Curriculum & Graduate Consulting Projects

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Program Home How to Apply Curriculum Tuition-Scholarships-Financial Aid Class Profile Emerging Leaders Program Launch Your Career The Wake Difference

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Emerging Leaders Program Launch Your Career The Wake Difference

Designed for those who didn’t major in business as undergraduates, the Wake Forest University School of Business’s Master of Science in Management (MSM) curriculum transforms critical-thinkers with their own specialized skill sets into business leaders ready to make a difference from day one. The curriculum emphasizes hands-on experience across a spectrum of industries and roles. It aims to turn your passion into a meaningful, organization-influencing profession that builds upon the knowledge you gained as an undergraduate. Based on the curriculum’s foundation and wealth of experiential opportunities, our MSM degree has been named by The Economist as one of the top management programs in the US.

The MSM curriculum requires students to have completed an undergraduate degree from an accredited school by the time they enroll. Coursework begins in July with a five-week summer semester to launch your immersion into the world of business before proceeding to courses in finance, marketing, operations, analytics, accounting, economics, information technology, legal environment of business, organizational behavior, and business strategy.

Students have the option to select a specialization track in Business Enterprise, Marketing, or Healthcare which allows you to target your knowledge toward one facet of business operations if desired.

For hands-on experience, students work on Graduate Consulting Projects each semester and engage in a number of other real-world, applied cases, simulations, and learning activities.

In total, the MSM curriculum covers 37 credit hours.

Students can pursue an optional concentration in Business Consulting with AI-Augmented Analytics by staying an additional fall semester. Concentration students can gain valuable work experience in the preceding summer through an optional paid internship.

The global marketplace moves at a fast pace, and for launching a career, a theory-based curriculum only goes part of the way. The Wake Forest School of Business designed the MSM course offerings and 10-month structure to guide our graduates into a range of careers and industries:

We strive to create a hands-on, immersive learning environment to enhance your personal success through integrated classes, career coaching, and engagement from our corporate contacts and alumni network.
Through Graduate Consulting Projects (GCP), you’ll have multiple chances to gain real-world experience and contribute your knowledge toward existing corporate issues before you graduate, showing you’re ready to excel from the get-go.
We ensure all students acquire a solid base in business concepts from the start, establishing the foundation for the rest of the MSM Program.

As an additional benefit of the Masters in Management program, Wake Forest MSM graduates have a head start with the potential to complete their Wake Forest MBA degree in as few as 12 months as part of the MBA Advantage. Graduates will receive credit for program courses that are substantially equivalent to Wake Forest MBA coursework when they return. Typically, candidates return to complete their MBA degree within five years of graduating from the Masters in Management program.

In the business world, there’s no substitute for direct experience. Graduate Consulting Projects (GCP) are an integral part of the Master’s in Management curriculum. Designed to provide you with a world-class experiential learning opportunity, these projects give organizations the benefits of fresh ideas and solutions in business. Throughout the experience, you will:

apply and reinforce course concepts;
create actual business solutions in a collaborative, hands-on setting; and
strengthen your skills, confidence, and experience.

The GCP experience is an extension of the classroom that gives you the opportunity to work with a “real-world” project and client. The projects begin at the start of the program and by the spring semester, your designated team is working directly with a business sponsor-client. As a result, you further develop important professional skills while creating value for multiple corporate partners.

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Summer Semester

This five week session sets you up for success with a series of graduate-level courses designed to launch your immersion into the world of business, which you will build upon throughout the program. At the same time, all students are expected to start exploring their career interests in relation to their management goals and undergraduate knowledge.

Business Analytics I (1.5 Credit Hours)

This course teaches you to interpret and present data to solve business analytics problems. You’ll explore the science and art of data analysis, addressing challenges like misleading data, uncertainty, and human error. Core topics include data collection, visualization, descriptive statistics, probability, decision analysis, and hypothesis testing.

Business Communication (1.5 Credit Hours)

This experiential course focuses on the skills of developing and delivering high impact presentations to inform or to persuade. Specifically, students learn to develop a compelling, cohesive message, cultivate a confident, authentic professional presence, and design audience-centered slide decks grounded in data/conceptual visualization.

Personal Branding & Career Management (1.5 Credit Hours)

An experiential course focused on aligning your unique value with diverse career options. You will craft a strong personal brand that helps you stand out, and learn the foundational strategies to confidently navigate your professional journey for years to come.

Problem-Solving Mindset (1.5 Credit Hours)

To be a successful business leader, you need to be a master problem-solver. This course goes over addressing the needs of customers, stakeholders, employees, partners, and their surrounding communities and strategies to resolve a range of issues.

Graduate Consulting Project Prep (GCPP)

The GCPP is woven throughout the summer courses and kicks-off the program’s project-based learning. While the GCPP is not a graded class, it is the beginning of your experiential learning journey and prepares you for Graduate Consulting Project I in the fall.

Fall Semester I

The Fall semester helps strengthen key business and managerial competencies. Throughout the term, you’ll take courses in marketing, accounting, analytics, organizational behavior, and finance, while working with a team of your peers on one or more Graduate Consulting Projects (GCP) with real corporate sponsors.

Master of Science in Management Fall 1 Semester

Business Analytics II (1.5 Credit Hours)

This course focuses on advanced quantitative tools for data analysis and managerial decision-making. Key topics include regression, probability applications, and their use in business decision analysis across various functional areas.

Managerial Accounting (1.5 Credit Hours)

Learn how managers use accounting tools to make business decisions. Students become familiar with cost behavior, cost systems, relevant costing, and strategic cost analysis.

Marketing Management (3 Credit Hours)

This thorough introduction to high-level marketing concepts goes over a range of principles and techniques related to behavioral and quantitative analyses and illustrates real-world applications through case studies and simulations. You’ll become familiar with segmentation, targeting, and position strategies while exploring buyer behavior, consumer psychology, demand estimation, brand strategy, pricing, distribution channels, new product development, advertising, and sales promotions concepts.

Financial Management (3 Credit Hours)

This course trains students to think from a modern financial perspective, particularly where it comes to maximizing value and how finance overlaps with and affects other organizational aspects. You’ll learn or continue to hone skills involving financial modeling, valuation, capital acquisition, risk and return, capital structure, dividend policy, capital budgeting, and corporate restructuring.

Managing People and Organizations (3 Credit Hours)

Certain techniques, theories, and skills influence how an organization functions. This course introduces essential organizational behavior and leadership topics, including problem-solving, coaching, communication, influence strategies, motivation, conflict management, empowerment, delegation, team-building, and leading effective change.

Financial Accounting (1.5 Credit Hours)

The language of accounting and its general concepts run through all areas of business. This course explores it as both a communication method and decision-making strategy, all while covering key accounting concepts and principles.

Graduate Consulting Project I (3 Credit Hours)

You will work in a team to find solutions to real-world business problems defined by corporate sponsors. This course will introduce you to tools that will help you to better define, analyze and solve business problems, and will introduce you to the fundamentals of more analytical-based and creative-based problem-solving tools and techniques to help you work through a live challenge facing a business, culminating with presenting the team’s solutions.

Spring Semester

Delving more into real-world applications, this semester exposes you to common quandaries faced by managers regardless of industry or job function and gets you using your individual and managerial skills to resolve these issues. Students will also take three credit hours of electives and have the option to complete one of three specialization pathways.

Operations Management (3.0 Credit Hours)

For remaining competitive in a global marketplace, operations management becomes key for creating and streamlining processes regarding the delivery of quality goods and services. This course touches on planning, process design, quality management, and supply chain management in relation to marketing, finance, and human resources.

Applied Business Economics (2.0 Credit Hours)

Focusing on microeconomic analytical skills and their application in management, this course covers allocating resources and value-improving decision-making, with emphasis on problem-solving skills and analytic applications.

Information Technology Management (1.5 Credit Hours)

Although businesses have dedicated information technology (IT) departments, technology influences every aspect of operation, including business models and how organizations generate value. This course serves as a primer for future business leaders to become familiar with key information technologies, particularly within the context of markets, ethics, and products.

Business Strategy & Planning (1.5 Credit Hours)

This course helps students understand how businesses are legally and ethically constructed and how the law factors into disputes. Coursework provides an overview of the US legal system, with an emphasis on property rights, business liabilities, and private-market regulations.

Legal Environment of Business (1.5 Credit Hours)

Anyone managing or helping steer the direction of a business needs to understand key legal subjects, especially concerning property, contracts, torts, corporate governance, employment discrimination, sexual harassment, and government regulations. Beyond these targeted points, this course provides an overview of American law, including how the legal system works, its limits, and logic.

Graduate Consulting Project II (2 Credit Hours)

GCPII caps off your MSM experiential learning journey and is the last step in your preparation as a future business leader. You and your team work directly with a sponsoring company or organization in a consulting role to define, analyze, and provide solutions to a real business issue your sponsor is seeking to resolve. The team applies knowledge gained from curricular and co-curricular activities including tools and techniques learned in GCPP and GCPI, and manages all aspects of the sponsor relationship, project timeline, and outcomes.

*For official curricular details, complete course descriptions, and any potential electives, please refer to the current edition of the School of Business Graduate Student Handbook.

Specialization Pathways

Students can replace their general electives with an optional specialized pathway with elective course options that align with their career goals and industry demands. These courses and projects provide networking and mentoring opportunities from business leaders and faculty.

Each pathway includes elective options that explore topics essential to the area of specialization. When combined with a pathway specific Graduate Consulting Project, students emerge better prepared for their career goals and able to meet industry demands.

Fall Semester II
(Optional Concentration Degree Track)

Delving more into real-world applications, this semester exposes you to common quandaries faced by managers regardless of industry or job function and gets you using your individual and managerial skills to resolve these issues. Students will also take three credit hours of electives and have the option to complete one of three specialization pathways.

Management Consulting in Practice (3 Credit Hours)

This course is designed to provide students with a comprehensive understanding of management consulting practices and their practical application in real-world scenarios. Students will develop the knowledge, skills, and competencies necessary to succeed as management consultants. Key topics covered include project management, consulting frameworks, client engagement and communication, benchmarking, industry analysis, business communication, ESG/sustainability, and change management. By the end of the course, students will be equipped to analyze complex business problems, develop actionable recommendations, and effectively communicate solutions to clients.

Consulting Studio: Analytics for Impact (3 Credit Hours)

Through hands-on engagement with actual business challenges, students will learn to define problems, integrate analytics methodologies, and deliver actionable recommendations. This course utilizes an experiential learning problem-based approach. Students will be continuously working through the types of real-world challenges they will face in practice. Each problem-based scenario provides students with opportunities to apply a variety of business analytics techniques—from data management to machine learning to data visualization—across a variety of industries and business disciplines. The challenges provide students with the opportunity to build on their ability to define problems, choose methodologies, and present actionable insights effectively. Working through real-world scenarios students will gain proficiency in the integration of analytics techniques, generative AI, effective storytelling and providing impactful insights that drive client success.

Design Thinking and High Performance Teams (3 Credit Hours)

This course helps students add value & deliver transformational change in organizations and communities. We will build a toolkit that empowers curious, gritty, growth-minded, innovative, and confident problem solvers. The course is crafted to experience innovation in action by applying inquiry, creativity, and action to a real problem. This class leverages a core innovation philosophy and strategic tool: Human Centered Design. Overall, this class emphasizes new ways of approaching work, life, and organizations. It is about who we become as designers, not just how to “do” design.

Curriculum & Graduate Consulting Projects