Student Experience
Life as a Sloanie
After the first-semester Core, the MBA program at MIT Sloan is a highly customized program. Action learning, along with our culture of empowerment and student initiative, results in a unique and intensive two years for every individual. Every experience will be tailored to each student's unique interests and goals.
Transformative Experiences
The level of energy, world-class faculty, knowledge imparted, and entrepreneurial spirit found here may surprise even students who expect the best. But it is the people — our community — who are most talked about, even by prospective students who visit.
A Culture of Working Together
At the end of AdMIT Weekend, one future student put it this way: “The students I interacted with at MIT Sloan were obviously incredibly smart, accomplished, and driven. That is common among top business schools. What struck me as truly unique about MIT Sloan was how down-to-earth, humble, and genuine students were as well. I could tell that the they here weren't concerned about flash and image, but were concerned about showing up, working hard, increasing their impact, and doing what it took to achieve their goals.”
Leadership Is the Result
A second-year student talks about the collaborative nature of his student initiative: “At MIT Sloan, you will directly control and shape your experience. Leadership is a direct outcome of the experience. Everything that gets done here is a result of a student having some involvement in it. So if you want to change it, if you want to do something with your life, if you want to do something to grow the experience, not only for you, or you want to start a company, or whatever it is you want to do that takes initiative — this is the best place to do it. Everyone will double up on your initiative, everyone will fuel your fire, and everyone will give you all the resources you want to get things done.”
Meet Some MIT Sloan Students
On these pages, you’ll meet some of our students, both newly admitted and experienced. We hope you'll take the time to read what they have to say about the many aspects of life, learning, and leadership at MIT Sloan. Then come visit us on campus or at an event near you. We look forward to meeting you.
“You could talk about watershed management and conservation of energy all you want. But until you put numbers to it and financial analysis to it, you’re not going to get much done. I came to business school to speak that language, speak with people in terms of numbers, financial numbers so that I can get projects done.”
“Our mission, along with the mission of MIT Sloan, is to both develop leaders who make a difference in the world, and also to make a contribution to thinking about the topic of leadership.”
“Because of the diversity of our backgrounds, when we hit the ground in Tanzania it almost was a natural play where different people assume different roles.”
“It was really rewarding that they wanted to know what we thought. We left there being fairly certain that they will do some of the things that we suggested.”
“[The India Lab] program is one of the reasons I came to Sloan. ... The hands-on learning that MIT offers was a huge differentiator.”
“We’re very interdisciplinary. Among the faculty in the group are an economist, a political scientist, a sociologist, and an industrial relations specialist. We’ve always made a big effort to be open to a variety of perspectives, but also to go beyond being open to them, to want to bring them in, because it makes for a richer environment.”
"After we gave our recommendations, the great part was that the very next day the CEO was in the boardroom implementing them with his top vice presidents."
“At MIT Sloan you have a lot of opportunities to explore entrepreneurship. Especially in a place like Kampala where you have a lot of development, entrepreneurship can be very exciting.”
“I knew about American business, but not enough about what’s really become a global economy. … You can read about it all you want, but there’s no substitute for being there and seeing the context and seeing how completely different these [other countries] are.”
“I can honestly say that when I was planning on coming to business school I never thought that witnessing the birth of a child would be included in the education. It was definitely an experience.”
“One of the reasons I came to Sloan was because I wanted to be at a top MBA institution worldwide. But I also wanted access to working with the latest innovations and the highest technology that was coming out of the MIT labs.”
“The conditions in the neighborhoods we were visiting were different than what we realized before getting there. Beyond that, what was surprising was that there weren’t surprises!”
“I love being in a place that is such a nexus of people and ideas — people coming to learn something new and to define themselves. Being a part of that process is a real honor and a real gift.”
“For 35 years, we’ve been studying how companies get value from information. … We try to help organizations take a more holistic view of what they are trying to do.”
“With our high-touch tracks in entrepreneurship and finance, or a certificate in sustainability, MIT Sloan gives you more opportunities to build the program that’s right for you.”
