Responding to student and industry demand for a more specialized approach to business education, the MIT Sloan School of Management this week revealed details about a new masters in finance degree program it plans to add beginning next September.
According to an article in the Financial Times, the new 12-month program, which targets aspiring traders, investment bankers and money managers, is part of a trend in U.S. business education toward a more practically oriented curriculum.
“The fundamental way this program changes [management education] is that it suggests one-size-fits-all is no longer good enough,” MIT Sloan Dean David Schmittlein told the FT. Schmittlein, who joined MIT last year, has been championing changes in management education – including a reduced focus on the MBA as the gold standard – since he arrived.
“We have been slow to appreciate that different people want different things and we need to get serious about customizing education to the individual’s experience, background and where they want their career to go,” Schmittlein continued.
According to the FT article, students and Wall Street alike, especially amid the recent credit crunch and stock market downturn, have been seeking programs and graduates with advanced training in finance.
Jackie Rosner, a Sloan alumnus who as a director at BNP Paribas now recruits graduating MBAs, views it as a trend that will only accelerate in the future. “Doctors have to get a medical degree, lawyers need a law degree. Why shouldn’t finance practitioners be required to have a degree in finance?” he asked the FT.
“The generic MBA will still have a function, but I could see a future where the masters of science degree in finance becomes the preferred path,” Rosner continued.
The new Sloan program anticipates a modest initial class of 25 students next year, eventually growing to 60 participants. The program will help Sloan, with its relatively small MBA program of roughly 350 students, to further distinguish itself in the b-school world, according to the FT.
Building on Sloan’s established reputation in finance, the new program will feature a “focused hands-on” approach, according to Professor Jiang Wang, who will serve as its faculty advisor. Students will complete research projects for financial firms that will help them learn practical industry skills, such as how to design a risk management system for a structured product.
The rollout of the new finance masters program is just the latest in a series of changes Schmittlein has implemented since his appointment as dean last fall. Earlier this year, he announced a restructuring of the Sloan MBA core, reducing the required courses from a full year to a single semester.
Both are part of Schmittlein’s push to make MIT’s offerings more akin to those of European business schools, many of which feature a one-year MBA program and a greater emphasis on specialization than general management education. Case in point, Cambridge’s Judge School of Business launched its own masters of finance degree program last November.
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