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.
The course surpassed my expectations…I actually regret not having more time to fully utilize all the optional features!
"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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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…
"HBS Online courses are excellent for anyone who wishes to learn more about a particular subject area or further develop their career."
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.
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.”
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.
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.
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.
"I found myself constantly considering ways that my own company could immediately adapt and adopt some of those practices [from CORe]."
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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 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.
I think what I took from CORe or what I enjoyed was how it shaped me to think and apply all concepts simultaneously.
Disruptive Strategy participant Jessica Shaffer talks about the direct impact the course has had on her work at Leader Bank.
"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."
Executives from athenahealth reflect on their experiences in Disruptive Strategy, an online course taught by Harvard Business School professor Clayton M. Christensen.
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.
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.
"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."
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.
Another aspect which I loved and cannot emphasize enough is the fact that CORe does not feel like a virtual program.
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.
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.