Last week the UW Foster School of Business welcomed its inaugural Hybrid MBA class. During the kick-off week, 47 students from all over the United States came to campus for a three- to five-day, in-person immersion experience that included networking opportunities, diving into the first quarter’s curricula, and developing a study team.
Each academic quarter of the new Hybrid MBA program will begin with a similar immersion experience and then continue with all online coursework. For the first day of the inaugural immersion, the MBA students were asked to participate in a competitive scavenger hunt to introduce them to the UW campus as well as the resources available to them. The day ended with the Hybrid MBA students going out to dinner with their classmates, program staff, faculty, and teaching assistants to celebrate the launch of their program.
The first cohort—composed of working parents, business travelers, and young professionals—comes from a wide range of backgrounds. According to the class of 2019 profile, the class is 62 percent male and 38 percent female and the students have an average of 10 years of work experience. The average GMAT score for the incoming class was 608. Almost a third (32 percent) hold advanced degrees and more than a quarter (26 percent) have lived or worked overseas. They have worked in a range of industries including aerospace, IT, healthcare, finance, government, consumer products, non-profit, and more.
About the Foster Hybrid MBA Program
The Hybrid MBA program is a mostly online MBA program (95 percent online and 5 percent on campus) designed for working professionals who require the ultimate in flexibility. The program is two years in length with classes taught by the same Foster MBA faculty that teach the traditional MBA program.
The format of the Hybrid MBA program is what makes it most distinctive. The curriculum—developed based on the full-time Foster MBA program—is taught via live streaming lectures (both flexible and scheduled weekly), which include interactive discussion boards, podcasts, video conferencing, and more. For the 5 percent on-campus portion, MBA students attend interactive classroom discussions, workshops, social events, and lectures from industry leaders. There’s also an optional 2-credit international study tour for second-year Hybrid MBA students.
To learn more about the Foster Hybrid MBA program student experience, visit the school website.
