The new school: what to expect from today's M.B.A. program.

This year 1.2 million college graduates faced the grim reality that they had to compete with nearly nine million unemployed individuals for approximately three million jobs. Yet, many career specialists are warning against the urge to postpone a job search and stay in school to pursue a master's degree. "Based on the employers we have surveyed, rushing out to attain an M.B.A. straight from undergraduate school may be a big mistake," says Tony Lee, editor-in-chief of the College Journal (www.collegejournal.com), a free online publication for undergraduate, graduate, and M.B.A. students seeking job search and career guidance information. "It runs counter to the intended premise of an advanced degree, which is to learn more about a field in which you're truly interested." Unfortunately, many anxious job seekers view a second degree simply as a resume enhancer. "With the job market being this bad," says Lee, "a lot of college grads are charging out for an M.B.A., but for the wrong reasons."

According to Lee, the following are the primary concerns of employers today:

* Even if the applicant has an M.B.A., does the job seeker really have the aptitude to do well in the job?

* Was the decision to go to graduate school made last minute out of desperation to get a job?

* Was the M.B.A. received at a top-tier business school?

To effectively compete for students, many business schools have had to adjust and enhance their programs to better prepare graduates for the competitive work environment they now face. "The economy is definitely having an impact on how students are considering M.B.A. programs," concurs Liz M. Riley, assistant dean for the daytime M.B.A. program and director of admissions at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business in Durham, North Carolina. "At the end of the two-year journey, students want to know that they will be able to obtain a job in their chosen field."

"Despite a tough economy, Fuqua students weathered the storm very well. The entire Fuqua community has been extremely responsive to assisting students with their job search. A wonderful example of this responsiveness is a campaign that our career management center initiated called Hire Up," Riley explains. "The campaign took place from March 1 to June 1, and, during this time, the career management center contacted over 12,000 targeted alumni and company recruiters. Our goal [was] to provide jobs now and build relationships for the future. The three-month program generated a 56% increase in job opportunities [compared to] the same time period last year."

Babson College's F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business in Babson Park, Massachusetts, is one of many business schools that has revamped its M.B.A. program in an attempt to meet the changing needs of employers. "Most of four M.B.A. students are coming in because they are ready for a broader business vision and ready to move beyond their chosen field," explains Associate Dean Bill Lawler, Ph.D. "The curriculum at Babson has [been developed as a result of] the growing chasm between the academic and business worlds. We've made arrangements with certain companies to enable our students to go right into their industry as a part of their first-year curriculum. This strategy ensures that [students] receive a hands-on approach to learning."

Babson also implemented a unique curriculum option for M.B.A. students. "We customized an in-house M.B.A. program for employees of Intel Corporation. Based on this experience, we then developed a distance-based program called Fast Track for potential M.B.A. students who can't attend a traditional evening M.B.A. program. It allows participants to keep their full-time jobs but also contract 25 hours a week with us for their studies," says Lawler. The intense Fast Track program provides an accelerated 27-month curriculum compared to the average part-time M.B.A. program, which is typically accomplished in three to three and a half years.

Arthur Kraft, Ph.D., dean of the Charles H. Kellstadt Graduate School of Business at DePaul University in Chicago, agrees that a hands-on learning experience is key to a good M.B.A. program: "In general, it's a degree [through which] ... people acquire skills in areas where they had no previous training." He feels that M.B.A. programs must be innovative and teach proficiencies such as written and oral communication skills, an advanced ability to analyze data, and literacy in a variety of computer software: "An M.B.A. shows employers that [you] have cleared certain hurdles and are more mature." Wake Forest University's Babcock Graduate School of Management in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, has taken M.B.A. preparation one step further. "All About Business is a collaboration between Wake Forest's graduate business school (Babcock) and undergraduate business school (the Calloway School of Business). It was launched in 2003 and is targeted toward minority liberal arts, engineering, and non-business undergraduate majors," explains Nat Irvin II, assistant dean, M.B.A. student development. "The intense, month-long program [exposes students to] the fundamentals of business, including accounting, marketing, operations, strategy, finance, and the management of information systems. The curriculum utilizes the case-study method and incorporates special guest speakers and field trips."

Irvin is credited as the founder of the new program which is sponsored by Dell computer company. Dell provided each student with his or her own laptop. "Twenty-two students participated this year at no cost to them," he says. "It is voluntary, but student selection was highly competitive."

Irvin stresses that wealth and work, both now and in the future, are created differently than in the past. "Our social systems are changing, making M.B.A. preparatory programs like this one vital" he observes. "[It's key] that black America has the interest and the capability to be involved in the long-term thinking and planning for the world tomorrow. If we do not [turn] ourselves and our communities [toward] active, futurist thinking, many people will fall behind, perhaps to an extent never seen before."

For more information about selecting an M.B.A. program, visit www.MBAinfo.com. For more information about the Intel Fast Track program at Babson College, visit www.babson.edu. Go to www.duke.edu for more information on the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University.