Peter S. Fader
“Instead of watering core courses down to the lowest common denominator, we ratchet them up a bit. Wharton's core marketing course, for example, is much more analytically rigorous than most schools' core marketing courses. This attracts a lot of students who had considered marketing a soft science and are pleased to find out that it can be approached much more rigorously. That's how we think that managers ought to be approaching things.”
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Farhan Syed, WG'06
“The core curriculum prepares students to be better managers, because you understand the language of every department in a business. Coming from a non-business background, I've benefited from both the quantitative and qualitative parts of Wharton's core curriculum.”
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Wharton's intensive, cross-functional core curriculum provides the essential management skills to succeed in any career, focusing on leadership, analytical skills, communication, and business fundamentals. Wharton MBAs tell us that their rigorous training helps them achieve more in the workplace throughout their careers, even ten or twenty years after graduation.
Offered as quarter- or semester-long courses throughout the first year, the core curriculum covers traditional management disciplines – accounting, finance, marketing, management, marketing operations, statistics, and strategy – as well as the leadership, ethics, and communication skills needed in senior management.
You move through the core with your learning team – a group of five or six classmates with whom you work closely on projects and cases. By the end of the year, you have the analytical, financial, strategy, and leadership skills for second-year coursework, and a foundation for future success in any organization or career.
The month-long Pre-Term session provides basic and refresher courses so that all students start the year on the same footing. You can waive certain core classes based on prior academic coursework, credentials (e.g., CPA, CFA), or exam. Approximately 65% of first-year students waive out of at least one course, allowing them to take more electives.
Following is a brief summary of core courses. For complete course listings, including class format, requirements, and prerequisites, visit Core Curriculum in the online MBA Resource Guide.
Leadership Essentials
Ethics and Responsibility
Students examine difficult ethical conflicts and dilemmas faced by managers and organizations, anticipating issues they will confront in their careers. In doing so, they build a framework for thinking through the ethical implications of business decisions. Students take part in collaborative case discussions, exercises, and discussions of theoretical frameworks. This course cannot be waived.
Foundations of Leadership and Teamwork
Unpredictable work environments require leaders and teams to learn rapidly and change quickly. This course focuses on lateral and vertical leadership, team building and performance, and team leadership. This course cannot be waived.
The Governmental and Legal Environment of Business
Students gain a basic understanding of how the law and the political process affect business strategy and decision making. Topics include how market infrastructure (contracts, commercial law, intellectual property, fraud law, and securities law) influences business strategy, with special emphasis on differences among countries.
Management Communication
Designed to prepare business leaders for the communication challenges of the workplace, this course works with students to improve their oral presentation skills, regardless of current skill level. This course cannot be waived.
Management of People at Work
The way people are managed at work affects the quality of their lives, the effectiveness of organizations, and the competitiveness of nations. Students learn some of the basic principles of managing people, making use of theories that transcend the workplace, such as the psychology of individual and group behavior.
Analytical Foundations
Decision Models and Uncertainty
This management science course introduces simple models and ideas that provide powerful (and often surprising) qualitative insights into a large spectrum of managerial problems. It demonstrates the kinds of problems that can be tackled quantitatively, the methods and software available for doing so, and the difficulties involved in gathering the relevant data.
Managerial Economics
How can microeconomics enhance decision making in an organization? This course teaches students both how to understand the economic environment in which a firm operates and how to think strategically within it.
Statistical Analysis for Management
This course considers two key statistical methodologies: regression analysis and experimentation. Students learn techniques such as least-squares estimation, tests and confidence intervals, correlation and autocorrelation, co-linearity, and randomization.
Core Business Fundamentals
STRATEGY
Competitive Strategy
This course focuses on issues central to an enterprise's long- and short-term competitive position. Students take the role of key decision makers and address questions related to the creation or reinforcement of competitive advantage.
Global Strategic Management
In an introduction to the strategic management of multinational corporations (MNCs), students learn how to create competitive advantage in a global context.
FINANCE
Financial Analysis
Finance 601 is an introduction to business finance (corporate financial management and investments); it prepares both majors and non-majors for upper-level course work. Students gain tools and frameworks to analyze financial decisions based on principles of modern financial theory.
Macroeconomic Analysis and Public Policy
Using economic theory, students learn how financial markets work and how government policies affect the business environment.
ACCOUNTING
Financial Accounting
Financial Accounting is the accumulation, analysis, and presentation of an enterprise's relevant financial data for creditors, investors, and other external decision makers. Two versions of this core course are offered. In Accounting 620, students learn basic concepts, standards, and practices. Accounting 621 is a shortened version designed for students with prior knowledge of financial accounting.
Fundamentals of Managerial Accounting
Unlike Financial Accounting, with its focus on external parties, this course emphasizes the use of accounting information for internal planning and control purposes. Students learn how to use accounting data to evaluate business performance and make strategic decisions.
OPERATIONS
Operations Management: Quality and Productivity
This course emphasizes processes. In the first part of the course, students see examples of a number of processes and learn how to describe a process with a flow diagram. The second part of the course is focused on process improvement; it examines classic ideas in quality management, as well as recent ideas about restructuring processes for increased performance.
Operations Management: Supply Chain Management
Matching supply with demand is a primary challenge for any enterprise. In this course, students learn how to assess the appropriate level of supply flexibility for a given industry and explore strategies for increasing an enterprise's supply flexibility.
MARKETING
Marketing Management: Program Design
Students confront the challenge of designing and implementing a successful combination of marketing variables to carry out a firm's strategy in its target markets.
Marketing Management: Strategy
This course introduces the concepts and theories underlying marketing decision making. Building on Marketing Management: Program Design, students weigh considerations behind each element of the marketing plan.