Business school can feel like a slog, but elective courses can break up the process of earning a degree, and allow students to expose themselves to different—albeit related—topics and subjects. Business school electives, in short, are exactly what they sound like: courses that students elect to take, that count toward credits toward an MBA, but are outside of a student’s core focus of study.
For instance, if you’re earning an MBA with an entrepreneurship concentration, you may opt to take elective courses in accounting, analytics, or even corporate ethics—subjects that could placate your specific interests, and help pile on additional credits that you’ll need to ultimately graduate from business school.
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“My introduction to entrepreneurship course is really important to people getting into consulting,” says Doug Villhard, a Professor of Practice in Entrepreneurship and Academic Director for Entrepreneurship at Washington University in St. Louis, but in many cases, “it’s sampled by people who never intend to start companies.”
Accordingly, some of the principles Villhard teaches prospective entrepreneurs can be helpful to other business school students, making his courses coveted electives in many cases. “These students are naturally curious people,” he says, and “I think I’ve created a reputation within my classroom to dabble with different concepts,” often outside a student’s core focus.
How to choose an MBA elective
For many students, perhaps the best way to choose your MBA electives is to give some serious thought to how those electives may, in the future, help you achieve specific career goals.
For example, Debora Jackson, Dean of the Business School at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, Massachusetts, says that when she was deciding on the classes she wanted to take while earning a degree working as a software developer, she thought about the specific skills she needed to foster to advance in her role. “When I was picking my electives knowing that I wanted to lead software developers,” she says, “ I knew I wanted electives that helped understand how to lead. I was doing a lot of project management, organizational behavior and leadership in the context of a tech environment,” she says, adding that she needed “classes that helped me learn to relate” to the people she wanted to manage.
A similar frame of mind can help you choose your MBA electives, too. Here are some tips to keep in mind when making decisions related to your business school electives.
1. Consider your core classes
It’s important to think about your electives in the context of your core classes. “There’s always a core, and the core courses for an MBA are going to expose you to the basics or foundational information you need,” says Jackson. Those core classes, then, should serve as guideposts in helping you pick your electives.
Because you’re not likely going to want to pick electives that are too similar to your core classes—you’ll want to use the opportunity to explore similar or adjacent business topics or areas outside of your core. This will require some thinking on your part, but the basic idea is to not retread on topics or areas you’re already studying—or, at least not too much.
2. Think about what resonates with you
After thinking about your core classes and specific concentration, give some consideration to what topics or classes resonate with you. “Whatever it is where you want to go deeper into an area, where you want to take a breath and learn something new,” says Jackson. Again, this will largely depend on personal preferences, so it may be worth taking some time to think about the topics or lessons in other classes that piqued your interest.
Then, look at what potential elective classes are offered that might give you a chance to explore those topics or areas in more detail.
3. Think about the skills that align with your career goals
Another good idea is to think about electives that may teach you, or at least touch on, skills that align with your core career goals. For example, if you’re pursuing an MBA with an entrepreneurship concentration, it may be worth checking out an accounting class to further develop your understanding of the discipline—you may not end up working as an accountant, but if you found a company, knowing a bit about accounting beyond a 101-level class won’t hurt.
Further, if you’re a prospective entrepreneur, elective classes focused on business ethics, as another example, may be interesting and help in guiding your thinking as you gear up to start a company. Again: think about the bigger picture, and what potential classes may help supplement your core courses.
4. Think about what might give your career a boost
Similarly, beyond what merely aligns with your career goals, experts suggest that you think about intangible factors that you may pick up from elective classes that could otherwise give your career a boost. This can be difficult to qualify, but the mere act of taking a class that’s outside of your comfort zone or way outside of your core area of study could help you at some point down the road. For example, if you’re in a tech-focused MBA program, a class focused on social impact, or one that delves deep into business models, may saddle you with knowledge and skills that others in your immediate field lack.
In that way, taking electives that cultivate a different mindset, or at least plant seeds that can help you become a quicker, more creative worker in the future, may make a difference at some point in your career.
The takeaway
Choosing business school electives isn’t an exact science. You’ll want to give some consideration to your core classes, but also think a lot about what other potential skills could help you in the years ahead. Choosing electives that complement or supplement your core courses can be helpful, but also, taking a class that may be way out in left field could also serve you in some unforeseen way later in your career.
But it’ll all depend on each student’s individual tastes, preferences, and interests. There’s no “right” or “wrong” elective. You may, however, be best served by choosing business school electives that pique your interest, or that otherwise resonate with you in some way.
