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Students from the Carey School's Global MBA program learn some Masai customs while traveling in Kenya. In addition, we learned that companies want graduates who know how to manage highly ambiguous projects and how to innovate internally. They want students who know what it means to be resilient—in the face of fail- ure, ambiguity, and resistance to change. They want students who can start working on a messy prob- lem without having to overanalyze it or without being certain they'll end up where they expect. They want students who know how to take ideas and turn them into mar- ket opportunities. Finally, we identified three major trends that are affecting all businesses today: an emphasis on globalization, a demand for inter- disciplinary skills, and a need to integrate Millennials into the work- force. (For more details, see "Three Trends to Watch" on page 43.) We drew on all these market realities to design our Global MBA, which launched in August 2010 with 88 students in two cohorts. Our goal is to produce graduates who are versatile and skilled com- municators, who are comfortable with scientific jargon and familiar with the political nature of at least one emerging economy. But more than that, we want to give employ- ers what they most need today— graduates who are resilient, self- reliant, entrepreneurial, innovative, and clear about their values. The Carey Curriculum Once the steering committee com- pleted its research, the faculty took over design of program content and created the Global MBA cur- riculum in four months. While established schools might find it difficult to get faculty buy-in on a major curriculum overhaul, the Carey School is new; the faculty had been hired know- ing they would participate in program design, and they did so enthusiastically. Our Global MBA begins with an immersive two-week orienta- tion that prepares participants for the classes they'll be taking and the business environment they'll be studying. Students visit the World Bank and the International Mon- etary Fund; hear guest speakers, such as cultural attachés, discuss the current state of international business; and take introductory courses in topics like statistics. Then they begin two years of spe- cialized courses that form the heart of the program: • Business Essentials. Dur- ing their first semester, MBA students take a 13-week "mini MBA," which consists of four integrated modules each taught by two instructors from different disciplines . Not only do these courses deliver core business knowledge to students, but their interdisciplinary format also con- veys the idea that all business skills and problems are interconnected. BizEd September/October 2011 39 SHANNON DOOLIN