little bit, but mostly in higher ed for the last 15-20 years.

Olga Valdivia  
So can you tell us a little bit more about the Master of Science in Human Resource Management?

Dr. Craig Seal  
Yes. So this is a new degree program that we are launching this fall, and what's kind of exciting about it is we already have a concentration in Human Resources at both the undergraduate and the graduate level. We also work a lot with our student club, our Society for Human Resource Management. We also work with Inland Empire. These are professional HR people in the Inland Empire, Riverside and San Bernardino. So it's sort of a culmination of all of this coming together. We were looking at a specialty program like this that will be able to help an individual, ideally, those who are probably already in industry, to maybe take that next step. And the couple of cool things about our program in particular is one, it's AACSB accredited, which is a top accreditation for business programs, the same one that Stanford and Berkeley and Harvard app and students who graduate will be prepared, although they still have to take it. There is an HR certification available, and the program helps to prepare them to go sit for that much like our MSA or finance programs help those students into their various certifications going forward.

Olga Valdivia  
Awesome. So for this program, how many classes? How many units are students expected to satisfy?

Dr. Craig Seal  
So it's going to be 30 units, which means 10 classes on our semester system. We are looking at it as a two year program, partially because we hope that students kind of pace themselves through it, there are five core required classes, both at the beginning and end. And then the nice thing is, there's a lot of flexibility for students to build their own as they go through it. And whether that's with public administration, whether that's with management, whether that's with HR or other graduate programs, they can kind of build in some of their free electives to kind of meet their needs as they move forward.

Olga Valdivia  
Yeah, that's really nice to have that flexibility, a little bit of everything, right? So more specifically for the HRM courses, obviously, we know the theme, right? But what are students learning in these classes?

Dr. Craig Seal  
So they're going to start off with a little bit of foundation, not necessarily in HR, but what really builds to it is communication organizational behavior. Because a lot of what's going to happen with HR is being able to communicate effectively, and a lot of what happens with HR is application of organizational behavior. So that'll be their foundation. Then they move into an overview of HR in general, covering the Darius area, so things like recruitment and staffing, compensation, performance management, then they'll move into strategy, and then they culminate with our final course, which is a review of what they've covered. Also we'll have a project attached to it, and that's again, where they prep for that Sherm, which is a certification exam that we are hoping students will take upon graduation, and then the rest depends on their interest area and what's available and where they might want to go to bolster their degree. 

Matt Markin  
Pretty cool. Now, you were mentioning that this could be a benefit to students already in the industry, but could other types of students benefit from being in this program? And of course, you also get the question of, well, what are some of the career opportunities with this? 

Dr. Craig Seal  
Yeah, and so yes, part of the issues in terms of the program is, sort of, who should really apply for something like this? If you're already in HR, and you're sort of in your early career, this can help you also, if you're in your later career. But you're finding yourself maybe not getting those director or executive opportunities. This would potentially be a benefit if you were thinking of starting your own company or consulting. This also would be a program that could be a benefit to you, or if you've been in industry for a while, but you want to pivot, and so those are kind of the groups that we're looking for, that we think will get the most benefit out of it, and the kind of career opportunities Matt would be things like consulting HR of one, or hoping to move into those management director and potentially executive roles going forward.

Olga Valdivia  
So what does application process look like to apply?

Dr. Craig Seal  
It's pretty streamlined. Actually, Olga, hopefully, and so they apply. Really, what we're looking for is your transcripts. We are looking for a recommendation, but just one, you know, somebody professional reference that we can reach out to and connect with. We are asking for a personal statement. So a page or two, there's a series of prompt questions that we ask students to deal with, and then the interview. But the interview isn't set up to be a make or break. The interview is really just, is this right for you? You know, is this the right program? Is this the right time? Is this the right for your career? Because we don't want to have any student, and what I mean by that is we want to have students that really are going to benefit from the program, and if the program and if the program is not going to benefit them, then maybe we kind of counsel them into other opportunities. Maybe it's an MPA, maybe it's an MBA, maybe it's accountancy, maybe it's back into industry for a while, or maybe it's somewhere else, whatever is going to benefit them going forward.

Olga Valdivia  
Are you guys accepting students from all majors? Are you wanting only business majors who can apply?

Dr. Craig Seal  
Yeah, a couple of nice things about this. First, anyone can apply. I actually just had an email from a student perspective yesterday asking that exact question, what do I have to have in terms of background? It doesn't matter. So we're not expecting that they necessarily know a lot of NHR, although, again, I think those in HR are going to benefit more than those who are not. But we're going to start from the ground up. So there is no prerequisites in the sense of prior degrees of conservation, if your philosophy, if your theater, if your biology, you are more than welcome to come into the program. The other nice thing about this particular program and the way we've designed it, is we're leveraging some of those other programs. So our MBA with an HR concentration, our MPA with an HR concentration. And so the nice thing is, I don't have to have a certain cohort size to run the program. I can run it with two or three students. I can run it with 50 students. And so we'll be able to launch even if maybe we don't have the enrollments that we want, but we have enough enrollments to be able to put them in the classes that they're going to need. 

Olga Valdivia  
Perfect. Thank you. And you answered my next question was, which was about prereqs. So that's great to hear.

Matt Markin  
Seems like a very flexible program, and you know you're mentioning some of the things that was the application process. But I was wondering if you had tips for students, whether it is writing a personal statement. Should they be updating their resume? And even though they the interview that they'll have, is there anything that you can help prep them regarding the interview? 

Dr. Craig Seal  
So a couple of things. One is the way that we operate in a lot of our program, particularly in the Cal State system, is really, it's a it's a do or don't, meaning, if you meet the criteria, you're likely going to get admitted. So, so relax. That's one of the big things, I think, to start having said that things like a well crafted resume and a well crafted essay go a long ways coming to the interview. You know, dressed for an interview, and so we're not necessarily looking at the resume. Oh my goodness, you don't have this experience, or you didn't highlight this, but we are looking for the ability of you to communicate effectively what you have done on a resume. We're looking for you to communicate effectively in your essay, and so just make sure you're doing the basic due diligence to put yourself forward as a professional. That's the main thing, not necessarily that you're trying to find what we want to hear or that little nugget. That's not how this process works, but really just position yourself as a serious candidate, as a serious professional, and the rest will work itself out.

Olga Valdivia  
Wonderful. And I think you already answered my next question, which was suggestions for students applying, right? But it sounds like an amazing program can be done in two years. No prereqs, yeah, we should have a lot of applicants for this program.

Dr. Craig Seal  
No standardized testing. So GMAT, GRE are out the window, as they should be, by the way, because all of our information tells us that they're not that useful. What is useful is how they did as an undergraduate student. That's how they're going to do in grad school. 

Olga Valdivia  
Now I do have a different question that I'm thinking about. I've heard of some other graduate programs getting rid of the comp exam or the thesis piece. Is this program going to have a comp exam?

Dr. Craig Seal  
Okay, so every graduate program has to have some culminating experience, whether that's an exam, a project or a thesis. The way our program is designed is one of the last classes you take will do a combination of a project, there will be an exam in that but that exam is basically a test prep that will help you to be able to move on. And so there will be a project, there will be exam, but it's not, as you've seen in maybe some programs, where there's this high stress culminating everything up to this test. That's not how this program is designed.

Olga Valdivia  
That sounds so good to hear. I think it just being a student in a graduate program. It was like all this pressure to study and be ready for that exam. So this is a really nice, refreshing thing to hear. You know, going into a graduate program.

Dr. Craig Seal  
Well, the nice thing the way we prep that final class is it gets you to it where a lot of times, although what will happen is you have this final exam at the end of the term, good luck. Go study, go back to your old classes, go back to your old books. That's not how this is set up. It is actually designed to help you prepare and review so that you are ready to sit for it at the end. And again, there's hopefully going to be a project attached to it as well, which would be a nice portfolio piece for someone to take forward.

Matt Markin  
And let's say someone has listened to this and they have more questions or they're interested in it. Who would they get in contact with? 

Dr. Craig Seal  
Just reach out to me. You know, I am, as Matt knows, I'm on email all the time. So please feel free cseal@csusb.edu.Shoot me an email. We will set up a one on one conversation, happy to address any questions you have, we do have some information sessions, generally the first Monday of the month, and so we have one coming up in June. We have one coming up in July. And so those are generally done via zoom at noon and at six o'clock, so I can cover both lunch and evenings. So we have information sessions, but again, just email me and we will set up a time to connect.

Matt Markin  
Awesome. Sounds good? Well appreciated being on the podcast to tell us more about this. Thank you so much. Dr Seal.

Dr. Craig Seal  
And thank you both for having me this afternoon. Really appreciate the opportunity.