Harvard Business School MBA Is Now STEM Designated
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BOSTON—Harvard Business School (HBS) announced today that its MBA Program has been reclassified to qualify as a science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) degree, effective this fall for the class of 2025 and onward.
This change is in recognition of the addition of a course on data science and artificial intelligence for leaders in the first year Required Curriculum (RC) and the recent significant growth of management science content in the second year Elective Curriculum (EC).
“This change will enable all students, particularly our international students, to pursue the opportunities a STEM-eligible degree affords,” said Jana Pompadur Kierstead, executive director, MBA and Doctoral Programs and External Relations.
The HBS MBA Program continues to emphasize the foundational, general management education with which it has trained leaders for over a century with the now integral tools and skills of management science. Today, many roles in finance, strategy, innovation, and operations rely heavily on data science for important managerial decisions, and HBS faculty members have responded by developing courses and content focused on quantitative and analytical skills that now permeate both the required and elective curricula.
In the EC, class selections have increasingly focused on courses offering management science content, with students achieving, on average, more than half of their required credits from management science track (MST) qualifying courses. Some examples of recent and popular elective courses featuring management science content include Generative AI for Business Leaders, Data Visualization for Analysis, and Communication and Supply Chain Analytics.
In response, the HBS MBA Program recently requested that the Harvard University Standing Committee on Classification of Instructional Programs (CIP) Codes reclassify the School’s entire MBA degree to the STEM Management Sciences and Quantitative Methods CIP Code.
As a result, HBS’s international students may now reside in the United States longer to pursue additional post-graduate opportunities through Optional Practical Training (OPT).
“What the world’s businesses need from their leaders evolves,” said Matt Weinzierl, Joseph and Jacqueline Elbling Professor of Business Administration and senior associate dean and chair of the MBA Program. “Increasingly, those leaders are being asked to utilize management science when making tough decisions. Our faculty recognized this evolution and have created and integrated into their teaching cutting-edge, compelling content to ensure that our students are equipped to lead with these new tools. The formal STEM designation is in acknowledgement of this fundamental shift and opens up new avenues for our graduates.” |
Mark Cautela
mcautela+hbs.edu
617-495-5143
About Harvard Business School
Founded in 1908 as part of Harvard University, Harvard Business School is located on a 40-acre campus in Boston. Its faculty of more than 250 offers full-time programs leading to the MBA and PhD degrees, as well as more than 175 Executive Education programs, and Harvard Business School Online, the School’s digital learning platform. For more than a century, faculty have drawn on their research, their experience in working with organizations worldwide, and their passion for teaching, to educate leaders who make a difference in the world. The School and its curriculum attract the boldest thinkers and the most collaborative learners who will go on to shape the practice of business and entrepreneurship around the globe.