The College of Management at the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) in Atlanta combines the principles of a traditional business education with the dynamics of managing the constant innovation and worldwide reach of high technology.
Courtesy of Ernest Scheller Jr. College of Business
Georgia Tech established a business school, the School of Commerce, in 1912 and offered the state’s first professional management graduate degree in 1945. The College of Management now provides undergraduate degrees, a full-time MBA (master of business administration) program, two executive master degree programs, and a Ph.D. in management. In 2005 approximately 1,100 undergraduate students, 135 MBA students, and 45 Ph.D. candidates were enrolled in the college.
One executive program allows working professionals to earn a master of science in the management of technology. With an emphasis on technical innovations, entrepreneurship, and strategic planning, this degree has been dubbed by the college as “the MBA for the age of technology.” The second program is the global executive MBA, which highlights issues related to international business and technology and includes four overseas residencies.
The college also offers a variety of short-term executive education programs that address new and ongoing business issues. Custom executive education programs also can be designed to fit the particular needs of a company’s business and employees.
The Financial Times 2006 rankings of the best full-time MBA programs in the world list the college in eightieth place—a fourteen-space jump from its spot two years before. The survey also recognizes the college as the thirty-fifth best value for the money and thirty-eighth in job placement success. In previous rankings, Forbes magazine put the college’s MBA program in the top twenty-five among public universities for return on investment.
U.S. News and World Report included the MBA programs in the top thirty-five overall and gave special recognition to the college’s operations management and information systems specialties.
In fall 2003 the College of Management moved to a new $57 million building in Tech’s expanded campus known as Technology Square, an education, research, and hospitality complex located on Fifth Street in a hub of high-tech businesses in midtown Atlanta. The new facility features 189,000 square feet of classrooms, offices, and resource space and includes a designated area for the Executive Education Center. In addition to putting students in proximity to a vibrant business community, the college’s new location is designed to accommodate plans to double the size of its MBA program and expand its executive programs.
To enhance its research and teaching efforts, the college houses a number of interdisciplinary centers, including the Center for International Business Education and Research; the Technological Innovation: Generating Economic Results program, which focuses on strategies for commercializing new technologies; and the Financial Analysis Lab, which conducts independent stock market research.
Every year the college hosts the Georgia Tech Business Plan Competition, which is designed to encourage entrepreneurship among students and alumni and foster technology-based business ventures. In the months leading up to the competition, participants receive guidance and instruction from corporate strategy experts, venture capitalists, and successful entrepreneurs.
