MBA Director Paul Harrison speaks with recent MBA graduate Grace Occleshaw.
Whenever I have the privilege of speaking with our MBA students and alumni, I always come away feeling so proud to lead this program. These conversations always give me so much insight into the impact of our MBA, but they also always reveal something more personal about what it means to learn as an adult.
My recent conversation with Grace Occleshaw, a newly minted Deakin MBA alum, reminded me that education, at its best, is not a transaction but a transformation. For Grace, the MBA was a process of discovery, collaboration, and courage that will continue long after her final assignment is submitted.
Grace told me that her MBA story began with a spreadsheet. Like many professionals considering postgraduate study, she approached the decision pragmatically. She compared universities, mapped costs, and weighed options. But what emerged over the next two years could never have been planned so neatly. Grace undertook her MBA while pregnant, gave birth midway through the program, and then returned, determined not simply to finish, but to learn deeply and to connect meaningfully.
The adult learner
‘The biggest thing that stands out for me,’ she told me, ‘… is the group work. In every other degree and study that I’ve done, it’s been difficult to get everyone to collaborate and want the same outcome. But in the MBA, it was professionals working with professionals. We all came in with the same skin in the game.’
There is something profoundly different about learning as an adult. It’s not about pleasing a teacher or ticking boxes; it’s about integrating new knowledge into a life already in motion. Grace’s observation about all of her MBA peers having ‘skin in the game’ sums up the emotional commitment of postgraduate study. Adult learners are often juggling work, family, and the sometimes-fragile balance of self. They choose to be there and that choice changes everything.
‘I remember reading the handbook and dreading the group assignments,’ she laughed. ‘Almost every unit had one. I thought, do I really want to do this? But because everyone was invested, you make time, you find what works.’
In the end, what she dreaded became the heart of her experience. Group work, so often the source of complaint in academia, became, for Grace, a site of connection. ‘I hadn’t experienced that before,’ she said. ‘That, for me, was the biggest surprise coming out of the MBA.’
This is something that’s easy to overlook in online and flexible learning environments. There’s an assumption that students are detached, isolated, and transactional in their approach. Grace’s story suggests the opposite. The relationships formed were not accidental or forced but deliberate and chosen. ‘We could connect with whoever we wanted across the MBA,’ she said. ‘It was voluntary, not coercive.’
In that simple distinction lies a quiet revolution in the way adults learn. Voluntary connection, built around a shared purpose, creates networks that endure well beyond graduation. Grace still keeps in touch with her classmates, not on ‘speed dial,’ as she put it, but ‘the LinkedIn version.’
The negotiated space of learning
Every group project is, at its core, an exercise in negotiation. It is a meeting of expectations, egos, and energies. Grace approached this space with a pragmatism that any leader would recognise. ‘You’ve got to be flexible and understanding of the other people within the group,’ she said. The MBA, she reflected, was less about managing conflict and more about finding alignment. ‘At the start of adult relationships, it’s a bit transactional. You can be of benefit to someone, and they can be of benefit to you. But as you build a connection, as you develop trust and intimacy, you get the longevity that we really want.’
That comment stayed with me. It describes not just group work but leadership itself. The task based relationships we often start with, based on convenience or necessity, can evolve into relationships of trust and shared growth, but only if we enter them with intention. Grace’s experience shows how the MBA becomes a microcosm of professional life: the small, often unseen negotiations that make collaboration possible.
The balance between structure and flexibility
Grace’s story is also a testament to resilience. Completing an MBA while pregnant, giving birth, and returning to study is not a story of efficiency, but a story of values. ‘I had a baby on the way,’ she said. ‘I had a time limit.’
That urgency could have led to burnout, yet what comes through is balance. She described her study rhythm not as frantic but focused. ‘Work smarter, not harder,’ she told me. ‘If there’s an easier way to do something, I’ll seek it out, even if it’s harder at the onset.’
She embraced technology strategically, using tools like ChatGPT not to generate content but to polish and refine her ideas. ‘I didn’t use it for research,’ she said. ‘I did that myself. I used it to help structure assignments, make them more concise or add a bit more depth. I used it where I knew I had a weakness.’
The in-person experience
The MBA’s immersive, on-campus residentials, that compress weeks of learning into a few intensive days, were the highlights of the program for Grace. ‘They were the warm fuzzies of the whole experience,’ she said. ‘Being able to fully immerse yourself, with no distractions, was amazing. There was nothing else that existed other than the problem we were trying to solve or the lesson we were trying to learn.’
She spoke about the depth of understanding that comes from being physically present, Things like staying up late, talking through problems without the usual interruptions of work or family. ‘I’ve never had that before,’ she said. ‘I think I’ll remember those lessons for a lot longer because there are so many more associations with that learning.’ And she went on to say, ‘The learning is so much stronger and deeper because there were so many memories that created something like a ripple of recall and meaning.’
The research on experiential learning supports this. When cognitive understanding is paired with emotional and social engagement, memory deepens. Grace’s description captures the phenomenon perfectly, i.e., knowledge becomes embodied, relational, and enduring.
Her second residential, focused on leadership, revealed something else: the power of diversity. ‘Our team had a flair for going in every direction at once,’ she laughed. ‘It was really cool to see the dynamics and the lessons we were learning in play as we went. No one took direct leadership for the whole week. One person at a time would say, “This is where I shine; I’ll step up.”’
That fluid leadership model mirrors contemporary workplaces far more than traditional hierarchies do. It’s not about command and control, but about shared responsibility, listening, and stepping back when someone else’s strengths are needed. ‘The diversity came in so well within our team,’ she said. ‘Different thinking styles, learning styles, interacting styles… it all mattered.’
Learning as connection
Throughout our conversation, the word connection kept coming up. Connection to others, to purpose, and to self. It is tempting to think of postgraduate education as an individual pursuit, but Grace reframed it as collective growth. ‘Participate as much as you can,’ she advises new students. ‘When you’re trying to connect with someone, they need something to connect to. If you’re just a name without a photo or a voice, no one will want to connect with you.’
It’s a reminder that education is not only about acquiring knowledge but about becoming visible and allowing others to see and learn with you.
Something to think about
Conversations like this one remind me that the most powerful outcomes are intangible and difficult to measure. Grace’s MBA was as much about self-belief as it was about strategy or finance. It was about learning how to lead when life is messy, how to connect when the world is online, and how to persist when the perfect plan falls apart.
When I asked her what advice she would give to new students, she smiled and said simply, ‘Enjoy the ride, and it will finish. You will reach the end.’
It’s a deceptively simple statement, but within it lies the essence of the postgraduate experience: endurance, optimism, and faith in the process.
Grace began her MBA with a spreadsheet. She finished it with a network, a new confidence, and a deeper understanding of herself. In between, she experienced what all good education should make possible; the transformation of knowledge into wisdom.
Grace Occleshaw
Grace is an Advisory Manager at BYO Group, a fully remote financial services firm helping small businesses grow with clarity and confidence. A Chartered Accountant and member of the Institute of Certified Bookkeepers Australia, Grace has spent more than a decade supporting business owners across manufacturing, IT, engineering, and multi-generational family enterprises.
Her career has focused on driving transformation and innovation, including, leading IT and systems upgrades, and project-managing complex business acquisitions and integrations to create more efficient, technology-enabled operations. A recognised Xero super user and 2023 alumni member of the Xero Partner Advisory Council, Grace combines deep technical expertise with a passion for data, people and process improvement.
Having recently completed her MBA at Deakin University (June 2026), Grace has balanced postgraduate study while growing a child and embracing life as a new mother. It has been a journey that has strengthened her perspective on leadership, resilience, and time management. She is deeply passionate about supporting and mentoring young women in business and leadership, advocating for confidence, balance, and representation at every level.
Grace’s full interview is well worth the time, so we’ve included it here.
In Conversation with: Alumni, Grace Occleshaw
Paul Harrison: Grace, you’re at the end of your MBA, you’ve graduated, so I am interested in your experience of the program. Do you have anything that was really meaningful or memorable, or anything that stands out for you as part of that experience?
Grace Occleshaw: The biggest thing that stands out for me is the group work. Group projects when I did my undergrad, and through any other form of study that I’ve done as well, have been really difficult to get everyone to collaborate, and to want the same outcome from that collaboration.
What I really appreciated was the MBA setting professionals with professionals, and we’re all coming in with the same skin in the game. Essentially, [aiming for] a good mark, but at the end of the day, to do the best that we can do together. I hadn’t experienced that before.
That, for me, was the biggest surprise coming out of the MBA. A lot of those group projects, I’ve got those people – not on speed dial, but definitely the LinkedIn version.
Paul: That is interesting, because often all we ever hear is the problems that people have with groups. Do you feel your experience is more common than we think, that people actually do like creating those networks and those little families that you can lean on?
Grace: I think it is, particularly in the postgraduate world. You go for a postgrad because you want to get something out of it. A lot of people feel the undergraduate is what they need to get a job, and that’s drilled in early in high school: you have to do an undergraduate to be employable in a professional world. Coming back for a postgrad, you really want to get a lot more out of it, and you’re a lot more invested.
Those group assignments – I remember reading the handbook and dreading, ‘Oh gosh, almost every unit’s got a group assignment. Do I really want to do this? I’ve got to make myself available at times that other people are available, and it’s so difficult.’ Because you’re invested in it, and because everyone else is invested in it, you make time, you find what works.
I was able to do it with a baby, and the marketing group assignment was over the Christmas period, and everyone’s on holidays and doing things. You just make it work, because everyone wants a good outcome.
Paul: It really sounds like you worked with a negotiating mindset more than anything. Would you say that’s true?
Grace: Yes. You’ve got to be flexible and understanding of the other people within the group.
Paul: Did you do all your units online? The whole program?
Grace: No. I did two residentials.
Paul: Did you find that you connected with people in the residential and then formed groups with them online?
Grace: We did for the capstone, and partially for marketing as well, potentially. We didn’t have everyone who did a residential. Sometimes we had other people who came in from another group assignment that someone else had worked with. From a first group assignment or from a first experience, we then continued to try and connect with those people and foster those relationships.
I remember meeting at the residential three people who knew each other going in. I asked, ‘How did you meet?’ They did a group assignment in the very first unit they did. They formed a WhatsApp group and continued to support each other throughout their studies. Not all four could be at the residential, but three attended, they did the units together, and it was awesome to see the relationship they formed.
Paul: I was talking to another MBA director yesterday – she’s the director of an MBA in Spain – and when I explained that the cohort doesn’t go through together the way that a lot of other MBAs do, she was mind-blown. She said, ‘So how do they connect?’ What you’re talking about here is, in a way, a more real way to connect, which is voluntary, not coercive. Would you agree with that?
Grace: Absolutely. We can connect to who we want to connect with. We’re not limited to a single group of 25 people. We can connect with whoever among the whole MBA over two years in my case, and for others four to six years, depending on what’s going on in their life. That’s a long time and a lot of people to have touchpoints with.
You get out what you put in, particularly from the online sessions. If you can attend online and reach out in the discussion forums, you get a lot more out of it. People learn your name because they’ve been reading your commentary, and they want to connect with you and listen to what you have to say. That’s how we all form connections.
Paul: It’s a very adult way to study, isn’t it? It’s not just professional, it’s adult, because adult relationships don’t form the way they did at school, where you’re forced together. You have to be motivated to form the relationships.
Grace: At the start of a lot of adult relationships, it’s a little bit tit-for-tat. You can be of benefit to someone, and they might be of benefit to you, and generally you can lean on that. As you build a connection, as you develop more emotion and intimacy in the relationship, then you get the trust and the longevity that we want.
Paul: That’s so nice to hear. One of the things that worries people, particularly in the online environment, is the idea of the challenges of connecting. The way you describe it, it sounds more intentional and less accidental, which probably is a more authentic way to form connections.
Grace: Definitely intentional. In the residential, you do get thrown together a bit. All of the other connections that I’ve made are intentional: ‘I heard what you said on that webinar; I want to hear more about your thoughts.’
Paul: This is why you should turn up as well, isn’t it? Did you find your peers to be as motivated as you? You did it in two years and had a baby in the middle. You actually did it in 18 months, really, because you had a big chunk where you weren’t able to do anything. Two questions: do you feel your peers were equally motivated, and how did you motivate yourself?
Grace: Let’s keep going so fast – so quickly. I had a baby on the way, Paul. I had a time limit.
Paul: So you’re saying anyone coming into the MBA should either have a baby coming, or planning?
Grace: Some were even more motivated. I think everyone in the program was motivated. I didn’t come across a single person who didn’t want to get a lot out of the MBA, whether for themselves or their employer. It wasn’t necessarily who was paying for it. Everyone wants to be better at the end of each day. When you enter an organised area of learning, you’ve got leaders with opportunities left, right, and centre to be better every day. I don’t think you’d find a person who decided to commit to a two-to-six-year degree and didn’t want to get a lot out of it.
Paul: And pay all that money for it as well. I’m curious about why you chose the Deakin MBA as opposed to other MBAs.
Grace: I did look at other MBAs. I looked at one that was horrendously expensive and thought, how can you justify it? I didn’t pay up front; a lot of the fees went on my HELP debt. How can you justify that amount of money when I know that the outcomes for some other degrees are just as good, if not better? I struck that one off the record.
I love my spreadsheets, so I organised what I wanted to get out of the MBA and my key considerations, and money was definitely one of those columns. When you see everyone else at a mid-range and then one far out, that doesn’t make sense.
Paul: Would it have been a well-branded, well-known place that can afford to create exclusivity?
Grace: Yes. They’ve done a good job of it. I can’t believe anyone would pay that much. That one wasn’t there.
Paul: As you considered all the options in that range, why Deakin?
Grace: I wanted to spend some in-person time with lecturers as well as the cohort. Having the flexibility to do a couple of units on campus – the marketing one was perfect – we spent a little time on campus, but a lot was online, and we were able to learn in a flexible environment. That made a big difference for me.
My whole work week is remote, our firm is remote, so I’m used to online meetings. When I get an opportunity to be in person, it’s special. I wanted that opportunity, and I was happily surprised with how well everyone connected online as well.
I’m going to turn this into a longer story and take a couple more steps back. I went through a bit of a crisis when I first got the role that I’m in. I thought, I’m not going to be able to do this; I’m not experienced enough – classic imposter syndrome – and I wanted support. I engaged a personal mentor at that time. She does board of director roles and is heavily in the advisory space. She told me to figure out what I wanted to do: start with the end in mind, where I want to end up, and make sure every step is in that direction, particularly knowing I wanted a family soon and my time was limited.
We teased out that an MBA would speak to the audience I wanted: business owners and the C-suite I wanted to communicate with effectively and provide value to. I decided to apply. She said, ‘Don’t apply to one that doesn’t have a good reputation.’ You’ll end up with the MBA after your name, but it won’t help you towards your goal.
She said Deakin was one where, if she met someone with a Deakin MBA, she knew they had their head screwed on right. That was a big sponsorship for the Deakin MBA. I still looked at a couple, and I still came to know Deakin. Deakin has always been good at making sure you’re job-ready and giving practical experience. Between that and the opportunity to connect in person, those were the big factors that pushed me to the Deakin MBA.
If the really expensive one had the same factors, I might have picked it. They have streams and in-person options, but they also have an online one. I needed a bit of both. I needed flexibility.
Paul: We touched upon the residential. Can you give me your thoughts about how it influenced your experience – how it contributed to the journey itself over two years – how you found the time, and committing to pay extra for it, which is a reasonable barrier for many people? Talk about your thoughts leading up to it and then coming out of it, and whether it was valuable for you to do. You did two, didn’t you?
Grace: I did two. I loved the residentials. I can’t speak highly enough of them. They were the warm fuzzies of the whole experience.
It was refreshing, a different way of approaching learning that I hadn’t experienced before. Being able to fully immerse yourself and have no distractions was amazing. The depth and understanding I got from that content – we were in it, there was nothing else that existed other than the problem we were trying to solve or the lesson we were trying to learn.
I’ll always remember it, because there are so many associations with that learning. It’s not sitting doing an assignment at 12 am and hitting submit, which I did a couple of times in my undergrad, not so much in the MBA. Being able to stay up late and talk through a problem without time pressure, family pressure, or work pressure was amazing.
I also enjoyed the problems posed during those sessions, really being able to sit and tease through challenges. The first one with Rakesh was strategy and value creation. The problem we worked with, where we looked at a company and pulled it apart from the information and data we had – I’m going to remember the lessons and how I linked each learning to that problem, and the laughs with my group, and the pop-ins you and Rakesh had at night, and those tidbits of information. There’s so much more associated in my memory to that; I think I’m going to retain it longer, which means I’ll be able to use those tools I took from the residentials for a long time.
You’re activating different parts of your mind when you’re with people; the stakes are different. If we get into a transactional mindset of ‘tell me what I need to learn,’ you’re not learning; you’re processing information and spitting it out. It’s a diverse cohort – people from many walks of life and careers. It’s different to a typical corporate MBA. That diversity enriched the experience.
The second residential really spoke to that. It was the leadership one. As we learned about leadership, it was less about the assignment and more about applying the leadership learnings among our team: identifying how each person works and making sure everyone feels heard, while ending at an outcome we’re all happy with and can submit.
Our team had a flair for going in every direction at once, and then reining it back in. It was cool to see the dynamics and the lessons in play as we went. I wouldn’t say any of us took direct leadership of the group over the week. It was one person at a time saying, ‘This is where I shine; I’ll step up.’ When we had to get orderly, it was myself and Baden. We set out key steps and milestones we needed to hit, then we’d play around for a while, and bring order back in. At the end, Sharon would pull it together, do the finishing touches, and it was ready to send out.
That diversity – of humans, thinking styles, learning styles, interacting styles – came in so well within our team. The learning is so much stronger and deeper because there were so many memories that created like a ripple of recall and meaning.
Paul: What advice would you give to somebody starting their MBA journey at Deakin?
Grace: Enjoy the ride, and it will finish. You will reach the end.
Paul: Any specific things to help them enhance the journey?
Grace: Participate as much as you can. When you’re trying to connect with someone, they need something to connect to. If you are a name without a photo, without a voice, no one will want to connect with you.
Paul: If you’re in an online environment, with your camera off, and you say nothing, there’s no reason people will want to connect with you. Would you encourage people to consider all of the different experiences if they can?
Grace: Yes. Work flexibly with what works for each individual. Everyone is different and needs to take things at their own pace. If you can, experience a range: do the online, do a mix in Burwood, and do the residential in Waurn Ponds. It makes a difference in how you connect with the MBA, and it’s a richer experience because you’ve got diversity in experience as well as diversity in people.
Paul: A practical question: what strategies did you use to manage your time and energy, because you were under duress?
Grace: Work smarter, not harder. I live by that. If there is an easier way to do something, I will seek it out, even if it’s harder at the onset.
Figure out how to utilise ChatGPT inputs and responses without it replacing your own thinking, but use it to help you polish or think or structure assignments differently.
Check your details. I didn’t use it for content generation or research. I did the research myself. I read a lot of articles. I used it for polishing. I knew my strengths and weaknesses, and I know that at the end I’ll get to a first draft and think it’s probably good enough. ChatGPT can polish better. It can take the research I’ve done and my drafted assignment and make it more structured, more concise, or add slightly more depth. I used it where I knew I had a weakness.
Paul: One last question. If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go and why?
Grace: Peru, because I have family there that I haven’t connected with before. Connection is important to me. Seeing them in person and not just online would be special.
Paul: Is that in your plan?
Grace: No. I haven’t. It should go in my plan. At the moment, it’s in the retirement version of my plan. It’s a dream. I’d love to do it. Funding a whole family to go seems expensive.
Paul: You and I should have a coffee sometime, and we can work out what’s important.
Grace: That would be nice.
Photo by Greg Rosenke on Unsplash