Haas School of Business - University of California, Berkeley (2024)

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Academics

Faculty

Haas employs 74 tenure-track faculty members. These scholars and practitioners help lead Haas’s 16 research centers, which cover topics ranging from entrepreneurship, healthcare, equity and more. The Garwood Center for Corporate Innovation, for example, enables faculty to publish articles, create teaching materials and lead research projects on “open innovation,” a more dispersed industry innovation model.

Curriculum

Professors at Haas make use of a variety of teaching methods, including case studies, seminars, simulations, group projects and guest speakers. Haas places an emphasis on hands-on learning, with certain courses providing students the opportunity to gain consulting experience by working in Silicon Valley firms.

Haas operates on a two-semester schedule, with MBA classes running from late August through early December and from mid-January through May; commencement takes place shortly thereafter. For first-year students, each semester is further divided into two quarters. Within the academic year, all students have short breaks for Thanksgiving and other holidays, as well as a one-month break between the fall and spring semesters.

During the first year, Haas students are required to take 11 core courses, which account for 20 of the 51 semester units needed to graduate. The core covers foundational business principles in accounting, finance, economics, marketing, operations, strategy, leadership, decision-making and management. Each of the required courses places an emphasis on team learning, with students working in small groups on projects and assignments. A core course may be waived if a student passes a waiver examination. These examinations are akin to the course’s final examination and are given the week before the start of each semester. To replace units from waiving a course, students can either take an additional elective or an upper-division UC Berkeley course outside of Haas. All students must also fulfill an experiential learning, or “applied innovation” requirement by completing at least one of almost 20 programs. These include working in small teams on projects for both nonprofit and for-profit organizations, as well as developing socially responsible strategies for large corporations.

MBA students may begin taking elective courses in the spring semester of their first year. Haas provides a broad range of elective courses from which to choose, and students may take courses at other Berkeley graduate schools or even design their own courses together with members of the faculty. The school emphasizes hands-on learning and offers nearly 20 courses to satisfy the Applied Innovation requirement, ranging from international consulting projects to people development to strategies surrounding sustainable business practices. Haas also provides students with 13 Areas of Emphasis, which are high-level recommendations of courses, extracurricular activities and summer internships that students can follow to prepare for entry into related careers.

Other MBA Degree Options

In addition to the 21-month full-time MBA program, Haas offers a four-year JD/MBA program with either UC Berkeley’s School of Law or UC Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco. Also available are an MBA/MPH program with the UC Berkeley School of Public Health and an MBA/MA program in Global Studies with various UC Berkeley Schools. Part-time options include an evening and weekend MBA program. Additionally, Berkeley offers a 22-month Executive MBA program.

Areas of Emphasis at Haas

• Finance
• Marketing
• Strategy & Consulting
• Corporate Social Responsibility
• Energy and Clean Technology
• Entrepreneurship
• Equity Fluent Leadership
• Global Management
• Health Management
• Social Sector Leadership
• Real Estate
• Sustainable & Impact Finance
• Technology

Degree Options at Haas

Full-time MBA
http://mba.haas.berkeley.edu/

Concurrent Degrees
JD/MBA
http://haas.berkeley.edu/MBA/academics/concurrent-degrees.html

MBA/MPH
https://mba.haas.berkeley.edu/careers/healthcare

MBA/MA
http://haas.berkeley.edu/MBA/academics/concurrent-degrees.html#internationalandareastudies

MBA for Executives
http://mbaforexecs.haas.berkeley.edu/

Evening & Weekend MBA
http://ewmba.haas.berkeley.edu/

Applied Innovation Courses

• Haas@Work
• Social Sector Solutions
• International Business Development
• Cleantech to Market
• Strategic and Sustainable Business Solutions
• Design Sprint for Corporate Innovation
• Design, Evaluate and Scale Development Technologies
• People Development
• Real Estate Investment Analysis
• Hedge Fund Strategies
• The Haas Socially Responsible Investment Fund
• Design and Development of Web-Based Products and Services
• Lean Launchpad
• Social Lean Launchpad
• The Startup Lab
• Applied Data Analytics

Campus Life

Clubs, Conferences & Competitions

Haas offers its students many opportunities for extracurricular involvement, including over 50 student organizations to choose from, with a wide array of professional, athletic and cultural groups on hand. Many MBA students become involved in Challenge for Charity events such as competitions, shows and auctions geared at raising money for the Special Olympics and other charitable organizations. In addition, a large portion of MBA students volunteer their time to the Boost@Haas program, where they act as mentors for underprivileged high school students.

A number of conferences are hosted annually by Haas faculty and students. These comprise both industry- and affiliation-related events, such as the Berkeley Energy Institute’s POWER Conference and Women in Leadership Conference. Haas also sponsors the Play: Media and Entertainment Conference, the UC Berkeley LAUNCH Startup Accelerator, and the Latin American Business Forum. Furthermore, MBA students have the opportunity to create their own competitions.

Campus Spaces

Designed by architect Charles Moore, Haas’s campus is comprised of three buildings—one each for classrooms, student services and faculty—linked together that face a main courtyard. Among the school’s facilities are a career center, a high-tech computer lab, a café and an economics and business library.

While most Haas students choose to live off campus, a fair number of students take advantage of Haas’s on-campus housing options. These include university residence halls as well as several apartment complexes devoted to housing UC Berkeley graduate students. The university also provides a housing service called Cal Rentals, through which students can receive counseling about their housing options. Students who wish to live off campus can refer to Cal Rentals for a listing of off-campus rental opportunities.

MBA Careers

Career Services

The Haas Career Management Group provides extensive support for MBA students by hosting on-campus interviews, corporate presentations and electronic job postings through CMG Bears. The Career Management Group also offers students informal ways to meet employers year-round through career panels, alumni mixers, industry firm nights, job fairs and corporate visits. In addition, individual career advisors are available to aid students in developing their job search skills and tackling the recruiting process. Full-time recruiting for second-year students takes places in the fall and spring semesters starting in late September, and internship recruiting for first-year students occurs in the spring starting in late January.

Career Statistics

The mean base annual salary of 2023 Haas graduates was $162,831, with an average signing bonus of $36,777. Of the 294 Haas MBA graduates, 87% reported seeking post-MBA employment. Just under 90% looking for work secured offers within three months and 88.7% accepted. The entrepreneurial spirit was high at Haas as 12.7 percent of the class opted to work for startups, and another 3.4 percent of graduates ventured into starting their own businesses.

Nearly 30% of the Class of 2023 found jobs in the technology industry after graduating. The next most chosen industry was consulting, at nearly 28% of the class, and 14.5% of students accepted positions in financial services. Nearly 8% of students entered the healthcare industry and another 6.6% went into energy.

Roughly three-quarters of graduates settled in the West of the U.S. after graduation. The Northeast claimed just over 9% of graduates. Just over 5% pursued post-MBA roles in the South U.S.

Financing

The tuition for Haas’s MBA program is $73,160 for California residents and $85,406 for non-residents for the 2024-2025 academic year. Haas estimates that with additional expenses such as living expenses and textbooks, students will pay up to $115,616 as residents or $127,862 as non-residents. Haas offers both merit- and need-based scholarships to help students with the program’s cost. While most merit-based scholarships are awarded to applicants at the time of admission, others require the completion of separate applications. Both two-year and one-year scholarships are available, and Haas requires that the recipients of two-year grants maintain at least a 3.0 GPA throughout business school. Students also have an array of loan options at their disposal, including federal loan offerings for U.S. citizens and permanent residents. In addition, Haas publishes a compiled list of preferred lenders with different loan options for students to consider. For international students, a risk-share loan is available that does not require a U.S. co-signer.

Cost of Attendance

Tuition & Fees

• CA Resident $73,160
• Non-Resident $85,406

Health Insurance $6,442
Housing & Food $28,428
Books & Supplies $734
Transportation $3,682
Personal Expenses $3,170

Totals
CA Resident $115,616
Non-Resident $127,862

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