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Curriculum

Fast-paced and fully integrated, blending business with AI technology

Curriculum

Leaders in today's technology-driven organizations excel at engaging engineering teams as well as the C-suite. The power of MBAi comes from the collaboration between Northwestern's McCormick School of Engineering and Kellogg School of Management who have come together to create a new, blended approach to business and technology leadership. MBAi isn't simply an ad hoc collection of courses from Kellogg and Northwestern Engineering, however. Instead, many of the courses in this program are customized specifically for MBAi in a cross-disciplinary way.

The MBAi curriculum falls into three broad categories: MBA Core, Technical Core, and Integrated Core. Students progress together as a cohort for the duration of their studies, learning and collaborating with peers who will become a lasting professional network.

MBA Core

The business classes cover topics that have traditionally been a part of the MBA curriculum. Since several of these topics have seen profound changes as a result of AI and related technologies, the MBAi coursework includes classes that have been specifically reconceived to reflect the new environment in which students will work.

Classes taken alongside students from across the Kellogg suite of full-time MBA programs:

Classes specifically designed for and exclusive to MBAi students:

Technical Core

Northwestern Engineering's technical core courses accelerate students’ fluency in analytics and complex technologies. Students begin with concepts including intermediate programming in Python, data structures and the Agile process, as well as techniques for business problem translation, management, applications, and scale. These courses are intended to cultivate technical skills with the aim of establishing the grounding necessary to lead engineers in technical projects. The intent is to develop people who can work effectively with and lead machine learning engineers, not necessarily be one themselves.

Classes specifically designed for and exclusive to MBAi students:

Integrated Core

Several additional courses and experiences are included in the MBAi curriculum and fall collectively under the Integrated Core category. The integrated core also includes electives which can be taken from either Kellogg or Northwestern Engineering to round out preparation for individual career paths.

Integrated Core coursework:

 Integrated Core experiences:

More about the Capstone

In the fifth and final quarter of the MBAi program, students engage in a capstone project posed by a leading company partner that challenges students to apply their technical and business skills. Given the hybrid nature of teams in industry, capstone teams consist of 4-6 students, half from the MBAi cohort and half from Northwestern Engineering's Master of Science in Artificial Intelligence program. Previous capstone courses have involved projects for companies such as: Accenture, Adobe, CDW, Deere, Deloitte, Google, Vanguard, Walgreens, and Wayfair, among others.

More about the Summer Internship & Industry Immersion Experience:

To build experience and adaptability in a quickly changing industry, MBAi students engage in substantial hands-on learning experiences including a 10-week summer internship. Students can also take electives during this quarter to focus on individual interests.

Students may participate in an optional one-week industry immersion in San Francisco. The immersion takes place at the end of summer quarter and includes on-site company visits and industry networking events.

 

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