MBA Program

Mr. and Mrs. Jeffrey McCormick announced the engagement of their daughter Meagan Schmitt McCormick to MIT Sloan student Thomas Horace Martin Jr.

MIT is planning to launch a student-led online publication focused on entrepreneurship by the end of the year, a leader of the effort tells Xconomy. The fledgling publication will be called the MIT Entrepreneurship Review (MITER) and will aim to serve as a resource for entrepreneurs and to raise the already high profile of the prestigious school in the business world. The publication is being organized much like a law review, seeking student editors, based on merit, to provide editorial content, says Eduard Viladesau, a graduate student at MIT Sloan School of Management, who is one of the founders of MITER.

MIT Sloan student Leland Cheung decided to run for the Cambridge City Council after reading about the incumbents and deciding that the students of Cambridge-who comprise one fourth of the total population-did not have a voice in local government. "The mindset of the city toward the students shouldn't be 'They're only here for four years,' but rather 'We only have four years to convince them to stay'."

Jessica Mazonson, an MIT Sloan MBA was a recipient of the prestigious Siebel Scholarship.

MIT Sloan School of Management was the first business school to allow MBA applicants to submit either their GRE or GMAT score as part of their application. Rod Garcia director of MBA admissions at MIT Sloan, says the goal was to expand the school's applicant pool to include non-traditional applicants, such as students who majored in humanities and social sciences.

Charles Gammal , an MIT Sloan MBA was a recipient of the prestigious Siebel Scholarship.

A group of 19 students from MIT Sloan visited Costa Rica last week to learn more about the country's culture, people, and business institutions (Spanish language only).

Second-year MBA Carter Dunn writes, "In India, only about 10 percent of people are covered by insurance and as a result almost all medical expenses are borne out of pocket. What this means is that there are powerful market forces driving the down the cost of care in India. This is in direct contrast to the US."

Alex Hsi and Douglas Jardine, two students at MIT's Sloan School of Management, are using their BzzAgent base of operations to build an e-commerce company.

In the past six months, a number of top MBA and Executive MBA programs -- including MIT Sloan -- have partnered with Web-based search firms to offer students another way to find jobs in addition to the traditional MBA career services office.

MIT Sloan Fellow Ting Shih, co-founder of Click Diagnostics, Inc., has been focusing on ways to get software effectively deployed in developing countries. Shih will be testing systems this summer in South Africa, Ghana, Uganda, Kenya and Botswana.

Ethan Mollick is a researcher at MIT's Sloan School and coauthor of Changing the Game: How Video Games Are Transforming the Future of Business.

In an opinion piece, MIT Sloan MBAs Sombit Mishra and Brian Cantwell write that "running the MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition is a lot like running a startup. We spend most of our time raising money. We are underpaid (in fact, we aren't paid). Day or night, weekday or weekend, the job never really stops."

A team of MIT Sloan MBA students chose Destiny, Florida from among many other organizations as their project in the MIT Laboratory for Sustainable Business (S-Lab).

The start-up company Ksplice Inc, founded by MIT engineering graduates Jeff Arnold and its chief operating officer Waseem Daher, recently beat five finalists to clinch top prize in this year's MIT Entrepreneurship Competition -- which apart from bragging rights included $100,000 in start-up funds.

MIT Sloan doctoral candidate Joe Hsueh was awarded a Beyster Fellowship at Rutgers University to build an educational computer simulation on the dynamic effects of alternative investment strategies, timing of those strategies for a technology start-up, and tradeoffs of decisions related to compensation and ownership.

"There are plenty of similarities between playing a game well and operating a successful enterprise. When we use games in controlled ways, what they do they teach well," says Ethan Mollick, a Ph.D candidate at MIT Sloan.

On a panel during MIT Sloan's recent Sports Analytics Conference, Maple Leafs GM Brian Burke admitted that all he wants from any game is for his fans to see a few goals, a donnybrook or two and, hopefully, a win.

Students from MIT Sloan were among a group of business students who participated in a 'war game' exercise whereby students take on the roles of key industry players in an effort to imagine how the battle to digitize America's health records will play out.

"The teams at the top of the standings have them," Dean Oliver, director of quantitative analysis for the [Denver] Nuggets, said at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference in March. "The teams at the bottom don't."

"BlackBerry use allows for increased communication during down time, and a reduction of moment-to-moment stress," says a report by Melissa Mazmanian of MIT Sloan. ""However, expectations of responsiveness have intensified and become taken for granted. Users report an unrelenting desire for information and a drive to monitor incoming messages, which they explain as a need to reduce their anxiety of being disconnected."

Mass High Tech profiled the five finalists gearing up for the final competition in this year's MIT $100K competition.

Thirty-five participants in a business strategy-and-forecasting exercise were students from four graduate business schools including MIT Sloan.

In mid-march, eight students from MIT Sloan's China Lab teamed up with three business schools across China to provide market strategies and competitive analysis in a practice platform.

In this blog entry, MIT Sloan MBAs Carter Dunn and Mahesh Konduru write, "In our conversations with a select pool of people, there was a near unanimous agreement that MIT Sloan is indeed a fertile ground for aspiring entrepreneurs."

Amitay Kalmar, MIT Sloan MBA '10, discusses the 2009 Israel Trek during which students gained a better understanding of Israel and its economy and business landscape.

A team of MBA students from MIT Sloan and international MBA program of China's Tsinghua University are teaming up in Beijing on an interactive project to help Chinese money-lender CreditEase sharpen its marketing strategies.

On Friday, April 3, the 6th Annual MIT Sloan Private Equity Symposium will address the evolution of investment strategies in a changing economic and financing environment.

MIT Sloan student Jimmy Bartolotta was among the 2009 recipients of the Jostens Trophy, which recognizes outstanding student-athletes in NCAA Division III basketball for excellence in the classroom, on the playing court, and in the community.

MIT Sloan students participated in the "2009 Antigua Study Tour" from March 18-27 to investigate and resolve issues facing senior management in local organizations rooted in the Antiguan economy.

Students from MIT Sloan were among the competitors in the Association for Corporate Growth, Inc. Cup, a regional Mergers and Acquisitions case competition.

The Baseball Analytics panel was excellent and gave amazing insight into how analytics are used not only by people who write about them, but also by the teams themselves.

The MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference brought analytics and fact-driven decision-making to the world of sports. Or, in the words of ESPN writer Bill Simmons, "it's a complete dorkapalooza."

At the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, front office executives discussed potential strategies for gathering and analyzing data on such things as a player's passion, defense skills, and team chemistry, as well as on the fan experience.

At the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, Dallas Maverick's owner Marc Cuban said that a win is only worth about a half million dollars to a team's bottom line, so that rebuilding teams with low salary structures are often the most profitable.

The MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, which brought a total of five ESPN.com writers and editors to town, resulted in extra coverage of the two Boston Celtics home games played that weekend.

At the MIT Sloan Sports Analytic Conference, participants learned that as statistics become more prevalent, NBA teams will become better at making informed decisions about which players to trade, which ones to draft, which ones to put on the floor together, and when.

The 20th MIT $100K Business Plan Competition has attracted 260 submissions -- a $100K record, according to co-managing directors Sombit Mishra and Brian Cantwell. The two first-year MIT Sloan students say they've seen a surge in the energy and web/IT services categories.

MIT student Geoffrey von Maltzahn, co-founder of startup company Resonance Therapeutics, was awarded the Lemelson-MIT Student Prize for Inventions. The startup is working with a team from MIT Sloan on developing its business plan.

MIT Sloan student Mahesh Konduru writes, "Notwithstanding the lull in traditional hiring, industries recruiting for general management, operations, marketing, strategy and sales functions has been active. Some students who had their minds set on traditional MBA internships are re-evaluating their interests and strengths and are finding other avenues to learn during summer."

Students from MIT Sloan were among the competitors in the 8th annual Leeds Net Impact Case Competition on February 20-21. The competition hosts rising business leaders from MBA programs from around the nation to help find solutions to corporate sustainability issues.

Friday Night Supper Program, a local nonprofit organization serving approximately 200 guests every Friday, was the recipient of $8,365, proceeds raised from an auction held by members of the 2010 class at MIT Sloan.

Meghan Gallery enrolled at MIT Sloan in September with hopes of working on mergers and acquisitions at an investment bank. Now, she would consider a summer job at a start-up company, ideally in corporate finance. "I've literally had people say, 'Hopefully, when you get out it will be different. But if not, there will still be a lot of bodies floating around who have been in finance for five to 10 years more than you."

"It's just too bad that gaming still has this stigma attached to it in the modern workplace," says Ethan Mollick. A researcher at MIT's Sloan School of Management and coauthor of Changing the Game: How Video Games Are Transforming the Future of Business, Mollick believes that many employers view video games as some scarlet "S" for slackery.

Students from MIT were among the competitors in the 8th annual Leeds Net Impact Case Competition on February 20-21. The competition hosts rising business leaders from MBA programs from around the nation to help find innovative solutions to corporate sustainability issues.

During MIT's mid-semester Independent Activities Period in January, a group of students participated in a hummus making contest. Israeli native Yoav Danenberg, whose wife, Amit, attends MIT Sloan, says the thick and garlicky Zinger seems most authentic. "It reminds me of the hummus I used to prepare at home."

MIT Sloan MBA Saleem Hussain, who helped organize this year's treks, says, "As far as internships go, there are lots of opportunities at big companies."

More than 100 MIT Sloan MBA students made the annual Tech Trek to the West Coast eager to tap into Silicon Valley's entrepreneurial spirit. "I'm hoping to learn a lot about what mistakes, what problems they could have had starting up, and challenges and opportunities," said MIT Sloan MBA Pedro Santos.

An MIT Sloan study found too much Blackberry use can cause serious stress. MIT Sloan's Melissa Mazmanian is interviewed.

As the first member of her family to go to college in the United States, Awilda Mendez said it's a special point of pride to be getting her MBA from MIT Sloan.

I am an MBA student at MIT Sloan and a self-professed entrepreneur, writes Ryan Buckley. Lately it hasn't been easy. I find myself pondering the unthinkable: Getting a real job. I write to suggest four things that the Mass High Tech community can do to help me and other still-hopeful MIT entrepreneurs.

Twenty MIT Sloan MBAs offered their advice to five leading Thai organizations as part of a Global Entrepreneurship Lab (G-Lab) project. MIT Sloan Lecturer Jonathan Lehrich says many G-Lab projects conducted elsewhere in the world have produced remarkable results.

Melissa J. Webster, who plans to graduate from the MIT Sloan this spring, had her sights on the clean energy sector, working as a project manager for a solar or wind company. But in today's economy, she's also open to another kind of job, or a different employer.

"Financial crises, historic elections, and a 'flat as a pancake' world-what a time to be in business school!" writes MIT Sloan MBA Ash Martin, class of 2010, in this opinion piece.

At a benefit held at MIT Sloan, members of the Boston4Bhopal Coalition and MIT Amnesty International mourned the recent tragedy in Mumbai, India.

MIT Sloan student Ethan Mollick is interviewed about his book, Changing the Game, which examines the use of games in business.