Learning Environment

Curriculum Career SpecializationsGlobal OpportunitiesFacilities

Our MBA program is designed around career specializations— as opposed to more general academic majors—because it gives our graduates greater expertise and more value to the firms that ultimately employ them.

Centers of Expertise

All of our career specializations share many of the features that distinguish our Centers of Expertise. By the time you begin our program, more specializations may have become endowed Centers of Expertise.

More about the centers

The pinnacles of the career specialization model are our Centers of Expertise. While each center is tailored to the particular needs of its students, they share many critical characteristics that drive success, including:

  • An endowment to cover operating costs, including student support
  • A faculty director with expertise and a desire to lead an applied academic program
  • Dedicated support staff with expertise in the area
  • Applied curriculum
  • A community of students who seek a career in the field
  • An executive advisory board
  • Dedicated space to meet and work
Michael Knetter, Dean

Center Directors, like Verda Blythe of the Grainger Center for Supply Chain Management, are a key component of the Wisconsin MBA.

Michael Knetter, Dean

“I visited Wisconsin when I was considering different MBA programs, and was just overwhelmed by the welcome I got from my center’s director and its students. They took me around for a whole day. When I toured other MBA programs, I felt like a welcome visitor. Here I felt almost like a family member.”

Jake Dean, MBA 2009