Robert H. Smith School of Business: Producing graduates who are ready for the world

 “Smith gave me the perfect balance of community, collaboration, and competition. Small class sizes give abundant opportunities and enable peers to encourage each other to do more, achieve more and be more. That and the world-class faculty and a focus on experiential learning outside of the classroom [make] it the perfect fit.”
– Allison Davern, MBA ’16 – Senior Product Manager, Amazon

A prestigious education is undoubtedly an advantage if you want to succeed in the business world. What is absolutely essential, however, is practical work experience.

A prestigious education is undoubtedly an advantage if you want to succeed in the business world. What is absolutely essential, however, is practical work experience. That is why the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland fosters an outlook that helps students understand and respond to real-world situations and challenges.

The Smith School works to create an exciting intellectual community in which students are heavily integrated into the business world. It offers pupils a rigorous curriculum, allowing them to develop, learn, and grow. It’s an institution that presents a wealth of experiential learning options, fully equipped with esteemed academics who support students as they launch their careers.

Smith’s top-ranked faculty infuse critical thinking skills into every class. They teach students how to collect and analyze data to gain insight into business problems, and then how to create and execute strategies to address those problems.  In a big data environment it is easy to get bogged down in metrics that don’t matter. Smith students learn how to identify and focus on the information that will allow them to innovate and lead in their organizations.

Smith’s top-ranked faculty infuse critical thinking skills into every class. They teach students how to collect and analyze data to gain insight into business problems, and then how to create and execute strategies to address those problems.  In a big data environment it is easy to get bogged down in metrics that don’t matter. Smith students learn how to identify and focus on the information that will allow them to innovate and lead in their organizations.

The school ranks not just as one of the top schools in the US for Business education, but also as one of the top worldwide, consistently inspiring students with its strong international focus. As such, students gain a solid comprehension of how business is conducted both in the US and abroad. Smith’s global programs provide a well-rounded business foundation with crucial real-world context. Supporting Smith’s global programs is the Center for Global Business which acts as the driver of internationalization and global mindset education at the Smith School.

The Center for Global Business is a part a cluster of 12 different Centers of Excellence, providing a connection between scholarship and the marketplace. Students and companies are linked through the school’s pioneering research. These centers serve to immerse students in the complex marketplaces in which they’re interested, and help companies put research into practice.

Partnering with graduates to discover great jobs is of the utmost importance to Smith. After all, isn’t that why the majority of students choose to pursue higher education? Smith is a school that understands this, offering a number of student career benefits housed under the Office of Career Services, including extremely valuable career coaching, the development of a job search plan, learning the intricacies of networking, evaluating and negotiating job offers, and participating in mock job interviews.

Smith also emphasizes leadership development, and makes it the focus of the semester-long “Leading Fearlessly” program for its Full-time MBAs. It’s a series of challenging co-curricular activities combined with high-level executive coaching. You might travel to Gettysburg with a US Naval Academy instructor for an exercise in battleground leadership, or to a state park for an “Arctic Survival” exercise, or to Annapolis, Md., for a yacht race on the Chesapeake Bay. And throughout the semester, students’ executive coaches will work with them to create an action plan for growth.

Smith gives students everything they need to thrive as a businessperson in the modern world. They learn to make well-informed decisions that advance their careers and ultimately their companies. Whilst studying, students explore employment options as a part of a friendly, tight-knit community. The school encourages intellectual risk taking as well as collaboration with other students and businesses.

Students leave Smith with all the skills they need to prosper in the global market. This, matched with great employment prospects, means the Smith education is second-to-none.

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