What's driving the curriculum shift? B-schools are acting a lot
more like businesses these days (gasp) and responding to their
various customers - corporate recruiters and students.
"MBA students we employ don't need to come in being finance gurus.
What's much more important is that they know how to analyze issues
and communicate recommendations," says Ken Barnet, a vice president
at State Street Corp. (Charts, Fortune 500) who works with both
B-school interns and freshly minted MBAs.
Ultimately that kind of thinking will help B-schools prosper too.
"If our students leave here and get great first jobs but don't succeed
in the long run, we've failed," says Stacey Kole, deputy dean of the
full-time MBA program at Chicago. "We want them to be successful as
their careers evolve." Employers, not to mention MBAs themselves,
couldn't agree more.
