Harvard Business School (HBS) announced that their MBA now qualifies as a science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) degree. Due to this designation, starting with the Class of 2025, international students on an F-1 visa now qualify for a 24-month extension, allowing up to three years of eligibility to work in the U.S. after graduating.
If You Build It…
“What the world’s businesses need from their leaders evolves,” said Matt Weinzierl, Joseph and Jacqueline Elbling Professor of Business Administration and senior associate dean and chair of the MBA Program, in the press release. HBS faculty, recognizing that many roles in finance, strategy, innovation, and operations rely heavily on data science for managerial decisions, has been developing courses and modules in data analytics, artificial intelligence, and quantitative methods. The school added a course on data science and AI for leaders to the first-year required credits and increased management science content in second-year electives.
Second-year HBS MBA students, on average, have reportedly earned more than half of their required credits from management science track (MST) qualifying courses. Some examples of popular elective courses featuring management science content include “Generative AI for Business Leaders,” “Data Visualization for Analysis,” and “Communication and Supply Chain Analytics.”
As a result of this demonstrated interest from students, the HBS MBA Program sought to be reclassified; the Harvard University Standing Committee on Classification of Instructional Programs (CIP) Codes then placed the entire MBA degree under the STEM Management Sciences and Quantitative Methods CIP Code.
