Degree Options

Special Options

In addition to course work, Ross offers several creative options to further develop one's executive skills. Evening MBA students may study abroad, pursue foreign language study, and perform in-company projects around the world. While most of these options require time away from work, many Evening MBA students make special arrangements in order to augment their management development while at Ross.

• Entrepreneurship Track
• Executive Skills Program
• Global Opportunities

Entrepreneurship Track

The Ross School provides entrepreneurs with action-based electives cover everything from how to generate ideas for new businesses to founding, funding, and growing a startup.Advanced courses in the Entrepreneurship Track include working with existing startups or hatching and developing students' plans for their own businesses.

The Entrepreneurship Track cuts across disciplines, and may be taken in a recommended sequence or as individual courses. Course offerings draw on regular Ross faculty as well as working entrepreneurs. Ross also is home to the Samuel Zell and Robert H. Lurie Center for Entrepreneurial Studies, which houses the Center for Venture Capital and Private Equity Finance. Together they present the annual Michigan Growth Capital Symposium. For three decades, the symposium has brought together countless entrepreneurs and venture capitalists. In the past decade alone, more than 300 companies have presented. About 70 percent of these have raised capital totaling more than $1.7 billion in investments and nearly 20 percent have realized successful exits.

Executive Skills Program

The Ross School's Executive Skills seminars focus on a pivotal set of talents that are critical to leadership and managerial effectiveness. The seminars complement course work by targeting important skills -- transformational leadership, leveraging company resources through networking, leading and leveraging workforce diversity, and gaining power and influence. Past seminars have covered such topics as personal finance, time management, and balancing work and family.

The program transcends business functional areas, and is affiliated with the Ross School's Office of Career Development -- an affiliation that further sharpens the program's alignment with the latest demands of business. It draws on Ross' prowess in executive education, bringing ideas that have been road-tested with corporate executives from around the world.

Executive Skills seminars are primarily offered on Fridays, either in morning or afternoon sessions. Occasionally, seminars are held on Saturdays. While they do require time off from work for most Evening MBA students, the special insights they deliver -- and targeted skills they develop -- make them popular with part-time students.

Global Opportunities

International In-Company Learning

Ross offers a fresh and action-based approach to working in the global economy. The school's in-company learning model provides a high-impact setting in which MBAs develop their abilities while performing high-stakes assignments in cross-cultural scenarios.

International assignments are carefully designed to deliver the most benefit. Projects include developing market-entry or growth strategies, evaluating business opportunities in emerging markets, product development, and other major strategic initiatives.

In-company learning assignments require a minimum of one week of on-site work, and some require as much as 11 weeks. Students enrolled in the Evening MBA Program may apply to participate in the following:

Evening MBA MAP: BA 554
In 1992 the Ross School launched the Multidisciplinary Action Projects (MAP) course, which epitomizes the school's commitment to action-based learning. MAP isn't a case study It's not an internship. MAP is a live project for a sponsoring company or organization that requires students to work in teams and address a real business challenge in real time.

MAP projects fulfill a dual mission: 1) to help sponsoring organizations address a strategic business issue or opportunity, or diagnose and solve a problem, and 2) to prepare evening MBA students for continued success in their careers by providing valuable professional development in a time-sensitive and demanding setting.

For sponsoring organizations, MAP offers access to a high-caliber team, the latest business concepts and tools, an external viewpoint, and rapid turnaround. The ultimate deliverable to the sponsor from a MAP project is a set of actionable, data-driven recommendations.

While each MAP project is different in context, all have essential features in common. All present students with a real business challenge of significant importance and no existing solution. All require students to apply concepts and tools from multiple disciplines to successfully complete the project goals. All require dynamic sense-making, fact-based decisions, and high-performance teamwork. All unfold in unpredictable ways. And all conclude with teams presenting actionable recommendations to project sponsors and faculty advisers. Prerequisites: BE501, MKT501, FIN551, ACC501, ACC551, & STRATEGY 601.

William Davidson Institute: In-Company Learning in Emerging Markets
While a few student internships or global projects in emerging economies may be accessible through the William Davidson Institute, the vast majority of student and global projects are now handled through MAP.

Africa Business Development Corps
Africa Corps in-company learning takes place during the summer months as students pursue high-impact assignments in emerging economies. Africa Corps assignments are completed either individually or in groups of two. Many assignments place students in geographical proximity to each other, and students on different assignments often stay linked informally. Ross staff provide assistance as needed, and a designated host in each sponsoring firm is assigned to support the projects.

Prior to departing for Africa, students undergo an intensive orientation session, which draws on the University of Michigan's Africa Studies program as well as on the experiences of previous program participants. Most of the host organizations are local firms and, in some cases, appropriate government units or non-government organizations. Projects are crafted to ensure significant application of the special skills and knowledge that characterize the Ross MBA, and which are in high demand in the areas served.

Africa Corps assignments are paid positions.

Center for International Business Education

Language Training
The University of Michigan is one of the world's leading centers for language education, and offers courses in the languages used by 48 of the United States' top 50 trading partners. Students have the opportunity to learn an unusually wide range of languages, including various Chinese dialects and others, spoken in important emerging markets.

The Ross School draws on the University's vast resources in this area. Ross' Center for International Business Education has sponsored the development of language courses designed especially for business students, including business French, German, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, and Arabic. Ross also offers tuition fellowships for summer language study.

Ross MBAs who take advantage of these study-abroad opportunities typically do so in the winter semester. Participants are granted 15 credit hours toward their Ross MBA.

Ross MBAs may apply for study abroad in the following locations:

• University of New South Wales, Australia
• Copenhagen Business School, Denmark
• Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands
• Escuela Superior de Administracion y Direccion de Empresas, Spain
• St. Gallen, Switzerland
• London Business School, United Kingdom