A strong foundation of advanced business fundamentals and immersive internship preparation in your first year, with infinite customization options in your second year.
The timeline
First year
As a Cornell MBA candidate, you spend your first year acquiring key business management knowledge that will be crucial for leadership roles in today’s global, digital economy. This is your core curriculum — designed with input from alumni and corporate recruiters. The intentionally designed core curriculum focuses on developing leadership and analytical skills through coursework and core teams, hands-on modeling work, critical thinking and case competitions. The second half of the year is devoted to immersions, directly preparing you to succeed at your summer internship.
Summer
Your required internship is completed during the summer between your two years. By this time, you will have finished the core and completed a specialized industry immersion, which positions you for success and enables you to stand out among your summer colleagues.
Second year
Your second year is truly customizable, with an array of choices, including all the richness of Cornell University’s Ithaca campus, a dual-campus track with Johnson Cornell Tech or the world at large with our global learning options.
“Immersions give you an opportunity to learn about an industry that you are passionate about. I was surprised that I was able to acquire an extremely deep level of knowledge in such a short time to help my client solve their specific problem.”
Preet Jassi, MBA '18
What it looks like: First year core curriculum
Fall Semester
Vital business concepts are taught using a core team model. This brings together the tight community that Cornell MBAs are known for, centering learning around small four- to five-person teams designed to simulate the collaborative, intense environment of a modern global firm.
Our Leadership Curriculum is embedded from the start with Leadership Foundations. Core Team Practicum and Leading Teams teach you to lead and contribute to high-performing teams. In Core Team Practicum, you learn how to set clear goals and objectives, develop and implement internal team norms, leverage diverse strengths and backgrounds in collaboration and appropriately give and receive feedback. Leading Teams provides an opportunity to build the the team-leading skills managers need.
An introductory accounting course to bring MBA candidates up to speed.
This course introduces microeconomic theory and applies it to problems faced by managers.
This course focuses on:
constructing a persuasive argument and deconstructing arguments made by others;
recognizing and avoiding reasoning flaws and the forces that make us most susceptible to such flaws;
approaching business problems systematically and thoroughly;
producing well-reasoned solutions that will be useful and well-received
The class provides a strong basis in finance for your professional career and background for more advanced finance classes.
Strongly based on recent advances in game theory, industrial organization and organization theory, this course also draws from business policy tradition to teach industry analysis, identify areas of strategy advantage and disadvantage and devise strategies that exploit advantages and remedy disadvantages.
Spring semester
In addition to your core courses, you will select one of our immersions that the Johnson School is known for — this practice internship gives you real-life experience to succeed in your upcoming summer internship. You will approach business challenges in a structured setting, combining your chosen immersion practicum with curated electives to create a cohesive learning experience.
You can also start your choice of other elective courses in this second semester.
Spring core courses
Continued core courses dive into data modeling, AI, analytics and the management of business operations.
Data Analytics and Modeling
This course exposes you to introductory statistics and data analysis techniques for understanding business situations and improving business decisions in times of uncertainty.
Managing Operations
This course focuses on managing processes: actions that convert inputs into outputs. Almost any business function can be modeled as a network of processes. You will learn several theories, models and how damaging variability is to complex systems.
Immersions
Intensive, semester-long experiences that prepare you for the reality of work alongside the preparatory coursework. Our six immersions include:
Build on your management and leadership foundation from Ithaca with a year in New York City at Johnson Cornell Tech’s campus on Roosevelt Island. Here, business, engineering and design students collaborate to solve real industry challenges in a Studio curriculum.
In the fall semester, weekend electives engage students in various tech-focused topics such as designing and building AI solutions, tech company exits, women leading in tech and the business of gaming.
In the spring semester, two courses are offered in a three-weekend in-person series across the Ithaca and NYC campuses.
After a formal selection process, students exchange places with counterparts selected by established partner institutions. You could spend a semester of your MBA candidacy in Hong Kong, London, Stockholm or any one of over a dozen locations.
International study trip courses
Credit-bearing International Study Courses occur during the Winter and Spring Breaks. Past trip locations include Italy, Spain, Morocco, Colombia, Japan, Korea and more; destinations vary from year to year.
