Cornell MBA program curriculum

A strong foundation of advanced business fundamentals and immersive internship preparation in your first year with infinite customization options in your second year.

Program timeline overview

First year

As a Cornell MBA candidate, you’ll acquire key business management knowledge that will be crucial for leadership roles in today’s global, digital economy. Our core curriculum — designed with input from alumni and corporate recruiters, focuses on developing leadership and analytical skills through coursework, hands-on modeling work, critical thinking and case competitions. The second semester is devoted to immersions, directly preparing you to succeed at your summer internship.

Summer

Your required internship is completed during the summer between your two years. By this time, you will have finished the core and completed your immersion.

Second year

Your second year is truly customizable, with an array of choices, including all the richness of Cornell University’s Ithaca campus courses, a dual-campus track with Johnson Cornell Tech or the world at large with our global learning options.

First year: Fall semester

Vital business concepts are taught using a core team model. This brings together the tight community that Cornell MBAs are known for, centering learning around small four- to five-person teams designed to simulate the collaborative, intense environment of a modern global firm.

Core Team Practicum and Leading Teams

A pair of leadership courses to lead and contribute to high-performing teams.

In Core Team Practicum, you learn how to set clear goals and objectives, develop and implement internal team norms, leverage diverse strengths and backgrounds in collaboration and appropriately give and receive feedback.

Leading Teams provides an opportunity to build the the team-leading skills managers need.

Financial Accounting

An introductory accounting course to bring MBA candidates up to speed.

Microeconomics for Management

An introduction microeconomic theory and how it applies to problems faced by managers.

Critical and Strategic Thinking

A course focusing on several aspects of human decision making:

constructing and deconstructing persuasive arguments
recognizing and avoiding reasoning flaws
approaching business problems systematically and thoroughly
producing well-reasoned, useful solutions that will be well-received

Managerial Finance

Gain a strong basis in finance for your professional career and background for more advanced finance classes.

Strategy

A course strongly based on recent advances in game theory, industrial organization and organization theory. It also draws from business policy tradition to teach industry analysis, identify areas of strategy advantage and disadvantage and devise strategies that exploit advantages and remedy disadvantages.

First year: Spring semester

In addition to your core courses, you will select one of our immersions that the Johnson School is known for — this practice internship gives you real-life experience to succeed in your upcoming summer internship. You will approach business challenges in a structured setting, combining your chosen immersion practicum with curated electives to create a cohesive learning experience.

You can also start your choice of other elective courses in this second semester.

Spring core courses

Continued core courses dive into data modeling, AI, analytics and the management of business operations.

Data Analytics and Modeling
This course exposes you to introductory statistics and data analysis techniques for understanding business situations and improving business decisions in times of uncertainty.

Managing Operations
This course focuses on managing processes: actions that convert inputs into outputs. Almost any business function can be modeled as a network of processes. You will learn several theories, models and how damaging variability is to complex systems.

Immersions

Intensive, semester-long experiences that prepare you for the reality of work alongside the preparatory coursework. Our six immersions include:

Second year: Infinite options

Ithaca campus

At the Ithaca campus, your second year allows you to take advantage of the electives available within the Johnson School, across the college and all of Cornell University. Many students consider taking classes in the University’s top-ranked programs, including the Duffield College of Engineering, Bowers Computing and Information Science, School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Brooks School of Public Policy and Cornell Law School.

Johnson Cornell Tech in New York City

Dual-campus track: Build on your management and leadership foundation from Ithaca with a year in New York City at Johnson Cornell Tech’s campus on Roosevelt Island. Here, business, engineering and design students collaborate to solve real industry challenges in a Studio curriculum.
Cross-program weekend electives in the fall and spring semesters

Global learning

Semester-long exchange with established partner institutions. You could spend a semester of your MBA candidacy in Hong Kong, London, Stockholm or any one of over a dozen locations.

Credit-bearing international study courses occur during the Winter and Spring Breaks. Past trip locations include Italy, Spain, Morocco, Colombia, Japan and Korea. Destinations vary from year to year.