Student Stories

The course surpassed my expectations…I actually regret not having more time to fully utilize all the optional features!

Brooks Wallace

Public relations professional looking to learn about sustainable business practices

"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 could not be a bigger proponent for online learning following my CORe experience. The ability to pause, rewind, and repeat what your instructor has to say was very helpful in learning business concepts. The course increased my confidence in the world of business and helped me formalize my career path.

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.

Sergio Sanchez

Manager in the Brazilian auto industry who took CORe to advance his career

I believe all of the courses prepare people for the business world, but more than that, they put the student in the boss's chair, offering concepts and examples, but also demanding quick and deep answers and solutions along the way.

This is an amazing course. The professor did a fantastic job dissecting the complexities of healthcare into chewable junks that made it easier to understand the complexities.

Sara Simon Pioger

Business Owner and Teacher

I am using some of the negotiation preparation techniques from the course in different aspects of my job. Overall I feel more confident in situations that might have once felt intimidating.

Jamila Whyte

Recent grad using CORe to jumpstart her career in consulting

Whether working with Business Analytics, Financial Accounting, or Economics for Managers, I value the fact that we can apply concepts learned in the course to solving real issues encountered in and out of the workplace.

Leslie Pico

A small business owner and tech entrepreneur from Arizona

Participating in the student discussions and answering cold calls was empowering. It ignited a drive within me to learn and absorb as much as I could.

Adriel Tjokrosaputro

A Global Masters in Management student at London Business School and Fudan School of Management

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.

…the CORe program will help me transition from being a liberal arts student with a humanities major to being a successful consultant…

Corina Cristea Lavoie

Corina Cristea Lavoie is a corporate services manager at an international law firm who took Leadership Principles and Strategy Execution.

"HBS Online courses are excellent for anyone who wishes to learn more about a particular subject area or further develop their career."

Danilo Salazar

Entrepreneur researching education and solar energy technology in Ecuador

Now I see how to take control of the financial part of my business and also how I can apply strategy when I enter into a new market.

Marcus Melo

Electrical Engineering student at the University of Brasilia

Taking Entrepreneurship Essentials was an incredible opportunity to learn from the best and to be in a class full of great minds.

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 visualizations 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.

“Having the perspectives of my peers and all the constructive conversation encouraged me to think in new and creative ways. Knowing that your peers were rating your participation and reading your contributions was truly compelling.”

Jacqueline Ryan

Integrated Marketing Manager at YumEarth

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.

Pablo Stuardo

IT consultant using CORe to help further his career

Additionally, the program allowed me to acquire a more holistic view of the services we provide, and it is helping me develop new ideas to innovate and generate different sources of revenue.

I interviewed for my current role the day before the CORe final exam and talked with my now-manager about how much I learned about accounting, reading financial statements, and data analytics, and how I could apply that to my current role. 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.

Amy Wallens Green

Senior Manager at WGBH Educational Foundation

I'd never taken any official coursework in negotiation. I was drawn to learning to master a skill that would help me in both my personal and professional life.

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

My favorite part of Entrepreneurship Essentials was the financing and equity module. It taught me the basics of how to look at spreadsheets and make sense of them—one of the most vital things for any company or start-up to understand.

Michelle Headrick

Business Analyst 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]."

Elizabeth Narehood

Vice President of Technology at Region 2000 Business and Economic Development Alliance

I really appreciate how Professor Christensen introduced high-level complex theories and broke them down into digestible chunks. When applied to real-world examples, the concepts are brought to life.

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.

Jonathan Rossi

Undergraduate admissions representative eager to pursue a PhD or MBA

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.

Praveen Jayakumar

Doctor, Medical Director & Co-Chief Medical Officer

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.

The way Business Analytics blended numbers with the impact on business forecasting and improvement of business processes was simply amazing. The real-life cases from different spheres made the learning more insightful. The subject further helped affirm the power of data/numbers in analyzing and forecasting about a particular business initiative.

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!

Intuit

Executives from Intuit reflect on their experiences in Disruptive Strategy, an online course taught by Harvard Business School professor Clayton M. Christensen.

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.

Fernando Garces

The Negotiation Mastery course has taught me that everyone has their own motivations. Even though we may all be working towards the same goal, there are different priorities depending on who you talk to.

Peggy Dau

Founder & Managing Partner at MAD Perspectives LLC

I am paying more attention to how my clients perceive the value of my services. I find myself rephrasing their statements to confirm their true needs.

Jackie Lender

Jackie is a student at Harvard University studying Government and Slavic Studies. She explains how CORe helped her develop an interdisciplinary skill set and build upon her liberal arts education to become a more effective leader.

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.

Anna Ngarachu

Data analyst for an economic research firm in Johannesburg, South Africa

I think what I took from CORe or what I enjoyed was how it shaped me to think and apply all concepts simultaneously.

Jessica Shaffer

Disruptive Strategy participant Jessica Shaffer talks about the direct impact the course has had on her work at Leader Bank.

Jennifer Moret

Jennifer Moret is a Financial Analyst working in the trust industry in Switzerland.

"The course has given me the confidence to know that my suggestions have a solid business basis."

"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."

Athenahealth

Executives from athenahealth reflect on their experiences in Disruptive Strategy, an online course taught by Harvard Business School professor Clayton M. Christensen.

Maggie Oh

An animator with dreams of starting her own company

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.

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.

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.

…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.

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.

If you have no formal education in business, this program will dramatically change the way you think…The combination of subjects covered will give you the fundamental knowledge to think deeper about what it takes to run a successful business, how to win in the marketplace, and how to make decisions as a manager.

Daniela Fierro Touché

Daniela Fierro Touché is an Administration and Registration Analyst at the FEMSA Collection in Monterrey, Mexico, a Latin American art collection comprising of pieces from the 20th and 21st centuries.

"I've been able to understand the macroeconomic policies that are being implemented by, and imposed to, my country, and the implications they have on our lives. This has equipped me with more tools to make overall better decisions. The course has been tremendously useful and eye-opening."

Dustin Brown

Working in real estate in Indiana while applying to MBA programs

I loved being able to learn the material through real examples and have found that this sort of learning makes the content stick much better in my memory.

Gaurang Manjrekar

A technology consultant and founder of two European football blogs based in NYC

Another aspect which I loved and cannot emphasize enough is the fact that CORe does not feel like a virtual program.

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.