Academics
The Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management in Nashville offers a range of management education options to accommodate professionals at all stages of their career. The traditional two-year MBA program is a full-time, on-campus option that features a core curriculum of management classes and a summer internship after the first year. These classes incorporate a high level of practical learning, “an element of group assignments,” and real-world projects. They also work on a modular academic calendar, wherein students take seven-week intense courses followed by an exam week. While these modules “definitely feel like sprints where each class is packed with a firestorm of information,” students find that “the pace is fast but manageable.” That may be because, while students are required to complete a concentration in order to graduate—choosing from Brand Management, Corporate Finance, Human and Organization Performance, and Investment Management—they are given freedom as early as the second module of their first year. This allows them to customize their curriculum with electives of personal interest and to take cross-disciplinary courses at Vanderbilt’s other graduate schools, which can make the work more engaging and therefore more motivating to complete.
At Vanderbilt, class sizes “are small enough to get to know everyone in your class and those the year above and below you,” and “the collaborative nature of the work” is one of students’ favorite aspects of their time here, as it helps to “get comfortable with communicating and working with other people with various styles.” To further those skills, there are “opportunities to lead and work on teams because of the class size,” with many here treating club leadership positions “very much like a full-time job.” Overall, Vanderbilt offers “a rigorous, high quality, yet personal education in a vibrant location” where “professors know your name [and] you get individualized attention/development.” As one student puts it, “You have every opportunity to learn, lead, and grow.”
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