Benefit from our expertise in everything hospitality — from travel and accommodation to entertainment and recreation. You’ll be immersed in coursework focused on property, restaurant, corporate and consulting. In addition, you can opt for a hospitality leadership concentration, or choose from a wide range of hospitality-focused opportunities, to gain the knowledge and skills for your career in hospitality management, operations, financial or brand analysis, market intelligence, business development or auditing.

We teach you the financial and transactional side of hospitality — a requisite for success. Our coursework includes commercial, residential and hospitality-focused real estate. You can also minor in real estate or choose a specialization. You’ll graduate with a strong foundation for your career in acquisitions, investments, banking, operations, capital markets or financial analysis.

Financial expertise is crucial in today’s environment, so you’ll study investment banking, financial analysis, private wealth management, asset management and private equity. You’ll be prepared to excel in career paths including investment banking analysis, financial analysis and business underwriting, asset management or private wealth management.

Ever-evolving technology is integral to all facets of hospitality, from e-commerce to smart properties. Your Nolan School experience will make you adept at harnessing data to guide strategic decisions and confident in using the latest technology to power your organization. The Nolan School will ensure you’re at the top of the field, whether you aspire to work in:

• financial planning and analysis
• hospitality growth and expansion
• client strategy
• software solutions
• customer success
• e-commerce
• product or business consulting

Advance your leadership skills through this series of paid positions of increasing responsibility and certification levels as you learn to operate The Statler Hotel, Cornell’s legendary teaching hotel hospitality establishment.

Cornell is home to The Statler Hotel, the world’s premier learning facility for hospitality professionals. Your work here can include everything from housekeeping and reservations to sales and accounting — and can count toward a portion of the 800 minimum required hours of industry work experience.

Hospitality is global by nature, and this program gives you a great platform to explore new cultures and experience the world firsthand. This program usually occurs during a students’ junior year (transfer students may be eligible).

Our student-run restaurant provides exceptional on-the-job training in areas ranging from personnel training and management to customer relations in a live setting. Students manage both the kitchen and front of house, developing the menu and delivering great service to members of the Cornell community and the general public.

Students develop their project management skills as they plan and operate a three-day industry conference with speakers, entertainment and food and beverage service. Students handle all aspects of the event —which celebrated it’s 100th year in 2025 —including marketing, IT and sales.

For almost a century, this lecture series has brought thought leaders and luminaries from the hospitality industry to campus for students to learn about the latest developments in the field.

The average, and recommended, course load is 15 credits per semester. Students typically take between two to four HADM Core classes per semester and one to three elective classes.

Students are pre-enrolled into 1000-level and 2000-level core classes by our registrar team until all are completed. These 1000-level and 2000-level core classes are completed in what we call “core blocks,” comprised of 3-4 lower-level core classes taken concurrently in a given semester. Faculty diligently structured these core blocks to:

• balance workload across semesters
• balance exam schedules and major deliverables
• allow for smaller class sizes
• develop strong inter-student relationships