management Honors Program
Success Favors the Prepared Mind
We're inviting you to the challenge - and opportunity - of a lifetime. The more management skills you command - leading, negotiating, analyzing, teaming, planning - the greater your chances of success. The more experiences you gain in school, the better you prepare yourself for the real world.
The Boston University Management Honors Program offers extraordinary preparation for students who have the capacity to create, innovate, and make a difference in the world. However, the Honors Program is not for everyone.
By Invitation: Challenging You to Become a Leader
Each year, the Dean of the School of Management extends invitations to a small group of students, choosing the very best admitted freshmen and sophomores who have distinguished themselves during their first year at the School.
Maybe you're accustomed to working harder than your classmates. Maybe you find yourself analyzing things more deeply than others. Now imagine a setting in which everyone around you is working just as hard and in which everyone is as intellectually motivated as you.
Imagine the excitement of such an environment.
The Boston University School of Management designed the Honors Program to transform a select group of talented students into the next generation of outstanding organizational leaders. Will you be among them?
"The most successful business leaders I have met are exceptional thinkers. They have a deep understanding of what it takes to make a business successful and they have the drive to pursue this goal. As Faculty Director of the SMG Honors Program, I view my role as creating a program that helps our students become this kind of leader. I work to ensure that the Honors Program challenges each student to develop his or her intellectual, creative and personal abilities to the utmost, to master the underlying principles of academic disciplines, and to apply these principles. It is a privilege to know these students and to watch them grow."
-Shulamit Kahn, Associate Professor of Finance and Economics and the Faculty Director of the SMG Honors Program
Opportunities Now. Advantages to Come.
As an Honors Program student. you'll participate monthly in exclusive freshman colloquia, intended to complement and lend depth to the Management As A System course. You'll also participate in exclusive seminars (on topics such as corporate responsibility, intellectual property, and globalization), attend monthly dinner programs (on topics ranging from job interview skills and "How I became an Entrepreneur" to the intellectual-prowess game Cranium), as well as enjoy unique networking opportunities.
In addition to four years of management courses, your program of study will include a solid grounding in the liberal arts and sciences. These courses are critical because they provide you a broader worldview in addition to a wider range of problem-solving skills.
You'll Build Enviable Credentials
The Honors Program allows you to build the credentials that corporate recruiters value most. Achievement in the Honors Program identifies you as a "high-potential" candidate, both for career opportunities and graduate school admission. At the end of four years, you'll have:
- A record of extraordinary coursework with an Honors Program designation on your transcript.
- Close working relationships with the faculty, translating to more knowledgeable recommendations for professional positions and graduate school.
- Additional skills in management research, analytical reasoning, and written communication from honors seminars.
- Real-world experience gained from management internships.
- Lifelong friends and valuable contacts from the Honors Program community of students and faculty.
A Close Community of Management Scholars
The Honors Program includes you in a close community of motivated students and exposes you to a number of enriching opportunities. Guest speakers might include alumni who explain their routes to success or a corporate coach who demonstrates how to network or find the perfect internship. You'll also engage in social and community service activities that will broaden your campus life and provide opportunities for leadership. For example, recent Honors Program groups set up panels to explain various concentration options, another group helped clean a mile of the Charles River shoreline, and a third group worked as mentors to Honors Program freshmen. From this close-knit group, you'll likely establish lifelong friendships and may find the partners for a future entrepreneurial venture.
Student Profile
Jospeh Speter graduated from the Honors Program with concetrations in Operations Management and Organizational Behavior. Today he works in finance at Unilever Best Foods, supporting the Ragu and Bertolli brands. (He got his job following a summer internship there.) "My knowledge of operations, as well as my SMG team experiences, has given me a distinct advantage over others with a finance background." Joe adds, "There's no typical SMG Honors student; the program is what you make of it. I tried to take advantage of as many opportunities as I could. I became involved in SMG student government because it was a medium for me to develop my interpersonal skills while improving the lives of all the students. The community within SMG and the Honors Program is among the strongest on campus and enables students to fulfill their goals and build their future networks."
The Four-Year Curriculum: Management Honors Program
| |
Fall Semester |
Spring Semester |
First
Year |
SM121: Management as a System, Part 1 (including the freshman colloquia)
EC101: Introduction to Microeconomics
WR100: Writing Seminar
MA120: Applied Math for Social & Management Sciences |
SM122: Management as a System, Part 2 (including the freshman colloquia)
EC102: Introduction to Macroeconomics
WR150: Writing and Research Seminar
Philosophy Course or CAS Elective* |
| Second Year |
AC221: Financial Accounting
OB221: Dynamics of Leading Organizations
SM221: Probabilistic & Statistical Decision Making for Management
CAS Elective*
SM411: Charting Your Career Path |
AC222: Managerial Accounting
LA245: Introduction to Law
SM224: Modeling Business Decisions & Market Outcomes - Honors Section
CAS Elective*
Honors Seminar |
| Third Year |
SM323: The Cross Functional Core (4 courses; 16 crs.) consisting of:
FE323: Financial Management
IS323: Introduction to Information Systems
MK323: Marketing Management
OM323: Operations Management |
Four courses: you may choose from SMG electives, remaining CAS electives*, and/or free electives
Honors Seminar |
| Fourth Year |
Four courses: you may choose from SMG electives, remaining CAS electives*, and/or free electives
Honors Seminar |
SMG422: Strategy & Policy
Three courses: you may choose from SMG electives, remaining CAS electives*, and/or free electives |
* Three Level B Liberal Arts (CAS) electives must be at the 300-level or above.
This is only a sample curriculum of a typical Honors Program student. One's actual schedule may vary depending on choice of concentration or double major, and can include a pathway allowing for study abroad during one of the semester of the junior year.
CAS = College of Arts and Sciences; SMG= School of Management. There is also a community service requirement in which each student must complete four service projects. These projects must be completed by graduation and will be coordinated through the Undergraduate Program Office.
The School of Management at Boston University
The School of Management has gained national attention for its rigorous approach to management education, namely fusing the art, science, and technology of business. Using a team teaching/team learning model, we teach management as a system. (Yes, you will learn finance, organizational behavior, marketing, and operations. But in this School, you'll learn about these areas in uniquely designed courses, demonstrating the way actual businesses operate, i.e. "the art" of business.) While most schools don't permit you to enroll in business courses until your junior year, here you'll have management courses from the first semester of your freshman year. In addition, you'll be studying in one of the most technologically sophisticated buildings ever built for management education.
Guidelines for the Honors Program
Advanced Placement credit and transfer courses may satisfy some requirements of the Honors Program. Each such request will be reviewed on an individual basis. Successful completion of the program (which includes a cumulative 3.30 grade point average upon graduation) results in the Honors Program designation on your transcript. Full credit will be granted for all completed courses if a student opts to withdraw from the Honors Program or otherwise fails to satisfy the program requirements.
Who is eligible?
Admission to the Honors Program is by invitation only for incoming freshmen. Students who carry a 3.50 cumulative GPA or above at the end of the freshman year may apply to enter the Honors Program as sophomores.
If you see yourself as a potential leader, the rigors and rewards of the Honors Program offer excellent preparation. Join us, and help shape the business world of the twenty-first century.
Learn more today
For more information, contact:
Sandra Procopio, Assistant Dean
Undergraduate Program Office
595 Commonwealth Avenue, Suite 102
Boston, MA 02215
617-353-5335
E-mail: sprocopi@bu.edu
Linda Boulden, Class of 2005
"The flexibility of the Honors Program has afforded me the opportunity to take some extra economics classes, fit in a separate degree program, and plan an international program in Turkey - all in four years!"
Jim Perry, Class of 2008
"The Honors colloquia during freshman year have not only been engaging and informative, but they have also afforded me the unique opportunity to learn from upper-level faculty and deans during my first year at BU."
Emily Shieh, Class of 2006
"The Honors seminars have opened the door for me to seeing worldwide events and history in a different light, complementing my academic studies with real-world happenings and issues."
Boston University's policies provide for equal opportunity and affirmative action in employment and admission to all programs of the University.
