Student Stories

CORe goes well beyond the basics, but it isn't overwhelming. The classes are structured in a way that each lesson builds on the lessons before to reinforce everything you've learned. CORe also provides you with real world examples that illustrate the concepts. It's one of the most impressively organized programs I've ever been a part of.

Shane Sabine

International Business & Communications Consultant

The rich variety in content differentiated this course as a uniquely high-quality, fully engaging learning experience.

Shrutesh Lati

Petroleum Engineer in Texas who took CORe to expand his knowledge

By the end of the program I realized that CORe was a total game changer on how I see and understand things around me.

Marc Zavarella

A US Army Veteran studying at Columbia University and hoping to pursue a career in medicine/healthcare

The principles I learned in CORe are fundamentally important to a successful business, and taking this program ensured that I mastered these concrete pieces of the puzzle.

Emer Moloney

Emer Moloney, Research Associate at the Harvard Business School European Research Center

I now feel that I have a broad overview of finance and can approach topics with a strong, integrated framework instead of approaching them in isolation.

Daniella Patrick

Innovation Lab Product Manager at Accenture

The course equipped me with new ways to think about problems, products, businesses, and just everything in life.

Richard Pitts

Richard is a California-based Chief Medical Officer who is improving healthcare with CORe

I use my CORe training every day. Whether at work on in my private life, CORe was a paradigm-shifting event for me.

Bethany Larsen

An aspiring MBA student planning for a career in social entrepreneurship

Those skills are all very useful, but I think my biggest takeaway from CORe is a new perspective on complex business challenges. This lens has given me a more balanced perspective on sensitive topics like LIFO reserves, minimum wage, and drug pricing that will make me a more informed citizen and wiser leader.

Christopher Munro

Operations Analyst who took CORe to further a career in business

CORe proved to be so rewarding. I went in with the mindset of something to set my resume apart from others and came out with a broad and detailed understanding of the fundamentals of business.

Yefei Jin

An entrepreneur improving education for English language learners

By recognizing that every student brought with her or him a wealth of lived experiences, HBS Online empowered me to learn much more from peers than I had imagined.

Raymond Porch

Employee in Boston Public Schools who took Management Essentials to develop and improve his managerial skills.

My favorite part of the program was interacting with my cohort members where I received valuable shared experiences, feedback and was able to be a thought partner around strategies and best practices in varying scenarios.

I now have a better understanding of sustainability and which companies are doing it right. I’m armed with talking points proving that sustainability is good for business, the environment and its people.

Emily Hardy

Professor Hammond is an outstanding and inspirational teacher. Her Business Analytics course helped to demystify statistics for me, rendering the subject matter approachable and appealing. The fabulous visualisations and graphics, combined with relevant and interesting case studies, brought the concepts to life in a stimulating and engaging way. Mastery of data analysis is critical for business success and I now feel confident that I have the foundations in place. I am looking forward to embracing this capability further in my career.

Being an entrepreneur, every concept I learned in CORe was immediately applicable to my company. My understanding of how business works got much stronger. For me, the change CORe brings about in you is extremely subtle. It's like you're looking through the world with a completely different perspective altogether, yet it's so obvious.

…fun, exciting, and powerful. I believe I learned a lot through this course that I couldn't have gotten elsewhere with my liberal arts education.

Sheneka Balogun

A higher ed professional from Nashville, TN

CORe has provided me a dynamic understanding of how to measure and understand those outcomes. I can now confidently translate statistical data into a graphical presentation or employ different statistical techniques to help me better understand the pulse of student progress.

I am applying concepts from the Business Analytics course in my current venture. From designing surveys to hypothesis testing, every aspect of data collection and analysis informs our customer validation process.

T. Gerald O'Daniel

Plastic Surgeon, T. Gerald O'Daniel, MD, FACS, PLLC and Medical Director and Founder at Louisville Surgery Center

This part of the course was exceptionally entertaining, and by putting this human element in place, it enhanced the real life importance of understanding finance at a high level.

Carolina Ragolta

MBA Student at Stanford Graduate School of Business

I majored in engineering and minored in economics as an undergraduate, but the content of Business Analytics and Economics for Managers showed me new ways for using the theoretical foundations I already had.

Manoj Purohit

Product Manager at Thermax Limited, an energy and environmental solution provider

[Economics for Managers] has unveiled powerful tools to me which are very useful in my current role.

Yashvardhan Gusani

"The personal interaction I had with the professor and other participants was the best part. It was informative, transformational, and rejuvenating!"

CORe gave me a new lens through which I could look at the world. I applied what I learned right away at work and continue to apply it now in business school.

Rarely does a day go by where I don't see a business leader or company wrestling with the same issues that we discussed in class on the front-page of the Wall Street Journal. These issues are more relevant than ever and top of mind for many of the companies I work for as a consultant. They continue to inform my own personal worldview of capitalism, and my own role in shaping society as a future business leader.

Having a deep understanding of finance is crucial to effectively lead a business, and Mihir Desai’s engaging delivery of rich content through the case study method has given me the confidence to clearly message important financial updates and decisions to our key stakeholders.

Neeti Mathur

Assistant Professor of Management and Assistant Registrar (Placement) at National Law University in Jodhpur, India

The program is beautifully designed and has so much to offer. Professor Desai explains the concepts effortlessly and it’s easy to grasp and absorb them.

Shamari Benton

Former professional football player transitioning to a career in business

However, the most exciting thing about CORe is that once you take it, you are never going to be the same. A simple grocery store visit becomes filled with economic references and analytical ponders. CORe allows the world to become more of a learning opportunity.

Sam Gant

Pursuing a career in International Development

I think CORe may be the extra push I need to connect with jobs that really interest me.

Anindita Ravikumar

Working for a consulting firm to help design business models that serve low-income populations

Another aspect of CORe that greatly added to my learning was the diverse cohort I was able to interact with - the stories and instances from their lives added more color to each topic we learned.

Out of all the intuitive teaching techniques at Harvard Business School Online, which included interactive graphs, cold calls, wise cracks, the Live experience was the most memorable of them all. To get a chance to interact with the Harvard faculty live was a dream come true!

Professor Sahlman’s careful observation of the best and brightest entrepreneurs over the last 30 years has given him a perspective and an insightfulness that few others can rival. He keeps his students leaned in and eager to dissect and analyze the situation and range of solutions.

Paul Accornero

Paul Accornero, International Commercial Director (MD) Asia Pacific & Americas

I use what I learned on a daily basis. Even though I am not in a Finance role, operating in a general management position I need to make decisions utilizing the principles we learned on a daily basis. The course empowers me to do that with confidence.

Desirée Kaplan

Writer looking to pursue a career as a chief sustainability officer

"I am early in my career and am looking for a path to becoming a chief sustainability officer or sustainability manager with a company I can align my values with. This class seemed like the perfect opportunity to give me the right tools to learn more about this field."

Chris Gaffee

"This was a class where you could contribute your opinion and hear from two participants who were on opposite sides of the debate, as well as the globe."

Chelsea Banks

Sustainable Business Strategy should be required learning for everyone, regardless of their sector or beliefs about business. Professor Henderson’s approach empowered me with a fundamental understanding of economic systems, in the U.S. and abroad, in order to make it possible for me to question the assumptions upon which they are built and challenge me to rethink how we construct entities—public and private—to ensure long-term success.

Chirag Gandhi

Risk Analyst at Credit Suisse

"The best part of CORe was its case-based approach to learning and retaining business fundamentals. No chapter in the entire curriculum had raw theory...It helped in challenging conventional wisdom with strong and practical, real life examples.”

I found the content [in Economics for Managers] incredibly eye-opening to how the world worked around me, as well as helping to understand several foreign and long-forgotten concepts about how businesses and economies function.

Nupur Kohli

A doctor and healthcare entrepreneur from the Netherlands

I have also applied what I learned in setting up my own health company, LeadInShape. CORe helped me in interpreting data, researching different markets, and how to do my finances. Also, when I have to make decisions in my work or in business, I think of what I have learned in CORe.

Professor Wheeler helped me to change the way I think about negotiation. Negotiation can be complex and chaotic, but if you seek to understand and embrace that chaos instead of fearing it, you can achieve outcomes better than your expectations.

Nisha Patel

Pursuing a Master of International Marketing at Hult International School of Business

I hope to gain confidence in conveying the fundamentals of business and a solid understanding of the application of theory to the real world in any industry.

Michelle Headrick

Business Anaylst and Multidisciplinary Studies Student

"I found myself constantly considering ways that my own company could immediately adapt and adopt some of those practices [from CORe]."

Tadashi Abe

Special Forces Officer with a science background looking to pursue an MBA

In my opinion, the true value of CORe is the ability to interact and network with fellow CORe members.

Jocelyn Johnson

Working in Marketing/Social Media for an edtech startup in NYC

But in the few years I have been out of school, I have found that being able to understand key business principles is essential, especially in the startup world.

Colin Meagle

CEO of Continuum Group, a Global Digital Agency

From the moment I started studying I knew there were theories and methodologies that I could apply to the Continuum Group. From a macro scale, it helps me understand where the different elements of the group sit in their respective markets and how they interact, grow, compete, disrupt, and really nail the job to be done for our customers.

Eoghan Martin

Computer engineering student in Ireland seeking to develop a tech startup

I loved the regular use of visuals and videos to fully build up the user's understanding of a new concept.

Maggie Robb

Head of Operations at Spire Inc.

While I have a deep business background, I was not well versed in several important aspects of entrepreneurship like investment structure, fundraising, and valuation. Entrepreneurship Essentials covered these topics well and I was surprised at some of the additional takeaways I had.

…at the end of four weeks you essentially feel like you have taken a graduate course, but have had some fun along the way

Sophie Pan

Senior Analyst at a media group

CORe will challenge you to stretch yourself. But if you put in the hours and the hard work, it will prove to be an extraordinarily rewarding experience.

Pankaj Prashant

I was able to use Business Analytics when a project on truck optimization for my site came up while I was enrolled in the course. I was able to apply the statistical concepts that I learned during the course to create an optimizer tool for truck usage and scheduling at the mine. This tool resulted in significant cost savings, which was highly valued by the site management team.

Pankaj Prashant

Reading a balance sheet was completely alien to me. Since taking Financial Accounting, I’ve been keeping track of my company’s annual reports, and the accounting that I learned helps me in understanding where the business may head in the future. I’ve also been tracking a few other companies for investment purposes, and I’ve realized that I can make more informed decisions with my improved knowledge of company financials.

The collaborative environment encourages you to help your peers learn and will help you become engaged in the material. It's not an easy program, but every ounce of effort you put into CORe will yield results in your understanding of the complex world of business.