Yale SOM to Tweak Curriculum and Other MBA News Snippets

Yale SOM tweaks core MBA curriculum

Yale School of Management (Yale SOM) is to tweak its core MBA curriculum, with changes coming into effect this fall.

The changes form part of the school’s efforts to provide an integrated MBA curriculum that is multidisciplinary in its approach, as opposed to dealing with specific functional subjects, such as finance and marketing, in separate courses. The new approach began in 2006.

“The integrated curriculum has been a huge success but there’s still room for improvement,” said the director of the core curriculum at Yale SOM, Olav Sorenson. “These changes stem from extensive student and alumni feedback on how we might further refine one of the defining features of the Yale SOM education.”

The changes will see the introduction of case studies that span across different segments of Yale SOM’s required courses. In addition, a separate core course on careers will be dropped, with its material divided up elsewhere, and two separate courses on problem framing and modeling will be merged into one.

Global Shapers offered route to Saïd Business School

Saïd Business School is to offer two new scholarships for the one-year Oxford MBA program to members of The Global Shapers Community, an initiative of the World Economic Forum.

The Global Shapers Community consists of 4,500 people from around the world who are aged between 20 and 29 and have been selected for their potential to make a contribution to their communities.

Peter Tufano, dean at Saïd Business School (read our interview with him here), talked about the business world’s need for “talented young people who are committed to making a difference” in a press release, adding: “These are the people we want to work with on our Oxford MBA – and they are also the people who have been selected as Global Shapers.”

The school can already count at least one Global Shaper among its alumni: “The key things I've got out of the MBA are confidence and ambition. I’m confident pitching to investors, negotiating, and have conviction in the merits of my own ideas,” said Nat Ware, a Global Shaper and founder of a student consultancy group that aims to improve the impact of social enterprises. Ware graduated from Saïd Business School in 2013.

The two new scholarships will cover program and college fees, and members of the Global Shapers Community have until April 24 to apply – they can even forgo sitting the GMAT or GRE (as well as TOEFL, where applicable) until an offer has been received, at which point they would have to sit the test(s) and meet a score determined by Saïd Business School.

Ten years of experiential learning in Fudan MBA

It is now 10 years since action learning projects were introduced as part of the Fudan MBA at Fudan University’s School of Management.

The Fudan MBA iLab programs see student teams work with companies based at home and abroad over a six-month period and is a required course on the school’s international MBA program.

Projects have often involved Fudan MBA students linking up with students of other schools – through partnerships established with Wharton, as part of the US school’s Global Consulting Practicum (GCP), in 2005 and, most recently, with Australia’s UQ Business School.

By the end of 2014, the iLab program had brought students into contact with 80 companies in China and abroad, and is regarded by the schools as a great source of employment opportunities, as it not only allows companies to evaluate students’ ability, but also gives the students the chance to get a strong feel for the culture of an organization – in a not dissimilar fashion to an MBA internship.

Real estate challenge at the Kellogg School

Kellogg School of Management has launched the second edition of its real estate challenge for MBA students.

Last year’s competition was won by a team from INSEAD, who fended off the challenge of six other finalists, including representatives of the Kellogg School itself.

MBA students wishing to take part in the venture competition’s second edition have until March 20 to submit entries, which must showcase the idea, investment sought, and the associated risk and reward. A final for those shortlisted will then take place in Chicago in April.

At the Kellogg School, real estate is a pathway under development in both its one and two-year MBA programs - a method of specialization that allows students to follow a series of cross-functional courses that address an industry’s particular skillset.

Art defeats MBA in Fox School of Business analytics challenge

At Temple University’s Fox School of Business, MBA students were beaten to the top prize in an analytics challenge by a student of art and graphic design.

A student of the university’s Tyler School of Art, Cassandra Reffner’s lack of experience with mathematical models and programs didn’t stop her from making sense of data through visualizations and infographics to produce the challenge’s first-place entry, or perhaps this ultimately served to help her.

“A key goal of the challenge is to encourage students from different disciplines to build their data analysis and communication skills, and to see how these skills apply to their careers,” said the Fox School of Business professor, David Schuff, who organized the university-wide challenge.

A team of MBA students at the Fox School of Business had to contend with sharing third place, with three further MBA teams receiving honorable mentions from an initial count of 130 submissions.  

The winning entry looked at what effects the relocation of pharmaceutical company, Merck’s corporate headquarters might have on employees.