Academics
Innovation dictates the MBA program at the Boston University Questrom School of Business, which is continuously adapting and expanding program offerings to accommodate student input, industry trends, and rising business sectors. The school sees health and life sciences, digital technology, and social enterprise and sustainability as the linchpins of the global economy, and the curriculum reflects as such. Questrom offers three MBA programs (Full-Time, Executive, and an extremely popular Part-Time program), as well as cutting-edge centers and institutes, including the Susilo Institute for Ethics in the Global Economy; the BUzz Lab, BUâs startup incubator and hub for entrepreneurship; and the Institute for Sustainable Energy. The Questrom MBA centers around the cohort, which âthe school works hard to turn into a small community within the larger Boston University.â The quarter system on which the Full-Time program is run is designed to get the required courses through to students as quickly as possible, but âwith 3-hour course blocks the schedule can be rough on some days.â There is a âheavy focus on teamwork and collaborative workâ and students must complete three projects (one at the end of each core-quarter); these are âextremely engaging educational experiences that integrate course concepts that we have learned throughout that quarter.â
Life here is âintense with academic work but there is great amount of classmate camaraderie and support.â Professors are âbusiness professionals first, which makes the content applicable,â and are âgreat at fostering meaningful discussions on the curriculum.â âIt is not enough to just be smart you need to actively engage in class discussions,â says a student. They are âalways accessibleâ and âour strongest advocatesâ: âWhen one person is struggling the whole class pitches in to help.â The administration âclearly cares about the student experience and constantly improving the quality of the program,â and a focus on analytics and several specialized programs (non-profit, health, energy) show the evolving nature of the storied school. Itâs also worth noting that BU has lots of evening classes available in the second year for its large Part-Time/professional MBA student population.