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 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.
But in the few years I have been out of school, I have found that being able to understand key business principles is essential, especially in the startup world.
…beyond mastering the basics of economics, analytics, and financial accounting, you learn Excel. For a philosophy major like me, to be able to put that on a resume…invaluable.
The course masterfully interwove design thinking theory as a process with helpful tools and outstanding examples from practitioners and companies.
The collaborative environment encourages you to help your peers learn and will help you become engaged in the material. It's not an easy program, but every ounce of effort you put into CORe will yield results in your understanding of the complex world of business.
Adriel, a graduate of Berklee College of Music, explains how CORe is different from other online courses he's taken and discusses how the fundamental business skills he's learned in CORe have helped him connect the dots between his interests in music, marketing, and live entertainment.
I feel like I have an unfair advantage now knowing what I've learned from this course. It has given me confidence and clarity in my decisions, and I can already see the material impact of applying this model and mindset to our business and our culture.
In my job at a publicly traded corporation, I have been able to change my viewpoint of daily goals and accomplishments. Instead of just completing tasks to achieve an end goal, I now look at that end goal and consider how it affects the company as a whole and if there are financial goals and benefits that will increase the value of the company.
It's like you're looking through the world with a completely different perspective altogether, yet it's so obvious. The dots were always there, and CORe made me realize the connections.
Meet Gaurang, a CORe participant and avid football fan who is applying CORe to his day job and entrepreneurial pursuits.
My certificate gives me a competitive advantage and the opportunity to contribute to the success of my company in a unique way. Moreover, a Harvard certificate opens news doors wherever I choose to work in the world.
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.
Executives from athenahealth reflect on their experiences in Disruptive Strategy, an online course taught by Harvard Business School professor Clayton M. Christensen.
I think CORe may be the extra push I need to connect with jobs that really interest me.
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.
An excellent course that covers many aspects of launching a tech startup.
The course content is well designed and helps investors get a basic understanding of what sustainable finance is, its challenges, the path forward, and its key players.
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.
I learned new things that I can apply to my work today. With 28 years of business experience, that doesn't happen often to this extent.
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.
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.
The conversations, the dialog, and the team huddles were so enriching and engaging and exciting, really exciting.
The course has made me think more carefully about how I could create a competitive cost structure and make appropriate plans before entering the market. [Conjoint analysis] has also helped me think about what product features my consumers would really value and how to highlight those features. Having a better business vocabulary and understanding the underlying concepts has really helped me to contribute more productively to conversations and decisions.
The rich variety in content differentiated this course as a uniquely high-quality, fully engaging learning experience.
As always, the case studies are eye-opening. The content is superb, and the presentation of the case is superb as well.
The program expertly leads you through progressively more complex theories and analysis with a pace that keeps you challenged and engaged.
Meet Natacha, a CORe participant who took the program to help advance her career in finance.
CORe has prepared me with a basic knowledge that will hopefully show employers I am ready to learn a new career and will be capable of excelling.
The course has completely changed me today. I feel like a new person, with a new thought process, driven by purpose, committed to doing the right thing.
The course equipped me with new ways to think about problems, products, businesses, and just everything in life.
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.
I got motivated and more optimistic about the success of giving life to my nonprofit organization.
My favorite part would be Professor Anand's jokes in some of the videos. You'd have to watch pretty carefully (but you would since you have to take notes anyway), and they'd always make me laugh.
Another aspect of CORe that greatly added to my learning was the diverse cohort I was able to interact with - the stories and instances from their lives added more color to each topic we learned.
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.
My MBA was great, however, in five weeks we did not cover nearly as much content as with CORe, so this was a quintessential supplement.
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.
From the moment I started studying I knew there were theories and methodologies that I could apply to the Continuum Group. From a macro scale, it helps me understand where the different elements of the group sit in their respective markets and how they interact, grow, compete, disrupt, and really nail the job to be done for our customers.
…the CORe program will help me transition from being a liberal arts student with a humanities major to being a successful consultant…
I found the overall CORe experience to be…challenging, enjoyable, eye-opening.
I found the content [in Economics for Managers] incredibly eye-opening to how the world worked around me, as well as helping to understand several foreign and long-forgotten concepts about how businesses and economies function.
Professor Wheeler helped me to change the way I think about negotiation. Negotiation can be complex and chaotic, but if you seek to understand and embrace that chaos instead of fearing it, you can achieve outcomes better than your expectations.
Strategy Execution provides learners with tools and frameworks based on real-life business situations. This directly affects the value of the course, as the takeaways are applicable—not just theories you can learn in other courses.
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.
CORe has provided me a dynamic understanding of how to measure and understand those outcomes. I can now confidently translate statistical data into a graphical presentation or employ different statistical techniques to help me better understand the pulse of student progress.
CORe proved to be so rewarding. I went in with the mindset of something to set my resume apart from others and came out with a broad and detailed understanding of the fundamentals of business.
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.
The course’s content and teaching method through case studies and practical examples was remarkable.
Exceptional. It's about as good as online learning can get.
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.