MIT Sloan Graduates Its FIrst Class of Executive MBAs

Phelan cites the swift turnaround in the communications course after students complained it was too elementary for their experience level. “We spent the rest of the curriculum focused on media communications, how to do television and press interviews, so it became targeted really quickly,” he says. “The next phase of our careers is interacting with the press and with the capital markets and how would you manage those communications and stay on message?”

MISGIVINGS OVER THE SHORTAGE OF TIME TO WORK WITH THE SLOAN FELLOWS

One regret that graduating students shared was the shortage of time to work with and get to know their peers in the Sloan Fellows program, an inevitable outcome of the scant 83 course days they spent on campus over 20 months.

Lehrich was surprised by how hungry the first class was for a quantitatively rigorous program. “Not only did they want the hard stuff, but they asked for it in electives, too,” he says. “We are graduating students who have taken it upon themselves to grapple with advanced data and data [modeling] techniques in a way they didn’t have to but they absolutely craved. We have students publishing papers on this. In the middle of the busiest part of their careers and family life, they chose a pilot MBA program.”

For many students, the EMBA program provided something more than mere management training. They have a new peer group representing every leading industry in the global economy.  “Different industries are trying to solve similar problems and rather than relying on an outside consultant, we have each other,” says Phelan.

DON’T MISS: THE BEST EMBA PROGRAMS IN THE BOSTON METRO AREA or MY STORY: FROM VAGINA MONOLOGUES TO COLUMBIA’S EMBA PROGRAM

 

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