One semester. Endless potential. At the Johnson School, your second semester in the two-year Cornell MBA program is dedicated to intensive, integrated learning centered on a specific industry or career path. We call this collective experience an immersion, and it’s one of the key distinctions of the Cornell MBA.
Led by outstanding faculty and guided by expert business practitioners, each immersion is ripe with real-world learning experiences that prepare you for success in your chosen field.
What is an immersion?
Core courses
Immersions are designed to give you foundational knowledge and develop key skills in your area of interest. Your core courses set the stage for the entire semester-long experience.
Elective classes
You can enhance your experience by choosing electives that align with your career goals or pique your interest. With hundreds of options across Cornell University, you can truly make this immersion your own.
Hands-on experience
Seeing concepts in action is a major component of immersions. From field trips and competitions to client consulting projects and global travel, you’ll find ways to apply what you’re learning.
Rooted in the principles of shareholder value creation, this immersion prepares you to become a sophisticated decision-maker and strategic thinker capable of integrating operational and financial insights into your work.
Digital tech is embedded in today’s business landscape from big data to blockchain. In this immersion, you will develop skills to lead in the tech sector and anywhere digital products and services are delivered to customers.
This immersion will boost your banking acumen as you learn from leading faculty members, analyze landmark transactions, receive coaching from top investment bankers, and visit Wall Street.
In this immersion, students build the mindset, behaviors, and skills to succeed as a consultant, whether for a large consultancy, in a specialized boutique, or within a Fortune 500 company.
Whether you want to work in consumer packaged goods or digital products and services, this immersion will grow your understanding of consumer behavior and economic trends.
If you have niche interests rather than a broad focus, a custom immersion allows you to build your path based on your own career pursuits and leverage your training in other fields and disciplines.
Immersive learning continues at Cornell
After your immersion semester, you can continue deeper into the topics and issues that matter most to you through additional coursework and hands-on experiences.
Summer internship
The summer internship is a hallmark experience of the Cornell MBA. Many students pursue a placements related to their immersion area.
Areas of focus
Deepen your subject matter expertise by completing one of our career-supporting areas of focus, aligning your remaining electives with your goals.
Centers & Institutes
Business innovation is happening within the college’s many centers and institutes (C&Is) and you’ll have ample opportunities to get involved.
Student organizations
Career-oriented student clubs across the SC Johnson College and across the university offer workshops, recruiting events, networking, and more.
Areas of focus
Throughout your two years at the Johnson School, we intentionally structure your program progression. During your orientation and first semester, you focus on building a solid foundation of business skills, leadership and knowledge. You start to customize your MBA in your second semester by choosing an immersion, an intense single-semester deep dive which centers the remainder of your first year around a specific industry or career path.
Your second year brings more options — in Ithaca, at Cornell Tech and around the world. And, as an SC Johnson College of Business student, you have access to thousands of other courses at all the other Cornell business schools, colleges and multidisciplinary centers. These include courses taught by nationally and internationally recognized experts in Cornell’s schools of law, engineering, public policy and healthcare and more.
Our Ithaca campus partners with Johnson Cornell Tech in New York City to offer either the Dual-Campus Track or a series of dual-campus weekend classes. For global experiences, you have the opportunity to join an International Study Trip over winter or spring break or to study abroad for a semester with one of our partner institutions through the international exchange program.
Electives
Throughout your MBA experience, electives bring variety and focus to your degree.
Electives work alongside your required core curriculum to customize your MBA. There are at least 80 electives for you right here at the Johnson School.
For a number of our MBA candidates, these opportunities lead to enrolling in a dual degree program, emerging from Cornell graduate studies as a JD/MBA or an MILR/MBA.
Second year areas of focus
Optional Areas of Focus can help deepen your expertise and position you for career success in a specific field or industry.
With such a wide range of elective course choices, choosing focus areas in your second year provides talking points to explore in employment interviews. Being able to say, “I focused my curriculum around this topic,” can give your career options an extra boost with potential employers.
Declaring an Area of Focus means you have completed at least nine credit hours of corresponding elective courses in that area. The Johnson School defines 12 Areas of Focus to support your career:
Asset Management/Investment Research
Brand Management
Consulting & Strategy
Corporate Finance
Data Modeling & Analytics
Emerging Markets
Entrepreneurship & Innovation
Investment Banking
Leadership & Ethics
Private Equity & Venture Capital
Sustainable Global Enterprise
Technology Product Management
Areas of focus explained
Explore each focus area below. These choices give you a guide to supplement your chosen Immersion, fill knowledge gaps or prepare for a career in specific industries.
Asset management/Investment research
For students pursuing careers in asset management, corporate finance, investment banking and investment research.
Sample coursework in asset management/investment research:
If your career path requires you to understand customer motivations, evaluate competition and craft compelling brand narratives, this is the focus for you, pulling together marketing, communication and data analysis.
Sample coursework in brand management:
Consumer Behavior
Customer Analytics and Strategy
Data Driven Marketing
Digital Marketing
Marketing Research
Crisis Communication for Business Leaders
Taxes & Business Strategy
Strategy and Tactics of Pricing
Design and Innovation
Consulting & strategy
This focus strengthens nearly any career ambition, especially management consulting, internal consulting, strategy roles and general management.
Courses are taught by academic faculty and senior consulting industry professionals.
Sample coursework in consulting & strategy:
Advanced Critical Thinking for Business Leaders
Crisis Communication for Business Leaders
Managing Family and Privately Held Firms
Evaluating Capital Investment Projects
Game Theory and Business Strategy
Experience in International Management
Digital Platform Strategy
Innovation and New Product Management
Corporate Governance
Valuation Principles
The Strategic Management of Technology and Innovation
Taxes & Business Strategy
Corporate finance
All business decisions need to take into account financial implications, making this focus foundational for careers in general management, leadership development rotations and finance.
Sample coursework in corporate finance:
Advanced Financial Statement Analysis
Corporate Financial Policy
Corporate Governance
International Finance Cases
Management Presentations
Intermediate Accounting
Financial Distress, Bankruptcy and Restructuring
Introduction to Macroeconomics
Management Accounting and Reporting I & II
Sustainability in Equity Investing
Data modeling & analytics
With the use of data and AI expanding in all areas of business, these foundational classes build your skillset for now and the future, bringing strength to any career ambition.
Sample coursework in data modeling & analytics:
Data-Driven Decision Making
Advanced AI Applications for Business
Data-Driven Marketing
AI & Society
Financial Modeling
Interpersonal Communications
Federal Income Taxation of Corporations & Shareholders
Best for students wishing to understand the role of emerging markets in the global economy and for students who want to work on issues related to emerging multinationals, innovation and corporate social responsibility in emerging markets.
The emerging markets focus area is associated with the Cañizares Center for Emerging Markets Fellows, a vibrant and intentional program to stimulate our students’ international engagement through travel, networking, case competitions and more.
Sample coursework in emerging markets:
Leading Across Differences
Current Global Issues for Business: The US, Europe, China, and Emerging Markets
Experience in International Management (various global locations)
International Finance
Introduction to Macroeconomics
Leaders in Emerging Markets
Entrepreneurship & innovation
Skills in this area of focus prepare you to drive growth, launch initiatives and create meaningful impact by moving ideas into action.
Cornell’s emphasis on entrepreneurship helps draw students to our courses from across Cornell, including PhD students in engineering or agricultural science. These connections made across disciplines have led to successful startup ventures.
Sample coursework in entrepreneurship & innovation:
At the Johnson School, those headed for investment banking careers make the differentiation early in their MBA path. This focus is aimed at students who have completed the one-semester intensive investment banking immersion and plan a career in investment banking after graduation.
Sample coursework in investment banking:
Advanced Financial Statement Analysis
Behavioral Finance
Derivative Securities Part I & Part II
Negotiation Essentials
International Finance Cases
Financial Markets and Institutions
Introduction to Macroeconomics
Investment and Portfolio Management
Mergers & Acquisitions – Accounting, Modeling & Evaluations of Deals
Because these electives draw MBA students from all career paths, this focus helps to build the networks Johnson School alums are famous for.
Sample coursework in leadership & ethics:
Core Leadership Skills for a VUCA World
Crisis Communication for Business Leaders
Philanthropic Leadership
Ethics and Corporate Culture
Johnson Leadership Fellows
Power and Politics in Organizations
Strategies for Sustainability
Leading Across Differences: Understanding Identity, Dialogue, and Influence
Power and Politics in Organizations
Topics in Leadership: Women in the Workplace
Private equity & venture capital
Big Red Ventures, the capstone of this area, is a student organization giving students hands-on experience managing a venture capital fund under the guidance of faculty advisors.
Sample coursework in private equity & venture capital:
The Venture Capital Industry and Private Equity Markets
Corporate Governance
Dilemmas in Founding New Ventures
Entrepreneurial Finance
Financial Statement Analysis
Negotiation Essentials
Crisis Communication for Business Leaders
BR Ventures
Sustainable global enterprise
These electives address social and environmental issues through innovation, market development and entrepreneurship.
Sample coursework in sustainable global enterprise:
Courageous Communication
Design and Innovation
Big Red Microenterprise
Finance & Sustainable Global Enterprise Colloquium
Leaders in Sustainable Global Enterprise
Organizational Change and Sustainability
Strategies for Sustainability
Technology product management
Students pursuing careers in product management, technical product management, product marketing and other functions within the tech industry should consider this focus, or take advantage of the Dual-Campus Track option to spend one of their two Cornell MBA years at Johnson Cornell Tech in New York City.
Sample coursework in technology product management through our Ithaca Campus:
