Each week we collect all the MBA news that’s fit to print and provide a quick overview of the latest trending topics from top business schools around the world.
Here’s your quick MBA News You Need digest for the week of September 5, 2018.
HBS Welcomes Inaugural MS/MBA Class
Students from Harvard Business School (HBS)’s new joint two-year MS/MBA program kicked off their first-year courses at HBS following an intensive System Engineering course. In a blog post, HBS Managing Director of Admissions and Financial Aid Chad Losee praised the “talent and diversity of backgrounds we have represented in the first cohort.” Students in this inaugural program include “people from life sciences, aerospace, e-commerce, software, hardware, robotics, medical devices, fin tech, cybersecurity and military,” he added.
Read the full article here and visit harvardms.mba for MS/MBA student profiles.
Chicago Booth MBA Students Highlight Nine Favorite Courses
Chicago Booth students took to the school’s admission blog to share their favorite courses and “the impact they’ve had on their ability to challenge the status quo going forward.” Here’s what topped their lists:
- International Corporate Finance with Professor Raghuram Rajan – Venkat Raman, MBA ’18, writes, “To hear from someone who’s lived through that on a day to day basis was something that really opened my eyes into how you actually make those decisions.”
- Private Equity & Venture Capital Lab with Chris McGowan – Connor Martin, MBA ’18, writes, “Chris did a great job of sharing unique insider tips and stories that you can’t get anywhere else.”
- Managing in Organizations with Professor Ann McGill – Patrick Sedden, MBA ’18, writes, “She does an amazing job tying the research to what it means for our careers. How can we motivate employees, assess performance, and get our message across as managers?”
- New Venture Challenge – Rodrigo Studart, MBA ’18, writes, “We had access to so many resources including coaches, investors, alumni, and professors. They all helped us make industry connections and gave us good industry advice about our business.”
- The Firm and the Non-Market Environment with Marianne Bertrand – Kathleen Davis, MBA ’18, writes, “She runs great discussions by challenging different points of view, encouraging debate, and relating the case experiences to current real world scenarios.”
- Scaling Social Innovation Search Lab with Christina Hachikian – Maura Welch, MBA ’18, writes, “It allowed me to work on very challenging social topics. Through this class I spoke with many leaders in the area of violence reduction in cities, which ultimately led me to my internship for the summer.”
- Choice Architecture with Richard Thaler – Lisa Twu, MBA ’18, writes, “[The class enables] you [to] think of everything in a holistic way and you try to critically analyze it to understand how that fits to the particular problem you’re solving.”
- Platform Competition with Austan Goolsbee – Ngozika Uzoma, MBA ’18, writes, “It was amazing to apply a concept of microeconomics to actual tech platforms that we use today, work through those problems in class, and to think about how that can actually be used in my future career.”
- Outside of Booth – Amy Altchuler, MBA ’19, writes, “The great thing about Booth is you have the opportunity to take courses across the University of Chicago. I’ve taken courses both at the Harris School of Public Policy and the School of Social Service Administration.”
Read the full article here.
Votes Open for 2018 Real Innovation Awards at LBS
In advance of the November 1st ceremony, voting has begun for London Business School’s third annual Real Innovation Awards. There are 28 finalists in the People’s Choice and Judges’ Choice categories.
LBS Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship and Academic Director of the Innovation Institute of Entrepreneurship Julian Birkinshaw writes, “When it comes to innovation, many corporations follow a similar route involving tech breakthroughs that spark creative ideas, resulting in new products that are launched successfully.”
“However, innovation also comes from the lone entrepreneur with a ‘crazy’ idea who battles against the odds and refuses to give up when faced with setbacks. There is no set path to taking a creative concept and turning it into something tangible—individuals and companies often embark on different journeys when being innovative.”
Click here for the full list of nominees.
Construction on CMU Tepper Quad Aims for LEED Certification
Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) hopes to achieve LEED Gold certification for the 315,000-square-foot Tepper Quad currently under construction, the school announced in a recent article on its website. In addition to a “120,000-gallon cistern [to] collect rainwater to be recycled for landscape irrigation and toilet flushing,” all the building materials—the bricks, clay, and wood—will be locally sourced to “minimize environmental, social, and economic impact.”
The design team “selected a construction method known as ‘BubbleDeck,’ an innovative system primarily used in Europe that reduces the amount of concrete and steel required for large buildings.” The Tepper Quad building is currently the largest BubbleDeck project in North America, according to the Tepper article.
A major part of the design plan is to reduce electricity use by allowing more natural light into the building and encouraging occupants to use the stairs rather than consume energy to operate the elevators.
Read the full article here.
Wharton Plans Future of Finance Panel to Mark 10th Anniversary of Financial Crisis
The University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School will host a panel entitled “The Future of Finance” to commemorates the 10-year anniversary of the 2008 financial crisis. The panel will take place on panel Thursday, September 13th.
Wharton Dean Geoffrey Garrett will lead a discussion on the “crisis’ impact on public policy, the transformation of the financial services industry, and what lies ahead for the future of finance.”
Panelists include 32 Advisors CEO Robert Wolf; York Capital Founder, Chairman, and Co-CEO James G. Dinan; Apollo Global Management Co-Founder and Senior Managing Director Marc Rowan; and Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Alphabet and Google Ruth Porat (via video conference).
Read the full article here.
