EDIT
Full-Time MBA (FTMBA)
Full-Time MBA
Thank you for your interest in Marshall. We are located in one of the most vibrant global economies and are part of a large, diverse university ready to engage the world’s demanding challenges. The Trojan family, known for its strong network, includes more than 450,000 alumni, where 93,000 are from the Marshall School. Our campus community includes a world-class faculty, high performing students and a dedicated professional staff.
The USC Marshall MBA program is committed to transformative learning, a culture of inclusion, collegiality, cooperation, and team work. The Program is designed to allow students to discover and develop their personal strengths, build core business knowledge, sharpen analytical and critical thinking skills, and lead high performing teams.
While at Marshall, our students are able to explore career opportunities that match their interest and aspiration, and dramatically expand their trusted professional and personal connections. As a member of the tight-knit global alumni network, they enjoy unparalleled support and networking opportunities.
FTMBA PROGRAM BENEFITS
Marshall employs a holistic academic-career program model. Marshall has tightly integrated and aligned the academic, programmatic and career development of the MBA Program. Academic courses at the start of the MBA Core such as Communication for Management, Foundations for Your Professional Value and Structured Analysis for Unstructured Problems that explore self-awareness, leadership, communication and value-creation help students identify their personal interests and value in the marketplace.
Engaging with Graduate Career Services ensures that you’re among the best-prepared candidates in the marketplace. You’ll partner with a career strategist on your career journey as you make connections to the organizations and industries that hire Marshall talent. Through one-on-one career coaching, self-reflection, involvement with career clubs, case competitions, career workshops, and recruiting events, you’ll come to a clear understanding of what you want, your differentiating skills and what’s important to you in your future career.
Marshall faculty devote a lot of effort designing core courses that build on and complement each other and the overall program learning goals. Marshall faculty are encouraged to engage in collaborative teaching, often partnering with each other to use common case studies to explore a common business problem from a variety of academic perspectives, providing students with a richer understanding of the circumstances, factors and issues of the case.
This inter-disciplinary teaching is enhanced by the incorporation of current events, career panels and forums, guest speakers and industry practitioners who support the academic content with real-world perspectives.
As of Spring 2020, Marshall's entire Full-Time MBA Program is STEM certified. Marshall is one of a small number of business schools with a STEM MBA Program which is designed to combine data-driven decision-making and analytics with the overall MBA program learning objectives of developing a global and entrepreneurial mindset, building a deep understanding of business fundamentals, and leading high-performing teams.
The STEM MBA is focused on preparing students to fulfill the increasing need to apply quantitative and scientific methods to business challenges. Additionally, international graduates are able to apply to extend their 12 month OPT by an additional 24 months, potentially expanding their employment opportunities within the U.S.
Los Angeles is perfectly situated to serve as the gateway to global business. PRIME is designed to put your collective classroom experience to use in an immersive experience abroad.After studying the cultural, economic, and political facets of a region, you will work with multi-national companies, domestic enterprises, and governmental institutions to develop recommendations and solutions for pressing economic and societal issues.You will have the opportunity to select one of six unique experiences in Southeast Asia and, where you will explore the history and culture of the region. Whether you visit the Great Wall or hike the Peruvian highlands, you'll have an unforgettable experience!
MORE
Developing strategies for lifelong career management and taking action on those strategies is the key to successfully managing one’s career and to exploring, identifying, and landing satisfying roles throughout a lifetime. To support our students in this effort, this course will deliver industry insight sessions to enable the student to improve industry awareness and gain a deeper understanding of the future of the business and industry.
(Video) A Day in The Life of A Rice MBA: FTMBA LaunchOne of the longest running programs of its kind at USC Marshall and brings MBA students and alumni together in a relationship designed to assist students in making informed career decisions. Our mentors are seasoned professionals from a variety of functions and industries and are typically USC alumni.
APPLYING TO THE FTMBA PROGRAM
DATES + DEADLINES
Round 1
- DEADLINE: November 1, 2022
- DECISION: by December 31, 2022Round 2
- DEADLINE: January 5, 2023
- DECISION: by March 31, 2023Round 3
- DEADLINE: March 1, 2023
- DECISION:by May 15, 2023Round 4
- DEADLINE: April 15, 2023
- DECISION: by June 15, 2023Round 5
- Applications submitted after April 15, 2023 will be considered on a space-available basis.
ADMISSIONS EVENTS
ADMISSIONS EVENTS
REQUEST INFORMATION
For more information about this program please fill out THIS FORM.
ADMISSIONS CONTACT
USC Marshall MBA Admissions
630 Childs Way — JKP 308
Los Angeles, CA 90089-2633EMAIL
Phone: 213-740-7846
APPLY NOW
- ADMISSIONS INFO
FTMBA STUDENT LIFE
USC Marshall has 40 graduate student organizations. Ranging from community outreach, diversity and affinity groups, career clubs, and social and athletic organizations, students are able to expand their network to other USC Marshall MBA graduate programs and corporate contacts. Club activities take place during the day, evenings and weekends, and can include networking opportunities, social events and company visits.
ALL STUDENT ORGANIZATIONS FTMBA Student Organizations
Challenge for Charity (C4C) is a 37-year-old nonprofit 501(c)(3) that puts teams from eight elite West Coast MBA programs against each other in a year-long effort to demonstrate their commitment to community outreach and social responsibility.
Despite Covid-19 challenges, Marshall MBAs have remained involved in supporting C4C core charities through service and fundraising. USC’s C4C chapters have raised over 2 million dollars and volunteered over 60,000 hours for our core charities.
Throughout the year, USC Marshall students volunteer and raise money for three charities, including:
SPECIAL OLYMPICS: SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA BRANCH
(Video) Full Time MBA Sunset Gala.The MARSHALL BUSINESS COMPETITION PROGRAM (MBCP) seeks to provide MBA students with the opportunity to enhance critical business and leadership skills, connect with potential employers, and put classroom learning in to practice. Each year Marshall is invited to compete in case competitions hosted by MBA programs around the country and world. In the 2015-2016 academic year, Marshall students competed in 18 case competitions, resulting in six first place and two second place finishes.
MORE Case Competitions
FTMBA NEWS + EVENTS
- How to 'ASE' Your MBA
For all her many accomplishments, Alganesh Tamyalew MBA ’22, says it’s the journey, not the outcome that is most important.
MORE How to 'ASE' Your MBA
- Revolutionizing the Rails
Alex Peiffer’s MBA ’20 startup aims to revolutionize logistics with an autonomous, zero-emissions rail car.
As a kid in Fostoria, a rail town in Northwest Ohio, Alex Peiffer MBA ’20 never could have guessed he’d find himself on the cutting edge of railway technology and logistics decades later.
But today he is the co-founder and COO of a startup that is developing an autonomous electric rail car.
While he was an MBA student at USC Marshall, Peiffer and his co-founders, Tim Luchini and Corey Vasel, formerly of Boeing, came up with the idea of Intramotev—which launched in 2020. At a time when supply chain snarls are top news and zero emissions an environmental priority, Intramotev is on track to revolutionize the nation’s vast railway system.
MORE Revolutionizing the Rails
- Leadership in Challenging Times
“Women need a cape—you're a Wonder Woman! But I think we don't realize we have another option. We stand up and lean in. And the pandemic amplified that." - Sally Chan BS ’02, MBA ’11
MORE Leadership in Challenging Times
CORE CURRICULUM
The Core Curriculum is designed to provide students with the fundamental principles of business that every manager needs to know and is delivered over five terms within the first academic year. It provides students enhanced and systematic opportunities to practice teamwork, leadership, critical thinking and creative problem solving. Furthermore, the Core Curriculum provides opportunities for students to define and develop their professional identity and explore major career paths and industry-specific and functional insights that are critical to securing a meaningful summer internship.
In Term 4, student-teams participate in a consulting project with a Los Angeles-based company, developing solutions for real-life business problems, using fundamental business tools they have learned in the program. In Term 5, students also begin to explore global business through the Global Context of Business course followed by the PRIME overseas experience. USC Marshall’s signature PRIME overseas experience is an experiential opportunity that allows students to travel abroad to one of a select number of countries to gain first-hand knowledge of how business is done globally. During the 10-day PRIME trip, students visit domestic and multinational companies and governmental institutions, develop business insights and complete projects that take into consideration the cultural, financial, regulatory, political and other constraints and opportunities of the country.
Term 1 Term 2 Term 3 Term 4 Term 5
- GSBA-511: Microeconomics for Management
- GSBA-540: Contemporary Issues for Competitive Strategy
- GSBA-541: Foundations of Your Professional Value
- GSBA-542: Communication for Management
- GSBA-510: Accounting Concepts and Financial Reporting
- GSBA-524: Data Science for Business
- GSBA-527: Structured Analysis for Unstructured Problems
- GSBA-548: Corporate Finance
- GSBA-509: Marketing Management
- GSBA-510: Accounting Concepts and Financial Reporting (Cont’d)
- GSBA-524: Data Science for Business (Cont’d)
- GSBA-548: Corporate Finance (Cont’d)
- GSBA-504a: Operations Management
- GSBA-533: Organizational Behavior and Leadership
- GSBA-552: Problem Solving and Decision Making: An Integrated ApproachElectives
- GSBA-503: Contemporary Issues in Competitive Global Strategy
- GSBA-580: The Global Context of Business: PRIMEElectives
The Global Context of Business: PRIME In this course, you will put the material you learned in your core classes to the test in a week-long immersive experience abroad. You will analyze the influence of emerging business models and technologies that have the potential to significantly alter the industry landscape and society. After studying the cultural, economic, and political characteristics of your selected region, you will work with multi-national companies, domestic enterprises, and governmental institutions to develop recommendations for pressing economic and societal issues they aim to solve. Problem Solving & Decision Making: An Integrative Approach This immersive course will give you experience and exposure to actual unstructured business problems faced by various companies, ranging from startups to multinational organizations. You will apply classroom knowledge and your professional experience as you partner with local companies and help develop recommendations to solve business issues in this team-based consultancy project.
Communication for Management This communication and leadership course is designed to jumpstart your development as a true leader in your respective field by enhancing your core leadership skills, professional communication style, and self-awareness through clinical research in leadership and communication theory. Foundations of Your Professional Value What drives you? This course is designed to help you put into place the foundational knowledge to discover, identify, and leverage your personal strengths to serve as catalysts in your career development. Organizational Behavior and Leadership Leading, managing, and working collaboratively with others is essential to being effective in the workplace. By recognizing the motivations and behaviors of stakeholders inside and outside organizations, you will have a heightened ability to apply ethical principles and professional standards in the corporate world.
Contemporary Issues in Competitive Strategy Fundamental strategic business decisions can only be made effectively by viewing a firm holistically. This integrative course takes a broad view of the overall environment, including companies, customers, and competitors, to create a body of analytical tools to aid in strategic decision-making. Contemporary Issues in Competitive Global Strategy In the quest to enter foreign markets, firms must look at the overall strategy to become multinational. In this course, you will learn several aspects of corporate and global strategy designed to help you understand and analyze significant business opportunities around the world. Structured Analysis for Unstructured Problems In this course, you will learn how to grapple with how to frame problems and make decisions with incomplete information that is typical in the business world through problem-framing, analogical reasoning, hypothesis evaluation, and counterfactual thinking.
Data Science for Business This course offers a deep dive into probability, statistics, and advanced analytics critical to managerial decision making. You will learn modern statistical techniques like neural networks, data mining, and clustering analysis through multiple applications, including R programming language. Operations Management You will learn about the fundamentals of design, operations, and production systems of a firm's business practices critical to meeting consumer demands for goods and services.
Accounting Concepts and Financial Reporting Learn the language, rules, and conventions used in preparing financial statements to critically assess companies and make decisions based on financial data. The course provides foundational financial reporting knowledge for business managers. Corporate Finance Familiarize yourself with the fundamentals of finance in this course designed to provide an introductory framework for understanding how financiers break down the components of a financial problem and make decisions as investors in capital markets. Marketing Management Marketing concepts are at the core of every business. After this course, you will be able to understand marketing strategy, determine market opportunities, and apply both qualitative and quantitative frameworks from a managerial perspective. Microeconomics for Management In this course, you will learn about supply and demand analysis, game theory, and the causes and consequences of market failures.
ELECTIVE CLASSES
Elective courses allow students to explore their areas of interest and develop deep competencies that align with their career goals.
MBA students may select 7.5 units of elective classes during the Spring semester of their first year. This provides students the opportunity to take classes that they feel will prepare them to be successful in their summer internship. Students may choose to take additional elective classes during the summer in lieu of an internship.
The second-year of the MBA program is intended to be customized to suit student’s interests and career goals. The 30 remaining elective units can be earned by:
- Taking elective coursework – Marshall offers close to 100 elective courses for MBA students in any given year;
- Designing an individualized program of study that cuts across several functional areas*;
- Completing an independent study project*; and/or
- Selecting courses from other graduate schools within the university*- students may take up to nine elective units at another USC graduate school
*Available to second year MBA students who have completed all core curriculum and are in good standing (minimum 3.0 GPA)
Please note course offerings are not guaranteed and students should consult the Schedule of Classes for courses offered during any given term.
Negotiation and Deal Making Strategy and Operations through CFO Lens
The purpose of this course is to understand the theory and processes of negotiation as it is practiced in a variety of settings. The course is designed to be relevant to the broad spectrum of negotiation problems that managers face. Considerable emphasis is placed on simulations, role-playing and case studies.
This class addresses the strategic and operational issues that companies face in multiple industries, and the responses of chief financial officers who are responsible for the accounting and financial planning and decision making. The class includes guest speakers, CFOs who present how they view the business as a whole and measure performance effectively.
EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING PROJECTS
USC Marshall offers students many opportunities to apply classroom learning to real world scenarios.
The Student Investment Fund (SIF) Program is a one-year experiential course consisting of two 3-unit finance electives in “Applied Portfolio Management” (i.e., FBE 553a & FBE553b). It is designed to give students rigorous exposure to contemporary investment and portfolio theory and practice. Each year interested Marshall graduate students apply to be part of the course and 16 students are selected to manage approximately $8.0 million of USC’s endowment fund in four equity and one fixed-income portfolio, each with a unique investment discipline. Analytical tools for the valuation of stocks, bonds, and options are presented. The course also covers risk management and portfolio optimization, behavioral finance, and performance attribution. Students will demonstrate and refine their ability to apply analytical concepts and techniques through the following:
Sponsored by the USC Marshall Brittingham Social Enterprise Lab (BSEL), the MBA Society and Business Fellowship Program is a highly selective, year-long opportunity for the small cadre of MBA and MBA.PM students who are seeking a business degree in order to pursue careers in poverty alleviation, including homelessness, education, and global health. As a Society and Business Fellow, students receive:
MLFP offers a unique leadership development course combining classroom and experiential learning opportunities where second year MBA students dedicated to personal and professional leadership development provide coaching to first year Core teams. This program includes two semester academic experience, totaling 3.0 units of elective coursework (MOR-574a and MOR-574b). In this program second year student coaches hone their leadership skills, gain practical experience, and learn to provide structured feedback using concepts, mechanism, and management best practices while guided by the Business Communications and Organizational Behavior Core Faculty. At the same time, through this coaching, first year core teams become more high-functioning and collaborative while each team member becomes more high-performing, flexible and open to complexity.
Upon completion of the core curriculum, second year MBA students in good standing may apply to complete an independent research project. The independent project option allows students to pursue research in specific areas of interest that may not be covered in other course offerings. Independent projects include Field Research in Business, Independent Research in Business, Research Practicum in Business and Consulting Project in Business. Students working on independent projects work one-on-one with their supervising faculty member to design and execute their research plan.
CONTACT US
Mailing Address
USC Marshall MBA Admissions
630 Childs Way — JKP 308
Los Angeles, CA 90089-2633213-740-7846
EMAIL
MBA Admissions is open Monday through Friday from 8:30am-5:00pm.
Stay Informed + Stay Connected
MARSHALL MONTHLY BRINGS YOU ESSENTIAL NEWS AND EVENTS FROM FACULTY, STUDENTS, AND ALUMNI.