In my preparation for the interview, I poured over the Stern website to absorb as much information as I could about the school and its programs. I noticed they made some changes to the specialization offerings that will take effect in Fall 2007. Another prospective student I met this past weekend also noticed the new specializations since one of them is in an area she’s interested in pursuing.
The new specializations are 1) Data, Models & Decisions, 2) Financial Systems & Analytics, 3) Management of Technology & Operations, and 4) Supply Chain Management & Global Sourcing. The Information Systems specialization is being discontinued. It looks like they’re taking a very general field and replacing it with much more specific concentrations.
Even though it seems like they’re adding a lot to the curriculum, I doubt there will be a ton of new courses. It’s probably more about helping students more clearly match their career goals with the courses they choose to take. I imagine it’s also intended to help differentiate Stern students during the recruiting process against students from other schools; if a company is looking to hire someone for a supply chain management position, they might take a closer look at a student with a specific specialization in that area.
Companies play this sort of naming game all the time. While some people think it’s silly because nothing really changes substantively, people’s perception of what a product or service offers can totally change based on things like naming, logo, colors, etc. It’s great that Stern is being proactive and innovative in the marketing of the “service” that they’re offering—a two-year MBA.
(I don’t mean to single out Stern but I do just because it’s the program that I’m most familiar with. I know that many MBA programs are constantly looking at various ways to innovate. The most talked about innovation in MBA programs is the online MBA. Not sure if I believe that it’s worth nearly as much as a live MBA program though.)
Hi Peter,
You’re right about the changes to the curriculum, they’ve been going on ever since the MBA was first developed – a steady drift towards more-specialised degrees. In many ways, it’s going against the primary purpose of the MBA as that was to deliver a totally general degree which signified mastery of business administration in a general sense. Designed for the top job holders, MBA’s needed to be general as the CEO’s needed their holistic view of the business and their specialists did the graft!
You’re right too about the reason for the drift – at least in part – with the plethora of MBA’s on offer and the insatiable desire for league tables, specialisation is one way of trying to ensure that your graduates all get jobs and your school gets to keep its rankings.
As to the online MBA and its position in the pecking order, I do feel that things are a’changin’. The view of on-line as second class has certainly disappeared and a new respect is emerging for those who manage to succeed online while holding down the day job.
I wish you the best anyway, whatever you choose and, for anyone else who reads this – stick with it – it’s worth it in the end!
Rhiannon