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Master of Business Administration
Vanderbilt MBA

Customize Your MBA

The Vanderbilt MBA allows you to tailor your degree to your career goals through concentrations, specializations, and emphases that build deeper expertise in areas that matter most to you.

MBA student smiling at classmate in lecture hall.

Your MBA Experience

One of the defining features of the Vanderbilt MBA curriculum is its flexibility. While all students build a strong foundation in business fundamentals, the program allows you to tailor your experience to align with your interests and career goals.

Students can deepen their expertise through concentrations, specializations, and emphases, gaining focused knowledge in industries and functional areas that support their professional aspirations.

Find detailed program requirements and courses.

Concentrations

MBA concentrations allow students to build deeper expertise in a specific industry or functional area. Through focused elective coursework, students develop advanced knowledge that supports their career goals while strengthening the leadership and management skills central to the Vanderbilt MBA.

  • Accounting

    Vanderbilt's accounting faculty are actively involved in accounting and auditing research. Accounting faculty members serve on the editorial boards of leading accounting research journals and are often cited in leading business media like The Wall Street Journal.

  • Finance

    Vanderbilt’s world-renowned finance faculty provide students with a strong grasp of the fundamental techniques required for the practice of financial management. The finance curriculum is continually updated to incorporate the latest developments and important innovations in the markets, as well as academic research.

  • General Management

    This custom-designed concentration allows you to take advantage of the full spectrum of courses offered at Vanderbilt and build your ideal plan of study, in consultation with a full-time faculty member and the Academic & Student Affairs Office. The resulting proposal must be approved by the professor charged with overseeing your course of study. Students who feel that a general management concentration might work for them are encouraged to consult with the Career Management Center to receive guidance and coaching to achieve their career goals.

  • Healthcare

    The Vanderbilt healthcare concentration provides unique insight into the complex world of healthcare through a blend of solid business basics plus experiential and integrative learning. You will complete a rigorous curriculum that requires more healthcare courses than other programs of its kind. In addition, the innovative seven-week modular framework allows you the flexibility to take a variety of healthcare electives.

  • Human & Organizational Performance (HOP)

    Vanderbilt is known for an exceptionally strong human and organizational performance (HOP) program built by award-winning professors and scholars who are experts in organizational design, motivation, leadership, strategic human resource management, compensation, negotiation, teams, managing change, and business ethics. The HOP concentration prepares you to implement business strategies and enhance individual and organizational performance.

  • Marketing

    Our marketing faculty is diverse in its knowledge; areas of expertise include advertising, consumer research, branding, service marketing, networks, customer satisfaction, quantitative psychological research, and new products. The marketing program is flexible, offering students a wide variety of electives beyond the concentration requirements.

  • Operations & Analytics

    The courses in the operations and analytics concentration focus on the design and management of the processes by which products are manufactured, and services are delivered to customers. The core operations and analytics courses provide an overview of the field and elective courses examine critical processes in depth.

  • Strategy

    The strategy concentration is designed to equip you with the core concepts, frameworks, and techniques of strategic management that are essential to a career in consulting and beneficial to a leadership role in any field. Courses are analytical and focus on senior management decisions that enhance profit maximization while considering the competitive response to those decisions.

Specializations

Specializations are focused course tracks for students seeking in-depth study in the functional area aligned with their career goals. Specializations require 20 credit hours beyond the core, including the 12 hours earned in the related concentration plus eight additional hours.

  • Brand Management

    In order to best prepare our students for brand management career paths, the Vanderbilt business faculty have created a comprehensive brand management career specialization curriculum.

  • Corporate Finance

    To prepare students for career paths in corporate finance, the Vanderbilt business faculty have created a comprehensive corporate finance career specialization.

  • Investment Management

    To prepare students for career paths in investment management, the Vanderbilt business faculty have created a comprehensive investment management career specialization that consists of a sequence of 10 finance courses.

Emphases

An emphasis allows you to explore a specific industry or area of interest through eight credit hours of coursework. Emphases can complement other concentrations or specializations and include options such as Entrepreneurship, International Studies, and Sustainability & Social Impact.

  • Entrepreneurship

    The entrepreneurship emphasis can help you develop an entrepreneurial mindset and the innovative thinking, perseverance, and creativity that entrepreneurs are known for, regardless of concentration or career path.

  • International Studies

    Today's global economy demands that leaders possess the flexibility and dexterity to work unimpeded by cultural or language barriers. The international studies emphasis equips you with an appreciation of global management and sensitivity to cross-cultural issues. Students can also take advantage of Vanderbilt's exchange programs to study outside the United States.

  • Sustainability & Social Impact

    Organizations are increasingly faced with new risks and opportunities posed by complex social challenges ranging from climate change to human rights, diversity, privacy, social justice, and economic development. Vanderbilt MBA students are able to complement their traditional management studies with specialized courses designed to help future leaders navigate these complex topics.

  • Real Estate

    Students may request to take courses in the Law School for credit toward the Real Estate Emphasis. Approval is required from the Associate Dean of Academic Programs. Students are advised to check first with Office of Academic and Student Affairs.