Beginning in fall 2011, Babson College will offer a single MBA program (The Babson MBA) – with a curriculum based on Babson’s proven combination of deep functional business knowledge and our philosophy of Entrepreneurial Thought and Action® – that will be delivered four ways.
The new Babson MBA program will be consistent across the 12-month, 24-month, evening, or blended onsite/online options. Students will take the same core courses with the same faculty and can choose from a common set of electives. As a result, all Babson MBA graduates will emerge with the same extraordinary skills and experiences with which to launch or propel their career.
In addition to developing a common core curriculum, Babson has revised the structure and operations of the overall program in consultation with students, faculty, recruiters and staff to ensure maximum efficiency, efficacy, and satisfaction.
Most significantly, the goal of the new MBA program remains unchanged: To offer a transformative, hands-on experience that produces entrepreneurial leaders with a global mindset who are adept at identifying and capitalizing on opportunities to create economic and social value.
Hallmarks Of New Curriculum
• Signature Learning Experiences that reinforce and expand classroom learning through hands-on activities that require students to put theories into practice. Learning by doing has always been a hallmark of a Babson MBA education but in today’s world, it’s more important than ever for graduates to be able to hit the ground running. Our students learn to transform instruction into instinct, so they can make real-world decisions in real time that have a real impact.
• Restructured course schedules that provide students with more time for class preparation, co-curricular activities, career exploration, and networking. As a living/learning laboratory, Babson has always promoted the value of blending classroom and non-classroom activities. The new curriculum helps students create a better balance in this regard.
• Two new core courses:
o Managing at the Crossroads: International Economics, Business, and Government, which focuses on the critical role that the government and institutions play in business; and
o Global Connections Through Technology, which focuses on the role of technology and metrics in business.
• The opportunity to begin electives earlier in the program to allow students to hone in on career requirements, helping them to select and land the most optimal internship opportunities.
• Entrepreneurial Thought and Action® and Social, Environment, Economic Responsibility and Sustainability are built into the content and pedagogical approach of several core courses. Unlike most business schools that teach entrepreneurship as a discrete, siloed subject, Babson incorporates entrepreneurial thought and action across disciplines in the pursuit of both economic and social value. Babson was the first business school to sign on to the Principles for Responsible Management Education, an international initiative to infuse values of sustainability and corporate citizenship into the fabric of business education.
• Constant renewal to remain relevant: The entire MBA experience has a review date of June 2013.
Summary
Taken together, the new Babson MBA offers a wide range of programmatic elements that prepare students for the jobs of tomorrow and an increasingly globalized economy. With the new Babson MBA curriculum, our graduates will emerge ready to lead with a strong business knowledge foundation, an entrepreneurial mindset, and a commitment to people and the planet in addition to profits. They will be recognized and valued as being creative and collaborative, innovative and resourceful. The difference they will make in the world begins with the difference that is their Babson MBA.
Background
Babson College’s MBA program has been ranked number one in the country for entrepreneurship for 18 consecutive years by U.S. News & World Report, as well as by Bloomberg Businessweek and Financial Times.
Rationale
Why introduce significant changes to an already successful program?
• “The Rules of the Game Have Changed.” Again. In fact, the business world is always changing, always evolving, always being reinvented, reimagined, and reengineered. You can’t transform the future of business with yesterday’s business school curriculum.
• MBA candidates have increasingly diverse program needs, based on their current status and their career tracks. They require programs flexible enough to fit their schedules without any sacrifice of the necessary sets of skills to achieve their goals. Tomorrow’s MBA program needs to be nimble enough to deliver common core content through a variety of discrete structures.
• As a leader in entrepreneurship education, Babson is itself an entrepreneurial institution dedicated to exploring new and more effective means of shaping its students to become leaders who can reshape the world. For nearly half a century, we have promoted entrepreneurship as the most powerful force on the planet for building both economic and social value. We are ideally positioned to provide the kind of MBA education that tomorrow’s leaders will need.
The rules are changing…and Babson is leading the way
The new Babson MBA curriculum maps to changing forces affecting the marketplace. The forces span economies, careers, work processes, knowledge, and social responsibility.
Video links to Babson Dean Raghu Tadepalli’s outline of the New Babson MBA Curriculum:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hIoy_GLKvs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DybYJS_Gn3c
| Market Forces | Babson MBA Curriculum |
| Economic: We live and work in an increasingly global world economy. | Significant focus on preparing students to think and act from a truly global perspective. |
| Careers: The nature of jobs and work has changed – people do not tend to stay in one company and climb the corporate ladder; instead they have multiple jobs and even career paths in their lifetimes. | Emphasis on preparing students to be agile, entrepreneurial, and multifaceted. |
| Work Processes: Today’s problems cross boundaries and are not well-defined within functional silos. | Students learn how to integrate information across business disciplines. |
| Uncertainty: We live in an increasingly “unknowable world” requiring initiative and imagination. | Entrepreneurial Thought and Action is taught as a core competency, giving students the tool to identify, create, and take advantage of opportunities. |
| Social Responsibility: A single-minded focus on profit at the expense of people and planet is no longer acceptable – or sustainable. |
Curriculum integrates concerns and solutions around profits, people, and the planet so that students emerge intent on creating economic and social value. |
