Darden EMBA Students Go to Silicon Valley

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An advantage of EMBA programs is that they’re designed to mesh with the schedules of busy professionals. Since EMBA programs are more condensed, there’s a stereotype that enrolling in an EMBA program means missing out on some of the opportunities available to traditional MBA students.

But being in an EMBA program doesn’t have to mean settling for a narrower range of experiences. Case in point: Global EMBA students at University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business just finished a one-week trip to Silicon Valley.

The trip included visits to companies like Tesla and Facebook as well as meetings with executives from Netflix and Deloitte.

Overall, it gave students an immersive look at Silicon Valley’s unique culture and a chance to learn from industry leaders.

Complementing these hands-on learning experiences was course content presented by several Darden professors that looked at technology, disruption, innovation and strategic change.

During this time, students also met with several Darden alumni now based on Silicon Valley.

At Rocket Fuel, the class learned about programmatic advertising and how data-driven paradigms are changing the way marketing is done.

They also learned how the company assesses job applicants and how the skills needed for a C-level career in marketing are evolving.

At BlueRun Ventures, students pitched projects they’d designed as part of previous coursework. They got feedback on their proposals as well as general advice for pitching venture capitalists.

These sessions were led by MBA alums from ’14 and ’93 respectively.

While the lessons from the trip dovetailed with ideas the students had already covered in coursework, there’s something fundamentally different about this kind of experiential learning compared with textbook learning.

As one student, Dr. Gerelyn Henry, put it, “I couldn’t have imagined learning so much without the immersion.”

For the students in Darden’s GEMBA 2016 cohort, the trip was the beginning of their final two-week residency, and it followed similar trips to Brazil, China, Europe and India.

However, Darden is far from the only school that offers these kinds of opportunities through their EMBA program. Many top business schools incorporate hands-on learning opportunities into their programs, and many “global” EMBAs emphasize international experiences.

If you’re looking for an EMBA program that’s right for you, one of the key things to pay attention to will be what kind of immersive learning experiences the programs you’re interested in provide to supplement coursework.

Some EMBA programs also focus on specific regions of the world.

Once you refuse to accept the stereotype that doing an EMBA means not having access to a diverse set of real-world learning opportunities, there’s nothing stopping you from finding a program with the kind of three-dimensional experience that Darden GEMBA students and many others get.

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