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Curriculum Innovation

Babson’s innovative curriculum engages students and professionals in interdisciplinary education that inspires analytic thinking, creativity, and ethical business practices through experiential learning.

Babson places Entrepreneurial Thought and Action (ETA) at the core of its curriculum. We are continually building and evolving integrated cross-disciplinary programs for our undergraduate, graduate, and executive education students. We believe in action-learning.

Our focus stems from our conviction that in a rapidly changing world filled with complex challenges, leaders need to be agile. They must draw from business disciplines in a highly integrative way. We go beyond merely applying textbook formulas to identify and create opportunities. At Babson, learning is experiential.

Babson proudly boasts many academic “firsts”:

  • The Foundation Management Experience (FME). The first (and only) mandatory yearlong, first-year undergraduate course where students launch and liquidate ventures. Students donate all proceeds to nonprofit organizations.
  • A unique, integrated arts and sciences undergraduate curriculum that uses multiple disciplines to explore themes critical to today’s world—and to the future.
  • The first integrated and modular MBA programs (the One-Year and Two-Year MBAs) that trace the lifecycle of an enterprise.
  • Courses with real-world impact, such as the Entrepreneurship Innovation Track and Babson Consulting Alliance Program offered in the graduate school.
    The first top-tier, blended MBA Fast-Track that combines the best in classroom and online teaching, learning, and collaboration techniques.
  • As an academic center, Babson is a dynamic learning and living laboratory. We experiment, improve and evolve, and adapt. We prepare Babson students to lead in our continuously changing world. Our programs continue to grow and progress, fed by a streams of research and practice.

Teaching and Learning Across Disciplines

Entrepreneurial thought and action requires accessing and mobilizing diverse and disparate resources. This is the philosophy that drives Babson courses. Faculty from different disciplines, such as accounting, marketing, finance, statistics, join to discuss cases that reflect real world problems and solutions.

Experiential Learning

The Babson graduate and undergraduate course of study immerses students in entrepreneurship from their first day on campus.

The Global Student Entrepreneur Awards (GSEA) ranked Babson #1 among universities worldwide as home to the most student entrepreneurs. In this competition for students who own and run businesses while attending a college or university, in 2009 Babson had almost double the nominations of any other school worldwide.

Undergraduates

Undergraduate students learn by creating and launching a new venture, operating it, and then shutting it down. Foundations of Management and Entrepreneurship (FME), our seven-credit core offering for first year undergraduates, has won numerous awards for its innovative yearlong immersion into the world of business. In 2010 FME received the Freedoms Foundation Leavey Award for excellence in private enterprise education.

Graduates

Graduate students learn by progressing through a series of modules that trace the path of the creation, growth, operation, and harvesting of a business.

Innovative Delivery

Babson faculty have pioneered the development and use of new delivery mechanisms, including a full range of eLearning tools that enhance both classroom and distance learning. Our Fast-Track MBA program combines in-person and Web-based learning by pairing the most up-to-date virtual learning technologies with our highly innovative classroom approach to business education. Participants can earn an MBA in just 24 months.

Continuous Innovation

Babson partners with a network of institutions to continue to create path-breaking curriculum, pedagogy, and delivery mechanisms. Last year Babson founded the Global Consortium for Entrepreneurship Education. This collaboration among international universities developed new modes and methods in an Entrepreneurial Laboratory, and then to tailored those innovations at the local level around the world.