MBA ニュース：コーネル大学・ジョンソンスクール Upgrades Curriculum

Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University is overhauling its curriculum which will roll out in the Class of 2016. 

In recent years The University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, Harvard Business School and Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management have all revised their core curriculums. 

Cornell's changes are designed to place greater emphasis on collaboration, leadership and analytical skills. The curriculum redesign is the culmination of a comprehensive two-year review process the school launched in 2011. Through student and alumni focus groups, peer benchmarking and surveys of students, alumni, corporate recruiters, faculty and staff, the review process reached more than 1,000 participants from the last 12 MBA class years and identified three priority areas for redesigned coursework and programming.

Modeling and Decision Analysis: An enhanced required course, Data Analytics and Modeling, takes students beyond statistics, to data modeling and Big Data techniques and strategies. Modeling is woven into other courses to help students develop the analytical skills needed in all areas of business.

Personal and Leadership Skills: Every Johnson student progresses through a targeted curriculum in leadership consisting of the proprietary Johnson 360° Leadership Assessment, coursework, case exercises, teamwork, hands-on leadership experience, coaching, and customized programming. The personalized program begins in the pre-term, with individual assessment and feedback, and continues through the first year, with the Leading Teams Practicum, and second year with Principled Leadership. Marquee leadership instructors teach intensives on leadership topics. These classes are enriched with a menu of Leadership Skills workshops and Leadership Expeditions that span the entire program.

Integrative and Critical Thinking Skills: In their first semester of MBA study, students learn and practice critical thinking skills, with a focus on analyzing, integrating, and synthesizing information for optimal decision making, in the face of challenges, such as incomplete, inaccurate, or ambiguous information.

Among the innovative elective courses being introduced:

The Art of Innovation: A Design Thinking Immersion and Making Design Thinking Work. These hands-on courses prepare MBAs to be future innovators by teaching them the human-centered design methodology known as Design Thinking.

Core Leadership Skills for a VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous) World, with retired U.S. Army General George Casey. This course builds on the skills acquired in earlier components of the leadership program, through discussion and interaction with an experienced practitioner and former leader of the United States Army.

Johnson’s FinTech Trek and Hackathon. Students convene at Cornell Tech in New York City to learn about disruptive technologies facing the financial industry and develop relevant solutions. The experience culminates in a hackathon, in which participants have about 24 hours to develop financial products or services that meet a real business need. Similar classes are planned, each focusing on a different industry.

For more information, please see MBA Students Embrace New Curriculum, Now in Place at Johnson at Cornell University

コーネル大学・ジョンソンスクール Core Curriculum Focuses on Leadership

MBA students will find a new core curriculum that places greater focus on leadership and modeling and analytics this fall.

The Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management is setting a new core curriculum that  focuses on leadership and modeling and analytics. Cornell is also shifting the timing of the courses to better accommodate recruiting.

Specifically, leadership development will be a part of MBA students’ full two years at Johnson, beginning with a course called “Leading Teams” in August prior to the first year, continuing with “Critical and Strategic Thinking” in the second half of the fall semester, and culminating with “Principled Leadership” in the first half of the fall in the second year.

To address the call for greater focus on modeling and analytics, the existing “Statistics” course will be redesigned into a course tentatively called “Data Analytics and Modeling,” to be taught by Professor Bill Schmidt.

The total number of credit hours in the second half of the fall semester will be reduced from 7.5 to 6.5, to lessen the workload when recruiting is in full swing.

For more information, please go to the Cornell Business Journal

Cornell / Johnson Deadlines 2012-2013

The 2012-2013 Cornell/Johnson deadlines have been announced.

This year’s deadlines are below:

Round 1
Deadline: October 17, 2012
Notification: December 19, 2012

Round 2
Deadline: November 28, 2012
Notification: February 20, 2013

Round 3
Deadline: January 30, 2013
Notification: April 3, 2013

Round 4
Deadline: March 27, 2013
Notification: April 24, 2013

For more information, visit Johnson’s admissions website.

More U.S. B-Schools Offering 1-year MBAs

The one-year full-time MBA, popular in Europe, is starting to become a more prevalent offering in the U.S. as institutions target new markets.
Applications to MBA programs are historically counter-cyclical to economic conditions: applications rise in bad times and fall in good. But the recent global economic downturn has been a different story. According to a survey by the Graduate Management Admission Council, applications to two-year, full-time MBA programmes declined in 2011 for the third consecutive year.
Schools that offer accelerated courses appeal to older, more seasoned students but not Executive MBA (EMBA) programs.
Some schools, like Emory’s Goizueta Business School, have offered an accelerated programme for years; several top-tier schools, including Cornell’s Johnson School and Northwestern’s Kellogg, have one-year programmes. 

For more, see the Financial Times