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'm now more mindful of how my colleagues are experiencing me, and less averse to having difficult conversations.
I got motivated and more optimistic about the success of giving life to my nonprofit organization.
The course shifted my worldview: what the most pressing problems are, who comes up with solutions, and how we get there. Professor Henderson pushed hard for us to think deeply about systemic change when it's easy to be satisfied with small wins. Though the course is focused on the private sector, in my public sector job, I often reference the learnings when considering how best to work with businesses so we can leave the world better than we received it.
The course equipped me with new ways to think about problems, products, businesses, and just everything in life.
I’ve found HBS Online's courses to be immediately applicable to my work, and they’ve made me a more productive member of our strategic team.
I decided to sign up for Leading with Finance because I not only wanted a refresher on the principles of finance, but also wanted to take a more proactive and deeper approach to my company's financial positioning.
My job is project-based, and I'm currently leading the operational functions of a system-wide IT implementation, a project that affects the daily work of a few thousand employees. Knowing how to read financial statements or look at data sets and understand them has helped me make major decisions on future state reporting.
I feel like now I can speak more high-level about where we want to take the company and what strategic initiatives we want to put in place….It has given me an entirely new set of tools.
This was a great experience and learning opportunity. It was a huge eye-opener, and it was validating seeing what functional, healthy leadership is.
I had been intimidated by a lot of the content - particularly Financial Accounting, since the whole idea of understanding financial documents made me panic - but to my surprise everything was presented in very accessible, grounded, easy-to-understand ways.
Another aspect which I loved and cannot emphasize enough is the fact that CORe does not feel like a virtual program.
We leverage HBS Online’s programs to reach employees and executives across our global organization. Participants develop a practical understanding of critical topics like strategic thinking, innovation, management, finance, and negotiations – all rooted in a social learning environment. This approach has made them more effective and engaged members of our organization, and eager to learn more.
I got promoted to a senior project coordinator role just weeks after finishing the course, so I have had the chance to apply many of the topics covered.
Already, knowing the fundamentals of business has deepened my understanding of the context and consequences of the commercial disputes I manage daily.
This course is excellent for executives and managers who constantly grapple with finding new ways to make their work impactful and useful for their target audience.
Disruptive Strategy participant Jessica Shaffer talks about the direct impact the course has had on her work at Leader Bank.
I’ve taken many courses from HBS Online because they’re either directly applicable to my career (like this course) or can help me get to where I want to be. This particular course has been the best among them all.
The course, through its excellent design, has given me an approach and the confidence to deal with disruption either as an opportunity or a business risk.
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.
As an in-house counsel at a multinational for two decades, I’ve reached two conclusions about negotiation and business. The first is that it is the core of everything we do; it is a shared language of business around the world. The second, surprisingly, is that so little attention is given to developing skills in this field. In fact, often people with important responsibilities do not even realize that they are about to enter a negotiation and, as a result, fail to prepare for it. Working with Mike Wheeler has been a critical part of a continuous process illuminating my colleagues so that they, and our business, are more skilled and confident negotiators and deliver better results. What Mike brings to our trainings has been the depth of his years of experience teaching and writing about the subject, and his studies of leading negotiators in difficult situations, all of which have played a critical role in driving a cultural change that puts competency in negotiation front and center where it belongs.
I am applying what I learned in CORe every day!
The course masterfully interwove design thinking theory as a process with helpful tools and outstanding examples from practitioners and companies.
The real-world examples were the best part of the courses. While going through the examples, I thought a lot about how I would have handled it if I were them. That plays a big role in how I do things now.
The excel I learned from Business Analytics has become useful as I started working as a data analyst for an economic research firm, BMI Research. The techniques I learned make it easier to comprehend the more complex functions. In addition, the integrated learning I took from the case studies allows me to apply “total analysis” in my everyday work and assessments, which is in fact the core business of my company.
For me, that connection from textbook to reality made the courses memorable, enjoyable, and interesting. Case studies were absolutely my favorite part of the program.
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 course is useful for startupland citizens—founders, investors, and joiners—to get complete, honest insights about the industry through various lenses.
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.
I would advise that you ask for help or opinions on any topic that appears murky to you.
Being able to break down real-life scenarios, and look at the management processes within each—what worked and what didn't—provided a unique method of learning, and incomparable to other course offerings available.
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 immediately applied the concepts…I highly recommend the program to students who always had an interest in business and economics but never had the time to devote to course material in their traditional academic curriculum!
In no time, not only will you build fundamental knowledge of the business world, but also be a part of a community that you can fully trust.
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.
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.
I have already applied so much of what I have learned. My strategy and message for my team and how we communicate with our customers has begun to shift.
The program gave me a framework and a great toolbox for the cases that I am currently developing.
I honestly use something from CORe nearly every day. In general, I have a much better appreciation for my client's business.
Unarguably, there are many courses offered on the internet. However, HBX CORe stands out due to its seemingly interactive experience similar to that of the in-person business schools.
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.
I think it's the best online course on Sustainable Investing.
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.
At the end of the day, hospitals still have to be sustainable businesses. I am confident that CORe will impart the necessary fundamentals to understand and analyze such concepts.
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.
The rich variety in content differentiated this course as a uniquely high-quality, fully engaging learning experience.
Leading with Finance offered the perfect opportunity to refresh my core finance skills and interact with a global group of colleagues in an online format that was ideal for my schedule.
In Global Business, we learned about currencies, exchange rates, and tariffs, and it helped a lot. It’s one of the reasons Aphrodite supports 50 currencies now.
It’s an eye-opening course that enlightens the path for future founders, joiners, or investors.
The notion that economic stability is mutually exclusive from creativity, from non-profits at large, is something I have recently committed myself to debunking. I took CORe to arm myself with the tools and language of business for this reason, to move my art forward responsibly.
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.