Harvard Business School’s Full MBA Is Now STEM Designated

Harvard Business School graduation. Courtesy photo

Harvard Business School has joined the march of MBA programs big and small to STEM designation. In an announcement posted today (July 24), the school says its entire full-time MBA will be classified as a STEM degree, beginning with the class of 2025.

The designation comes after HBS’ two-year review of its first-year Required Curriculum, adding this fall a new course on data science and artificial intelligence for leaders. It also expanded management science content in its second-year Elective Curriculum.

“This change will enable all students, particularly our international students, to pursue the opportunities a STEM-eligible degree affords,” says Jana Pompadur Kierstead in the announcement. She is executive director of MBA and Doctoral Programs and External Relations.

HOW STEM ATTRACTS INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS

It is now six years since the University of Rochester’s Simon Business School pioneered the move, earning the school Poets&Quants‘ MBA Program of the Year in 2018. In Poets&Quants’ last round-up of business school STEM programs published in September, we found that all of the top 25 MBA programs offered the designation in at least some fashion – if not for the full-time MBA, then in a particular track or major. Among the M7, the full-time MBAs at Stanford GSB, Chicago Booth, Northwestern Kellogg, MIT Sloan, and Columbia Business School were all designated STEM. UPenn’s The Wharton School offered several STEM majors for its full-time MBA.

While HBS previously offered STEM designation for its MBA Management Science Track and MS/MBA: Engineering Sciences degrees, it was among the last of the M7s to have the designation for its flagship full-time program. Now, the entire HBS MBA is a STEM degree.

STEM designation – beyond a signifier as a degree with strong science, technology, engineering, and mathematics cred – is particularly attractive to international students. International graduates of U.S. business schools may hold U.S. jobs for only 12 months before needing an H1-B visa. Unless they have a STEM degree.

Jana Kierstead, Executive Director of MBA and Doctoral Programs at Harvard Business School. HBS photo

“This designation will allow all our MBA students, beginning with the Class of 2025, to pursue the opportunities a STEM-eligible degree affords. The degree qualifies international students on an F-1 visa for a 24-month extension, allowing up to three years of eligibility to work in the US after graduating,” writes Rupal Gadhia, managing director of MBA Admissions and Financial Aid, in the school’s Direct from the Director blog.

HBS’ MBA Class of 2025 is 39% international.

“The STEM designation demonstrates our faculty’s ongoing commitment to develop courses and modules that bring the latest research and developments in data analytics, artificial intelligence, and quantitative methods into the MBA classroom.”

The STEM designation may be even more valuable if Donald Trump is elected to another term as U.S. President. In his first term, international student interest in U.S. B-schools declined as a result of Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies, and some MBA analysts told P&Q they fear it could happen again in a Trump second term.

HBS’ FIRST STEM MBA TRACK WAS IN 2020

HBS got its first STEM designation for its MBA Management Science track in 2020, after students clamored for the option.

Throughout its 116 year history, the Harvard MBA has focused on foundational general management education. But, its full STEM designation  recognizes the extent to which data science and AI now play or will play in managerial decisions in roles like finance, strategy, innovation, and operations.

“What the world’s businesses need from their leaders evolves,” says Matt Weinzierl, Joseph and Jacqueline Elbling Professor of Business Administration and senior associate dean and chair of the MBA Program.

Matthew Weinzierl, Photo by Evgenia Eliseeva

“Increasingly, those leaders are being asked to utilize management science when making tough decisions. Our faculty recognized this evolution and have created and integrated into their teaching cutting-edge, compelling content to ensure that our students are equipped to lead with these new tools. The formal STEM designation is in acknowledgement of this fundamental shift and opens up new avenues for our graduates.”

The designation is just the latest tweaks HBS has made to its MBA to keep up with the times. HBS faculty have created new courses and content teaching quantitative and analytical skills for both the required and elective curricula, including popular elective courses like Generative AI for Business Leaders, Data Visualization for Analysis, and Communication and Supply Chain Analytics.

This spring, Mitchell Weiss, the Richard L. Menschel professor of management practice chair, told P&Q about the new ways HBS was using Generative AI in its MBA classrooms and how it approached its GenAI use policy for MBA students.

“Generally, we invite the use of generative AI tools before class in preparation for case discussion and after class for reflection. But, in class, students are still meant to use only what was in their heads,” Weiss told P&Q. “Of course, there are a growing number of sessions where faculty are inviting the use of tools in the classroom as part of exercises and discussions about generative AI.”

DON’T MISS: ALL THE MAJOR STEM PROGRAMS AT U.S. BUSINESS SCHOOLS AND HOW HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL USES GENERATIVE AI IN ITS MBA CLASSROOMS