Meet USC Marshall’s MBA Class Of 2026

SPRING IS ‘PRIME’ TIME

PRIME is another welcome wrinkle in the Marshall programming. One of the first global MBA treks, PRIME takes students overseas for discipline-driven projects and coursework in areas like artificial intelligence, product development, entertainment, and technology. Held in the spring for first-years and experiential in nature, PRIME acts as a dress rehearsal for the summer internship, providing students with hands-on experience in their areas of interest.

“For our class, the program will pair students with companies from Asia (Japan, Korea, Singapore, Thailand) and Europe (United Kingdom, Germany) to work on actual projects, and it culminates in an international trip to these companies’ home countries,” explains Jay Chung.

Shannon Jordan anticipates that PRIME will be the highlight of the MBA program for her. “It offers a unique opportunity to immerse myself in a different culture while gaining firsthand insight into global business practices. Experiencing the dynamics of international markets and understanding the cultural nuances that influence business decisions will be invaluable for my career. This trip will also allow me to apply classroom knowledge in a real-world setting, enhancing my ability to think critically and adapt to diverse environments. The combination of travel, cultural exchange, and practical learning makes PRIME an experience I am eager to be a part of.”

A Q&A WITH USC MARSHALL LEADERSHIP

This summer, P&Q reached out to USC Marshall’s administration to learn more about new developments at the school, along with its leadership, global business, and career services programming. Here are the responses from the various members of Marshall’s leadership team.

P&Q: What have been the two most important developments in your MBA program over the past year? What type of impact will they have on current and future MBAs?

(Response from Senior Vice Dean for Academic Programs Raman Randhawa and Vice Dean for MBA Programs Leigh Tost)

Randhawa and Tost: “We’d like to share three innovations: New MBA+ MS dual degree pathways, GenAI in the MBA curriculum, Re-imagining global programs.

Dual-Degree MBA+MS Pathways

This year we have created new dual-degree pathways for our full-time MBA students, which allows them to simultaneously pursue a specialized Masters (MS) degree that is integrated into their MBA elective selections. These dual-degree pathways lean on our very successful array of business MS degrees that leverage the technical expertise of our faculty and teach students specialized skills in areas such as Business Analytics, Finance, Supply Chain Management, Marketing, and Entrepreneurship. Given the increasing appetite for technical expertise among MBA graduates, we believe these dual-degree pathways will provide our students with the opportunity to dive deeper into specialized areas and build those skills. We are launching this program this upcoming year with two dual MBA+MS options: MBA+MS in Business Analytics and MBA+MS in Finance.

Integration of GenAI

This past year has been the year of Generative AI (GenAI). This technology has demonstrated its ability to revolutionize and disrupt various industries. At the Marshall School of Business, there has been a faculty-led initiative to thoughtfully integrate AI into curriculum topics ranging from enhancing productivity to stimulating creativity. This initiative has been very popular and has led to widespread GenAI adoption, both inside and outside the classroom, combined with a formal student AI policy.

In the full-time MBA program, the core Data Science for Business course fully embraced GenAI and was taught entirely using GitHub Copilot. Our students could simply enter their instructions in plain English, and the Copilot translated these to sophisticated R-code. This freed our students from having to deal with complex coding constructs, allowing them to focus on answering strategic business questions on topics with massive datasets.

We believe this integration of GenAI will nurture our students to develop into the next generation of data- and analytics-driven business leaders.

Global Programs

Marshall was the first school to require a global immersion course for MBA students, and since then it has continued to be a leader in global programs. Our first-year core course on The Global Context of Business (PRIME) is consistently one of students’ favorite experiences during their time at Marshall. This year we’re enhancing this program by building modules that focus the global destinations on specific industries and functional areas for which these destinations are important hubs. For example, we have a program that focuses on advertising in London and another that focuses on fashion in Milan. Now students pick not only their desired destination from a set of exciting overseas options, but also the industry or functional area they wish to learn about during their travel. This customized approach will allow students to explore emerging global trends in their specific areas of focus, providing them with a truly immersive and experiential education. The new PRIME experience will also allow our students to further build their global networks and international business skills in ways that will bring immense value over the long term.

Our goal in introducing these innovations of creating MBA+MS dual-degree pathways, bringing GenAI to the MBA curriculum, and re-imagining our global programs is to ensure the Marshall School of Business remains at the cutting edge of business education, enabling our MBA students to develop the skills and knowledge needed to thrive in this rapidly evolving business landscape.”

P&Q: Every January, P&Q publishes a “10 Business Schools to Watch” feature that highlights how schools are raising the bar and enhancing the student experience through innovation or expansion in programming or resources. What is one innovation that sets your school apart from your peer programs and makes you a business school to watch? Why is it so groundbreaking?

(Response from Leigh Tost, Vice Dean for MBA Programs)

Tost: “Our new MBA Career Launch Pad is a key innovation that sets USC Marshall apart. Like many top business schools, we’ve noticed in recent years that our incoming students are increasingly interested in using their MBA experience to pivot to a different industry or function (or sometimes both). We’ve also noticed that recruiters are eager to start interviewing our students earlier and earlier in the year. MBA programs therefore face a challenge of how to prepare students as rapidly as possible to begin networking and interviewing for jobs that are sometimes quite disconnected from their prior industry or functional experience.

We’ve designed the Marshall MBA Career Launchpad to address this recruitment timing challenge, and we couldn’t be more excited about the powerful impact we think it will have for our incoming students’ career pathways.

The Marshall MBA Career Launchpad is a week-long immersive curricular and co-curricular experience designed to prepare students for success in their search for their first post-MBA job. Students will spend a week in August learning from the academic and industry expertise of our top faculty and the job search wisdom of our dedicated team of career strategists. They will interact with a wide range of industry partners and a dedicated group of accomplished alumni who will share their practical experiences and advice. And they will be trained in the skills of networking and relationship-building that are crucial to long-term career success.

Students will finish the week with a detailed plan for how to engage the job search process, clarity about how to pitch themselves and their value proposition to potential employers, a developing network of alumni connections, and the basic skills and knowledge they need for a strong start to their search.

We expect that this experience will be truly transformative for our students and will set them up to have a strong competitive advantage relative to their peers from other top schools.

This program is truly innovative and unique to Marshall, and we are excited to see the impact it will have for the first cohort to experience it–the incoming Class of 2026.”

P&Q: What types of programs do you offer to sharpen your students’ soft skills? What areas do you emphasize and how do you instill these skills in your students?

(Response from Leticia Porter, Assistant Dean and Director, Full-time MBA Program and Gohar Palanjian, Senior Associate Director, Graduate Alumni Initiatives)

Porter and Palanjian: “At USC Marshall, we recognize that MBA students need a well-rounded set of human leadership skills (or “soft skills”) to complement their technical and analytical abilities. We educate our students holistically, focusing not only on rigorous academics to meet the technical challenges of today’s business environment, but also strengthening leadership skills critical to succeeding in the professional world. These soft skills are often what employers say sets USC Marshall MBAs apart from others. We give our students a wide range of opportunities to develop these skills, fostering in them a sense of responsibility and adaptability, along with an ability to work well in diverse environments.

There are a few soft skills that here at Marshall we like to highlight.

Leadership is a core skill that all MBA students learn from day one at the USC Marshall School of Business. Through student-led government and clubs, students take on leadership roles, learn teamwork, and enhance their communication and problem-solving skills. Leadership workshops, as well as seminars with alumni and industry leaders, enable students to learn leadership skills from those who are at the top of their professions. We also offer the Marshall Leadership Fellows Program, a year-long leadership development program that trains second year MBAs to become values-driven, people-focused business leaders through classroom and experiential learning. It also offers them the opportunity to apply their developing leadership skills by coaching first-year core teams.

Effective communication is foundational for a broad range of business endeavors, from persuading team members to adopt a new innovation, to negotiating with supplies and collaborating within diverse teams. USC Marshall MBAs begin to polish their communication and collaboration skills starting at Orientation. Student core teams, often comprised of students with diverse backgrounds, including many from other nations, give our students an opportunity to cultivate and enhance their personal communication styles, practice soft power and influence, negotiate with others, and present analytical findings and recommendations to their teammates and classmates. Moreover, the benefit of working alongside students from other countries enables all students to practice curiosity, active listening, and adaptability while enhancing their emotional intelligence.

Flexibility and adaptability are critical strengths that our students develop as part of their MBA experience. While classes may have a structure, the program also injects critical elements that replicate the changing environments and situations in the fast-paced and ever-evolving business world because we know that students need the skills to refocus and be effective in changing circumstances. Courses such as GSBA 552 Problem Solving & Decision Making enable students to work on “live” problems and opportunities with partner companies, working through evolving challenges in a specific firm, surveying the current business landscape, and using adaptive thinking to develop real-world business solutions. Students further develop these skills by participating in our Marshall Business Competition Program. Participating in case competitions offers students a range of benefits, including gaining problem-solving skills, the ability to apply theoretical knowledge to real-world scenarios, the opportunity to communicate effectively with team members and manage team dynamics, and resilience from tackling and solving challenging problems.

By focusing on these and other soft skills and providing structured opportunities for their development, USC Marshall ensures that MBA graduates are well-equipped to lead and succeed in the complex and dynamic business landscape they will inherit.”

Next Page: Profiles of 11 members of the Class of 2026

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