Student Stories
Find out what it's like to take an HBS Online course from current and past learners.
Find out what it's like to take an HBS Online course from current and past learners.
I found myself constantly considering ways that my own company could immediately adapt and adopt some of those practices [from CORe].
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.
As a classically trained scientist with limited business experience, I believe CORe is a fantastic way to invest in myself and help bridge the gap between being the scientist I am right now and the consultant I need to be in September.
I'm using regression analysis and other statistical concepts from Business Analytics to build predictive models, analyze trends, and conduct surveys and hypothesis testing. Business Analytics has helped me pursue a career in data analytics and land a job as a Business Intelligence Analyst at Ministry of Justice New Zealand. I'm leading a few modelling and reporting projects across the Ministry using the knowledge I gained from the course.
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.
Hear what students are saying about the Credential of Readiness (CORe).
I feel that I am no longer wary of entering into business conversations; my confidence has gone way up with regards to accounting, economics, and analytics.
The course masterfully interwove design thinking theory as a process with helpful tools and outstanding examples from practitioners and companies.
Meet Gaurang, a CORe participant and avid football fan who is applying CORe to his day job and entrepreneurial pursuits.
Professor David Garvin is so sentient and poignant in his discussions of process and decision-making. The case studies of significant historical events are like looking back through a time machine. People lost their lives because of faulty processes. I know this is a dubious feeling, but I can't get the thought out of my head that with more and more case studies, you could swell your brain with a better recipe for living as well as running a company. So if you are on the fence about taking this course, get off on the correct side. Take the course so we can talk about it.
The most impressive part of Economics for Managers was the case studies from a managerial perspective, including an analysis of a pharmaceutical company's pricing of a drug and the ethics of measuring consumers’ willingness to pay for medicine. Due to the cohort's diversity in experiences and backgrounds, this discussion included the voices of the patient, the manager, and the policymaker.
Economics for Managers was immensely valuable. Hearing from founders and seeing the power of network effects through various case studies helped me see market opportunities through an entirely different lens. The market knowledge I acquired helped me refine and expertly craft research reports.
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.
Exceptional. It's about as good as online learning can get.
I've taken a lot of paid online courses, but the HBS Online experience was close to that of the classroom and highly immersive.
I spent much of my college career fervently annotating novels and loved every minute of it but knew that my focus post college was going to be business.
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.
I think CORe may be the extra push I need to connect with jobs that really interest me.
Not only was I able to expand my network so that I know someone in every major city around the world, but it also helped me land a job at a company that I absolutely love.
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.
The course is a comprehensive introduction filled with dynamic case studies that I found fascinating.
In my opinion, the true value of CORe is the ability to interact and network with fellow CORe members.
The course has made me think more carefully about how I could create a competitive cost structure and make appropriate plans before entering the market. [Conjoint analysis] has also helped me think about what product features my consumers would really value and how to highlight those features. Having a better business vocabulary and understanding the underlying concepts has really helped me to contribute more productively to conversations and decisions.
Through CORe, I have uncovered a love for analytics, made valuable connections with people in several countries, and gained a strong foundation that will serve me well in MBA or PhD studies, which I am considering for the future.
The course content is well designed and helps investors get a basic understanding of what sustainable finance is, its challenges, the path forward, and its key players.
Thank you for explaining concepts that I thought were impossible for me to ever grasp in such simple terms. The examples that Professor Desai chose to illustrate these concepts and the industry experts who give their thoughts and opinions has me eagerly looking forward to the time I spend on the course every day.
I would be very surprised if the concepts that we talked about in the course are not core to our strategic planning process this year… I expect that we will have a lot more conversation about the course going forward.
Thanks to Business Analytics, I learned to apply statistical analysis to real world problems. For instance, I am currently doing a research project using regression analysis to see if we can predict emergency department demand on any given day - important for staffing and resource allocation.
During my conversation with a Boeing recruiter (my dream company), he was curious about my experience with HBS Online. He asked, ‘What was the most impactful thing you learned from Economics for Managers?’ Sparing details, I responded with the concept of WTP [willingness to pay] and how important it is to understand how to price a product. He loved my response, and I was fortunate to receive an interview, which led to an offer. Understanding E4M [Economics for Managers] helped me diversify myself as a STEM student in a conference full of technical perspectives.
This is now my fourth HBS online course that I have taken. I love the format that lets me learn asynchronously when I have time in my busy schedule. The HBS courses do a wonderful job encouraging interaction with peer learners which amplifies the learning. The HBS courses foster this peer engagement much more effectively than I have found in other online courses that I have taken.
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.
Don't lose hope. These courses helped change my career trajectory, and I hope they do wonders in your life as well. In the end, it'll be all worth it.
An excellent course: world-class content, perfect delivery, excellent and diverse cohort, and finally wonderful collaboration with both the organizers and the class.
Weekly, I negotiate strategic partnerships for my company, and Negotiation Mastery has given me additional skills that I have put into practice and have resulted in much more successful agreements.
I loved the mixture of academic teaching, case-based review, interaction with peers who had their own experiences to recount, and application in my place of work. To me, it was a complete package.
...it's beyond the value I could have ever expected for such a small investment, life changing
HBS Online was an invaluable and essential education. The information provided, the quality of the presentation, and the high-level engagement among students surpassed my expectations.
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 believe that CORe helped prove to prospective employers, as well as myself, that I understand the fundamentals of business.
One of the most insightful components of this course was the detailed case studies on other companies that had similar challenges... The diverse perspectives that I got from my peers, which the learning platform enables, were very similar to those I get with my work environment.
Dean Datar’s pedagogy was an absolute pleasure. The way he considered all aspects of innovation through a unified process with actionable tools and concepts was simply brilliant.
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.
It is really helpful as I apply for jobs to be able to demonstrate that I have the capability to consider economic constraints or opportunities.
It's an insightful, mind-altering course. The tools are now part of most things I do and observe in the real world, and it's changed the way I view products and services and the people and environments that interact with them.
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.
I enjoyed the real-life examples and stories and how they were integrated into the coursework.
Each course provided distinguished knowledge and presented that in a beautiful manner.
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.
The subjects taught in CORe are brand new for me. This first week has been a real challenge. Yet, that is part of the fun.
Meet Doug, a Leading with Finance participant who took the course to advance his career and deepen his understanding of essential financial concepts.
If you're looking for more information on how Harvard Business School Online programs can teach you the essential skills you need for success, request more information today.