There are many places where you can learn about the world of global business, but there are few where you can live it. To understand the foundations and complexities of this ever-evolving sector, you have to do more than study business; you need to experience it. Real business challenges in real time.
At Hult International Business School, you learn by doing precisely that. Rather than focusing solely on theory, which is equally important and is taught as part of Hult’s curriculum, the school also prioritises what you will experience in the real world. This experiential learning is important for a variety of reasons – including your career, the organisation you work for, and even the community you live in.
Ranked as a top university for experiential learning and as a top business school overall, Hult International Business School focuses on real-world practices. Whether you’re an undergraduate or postgraduate student, a big part of your Hult degree focuses on preparing you for any professional challenges that may come your way. And alongside applying the new knowledge you gain, you’ll also develop the confidence, agility, and critical-thinking skills that will make you a sought-after candidate for companies and organisations around the world.
Take Hult’s Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA), for example. This innovative undergraduate programme combines multidisciplinary modules including all facets of business along with general education. Students develop soft skills like communication, collaboration, and creativity alongside technical and analytical skills such as data analysis, project management, financial reporting, budgeting and forecasting, and sales and marketing.
Hult International Business School implements a challenge-based module to hone your practical skills. Source: Hult International Business School
Spanning four years, the BBA programme is structured around core modules and specialisation modules. The former takes a “challenge approach,” testing your proficiency in business and training you to apply the right skills and mindsets essential to a successful career on a global scale. Specialised challenges include pitching and consulting projects – from Startup and Social Impact, to Complex Decisions and Culture & Media, to Power & Policy and Global & Local – as well as hackathons like the Future Proofing Challenge.
The BBA capstone project is your final business challenge. With help from global firms, like food tech giant Bühler Group, the Hult Business Challenge partners you with a well-known company to come up with solutions to real-world problems in a professional setting. This way, you gain actual industry experience. Diversity and inclusion, social impact, and networking are just some of the subjects you will work on before presenting your findings to a room of industry experts.
Learners gain great insights from these types of projects. “Working for the last couple of months, we spent our initial cycle of this whole challenge doing a lot of research and asking a lot of questions, particularly with the touch points of improving diversity,” says a finalist team from class 2023 .
Hult International Business School’s postgraduate programmes are just as valuable and action-oriented. The Master of Business Administration (MBA) Business Challenges are project-based, faculty-led courses combining skills, topics, and knowledge previously learned to develop realistic business strategies that involve working alongside a real-world corporate client. This allows you to gain exposure to successful companies, grow your network, and add weight to your résumé or CV. Examples of the calibre of clients that Hult students have worked with include Mercedes-Benz, Verizon, and Kinder.
Other than the Business Challenges, there is an internship option that you can opt for too. Source: Hult International Business School
Programs like Hult’s Master’s in Management engage with industry a bit differently. This 12-week full-time summer programme lets you intern internationally or domestically; both of which are beneficial in their own unique ways. “I had applied for several roles and attended a few interviews prior to graduation, and I kept soldiering on and applying,” says Feyikemi Jimba from Nigeria. “The internship at Neutral Fuels was a three-to-six-month internship as a business modeller. It presented the opportunity to work in renewable energy and hone my accounting and financial analysis skills.”
For Aditya Sharma, a Master’s in Business Analytics, Dual Degree student, Hult’s learning-by-doing philosophy took him all the way to San Francisco. In this live-client competition, students worked in teams that were responsible for running a company that aimed to use 3D printers to print low-cost, high-quality, customisable carbon fibre bikes for sale.
“One thing that I learned from the challenge was the importance of focusing on narrative and understanding what customers want. As financial advisors, it’s important to recognise that every client has different goals, needs, and risk capacities,” says Sharma . “Ultimately our job is to help them make informed decisions that align with their financial goals. The open business case competition format really allowed me to apply this lesson.”
As Sharma’s story shows, a Hult education helps you understand the business world. But Matt Lilley, President of Hult International Business School, would argue there’s something greater to be gained as well: an understanding of the world.
Studying at Hult is like being part of a mini United Nations. Here, students come from over 150 countries in a given academic year, and no nation makes up more than 10% of the business school – so learners get a truly unique perspective from peers across the world.
“Working in teams to solve real-world business challenges with people who are different from you builds empathy, improves problem-solving, and is also (mostly) a lot of fun,” says Lilley.
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