Harvard is hoping to produce more technical founders and product managers with a new, two-year dual master's degree program that will equip students with knowledge in business, engineering and design.
The university announced on Tuesday that the new program will be provided by Harvard Business School and the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. With the first cohort set to begin in August 2018, the two-year program will give graduates a Master of Science in Engineering Sciences and a Master of Business Administration.
"Almost everyone who enrolls will want to launch a business in the near or medium term."
One of the architects of the new program is Thomas Eisenmann, a professor of business administration who is the faculty co-chair for the Rock Center for Entrepreneurship and Harvard MS/MBA Program. Eisenmann told me he had been kicking around the idea of a dual-degree program with Robert Howe, an engineering professor at the Paulson School.
Eisenmann said one of the goals is to crank out more entrepreneurs with technical expertise. The program requires prospective students to have an undergraduate degree in engineering, computer science or a related field, so it's meant to expand their breadth of knowledge within engineering and give them a bigger grasp of business and design concepts.
"Almost everyone who enrolls will want to launch a business in the near or medium term," he said.
However, Eisenmann added, a number of students will also seek out product management roles at established companies, which he said shares some responsibilities with that of a founder, minus things like fundraising and operations.
While other top schools offer similar programs, Eisenmann said what makes Harvard's program different is the fact that it confers two master's degrees and that it focuses equal amounts of time on engineering, design and business.
The new program will consist of four semesters, with additional work in the summer and January terms. In the first year, students will take a system engineering course that focuses on an interdisciplinary approach to analyzing complex systems, as well as required coursework for HBS' MBA program. In the second year, students will take electives at both schools. The program will also offer three new design courses focused on human-centered design and lean experimentation methods.
Eisenmann said the program's January-term coursework will amount to a startup boot camp, where students form their own ventures and learn about the various steps to establish them, such as conducting user interviews, prototyping and financing.
The first round deadline for applications for the August 2018 program is Sept. 6. The second round deadline is Jan. 3, 2018. In addition to the undergraduate requirements, students must also have two years of full-time work experience, ideally in developing and/or designing technology-intensive products.
"This collaborative program will meet the needs of an increasingly technology-driven world, in which breakthrough solutions to societal problems require deep knowledge of both engineering and business," Frank Doyle, dean of Harvard's engineering school and a professor of engineering and applied sciences, said in a statement.
