<p>Can anyone tell me about this relatively new Master's level program?</p>
<p>Here’s some opinions:</p>
<p>[Duke</a> MMS | WallStreetOasis.com](<a href=“http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/duke-mms]Duke”>Duke MMS | Wall Street Oasis)</p>
<p>Information:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>[MMS:</a> Foundations of Business at Duke’s Fuqua School of Business](<a href=“http://www.fuqua.duke.edu/programs/other_programs/mms_foundations_of_business/]MMS:”>http://www.fuqua.duke.edu/programs/other_programs/mms_foundations_of_business/)</p>
<p>Well, that forum addresses the Markets and Management Studies certificate.</p>
<p>It’s hard to really quantify how “useful” this degree is yet, so what the website itself says is probably all you’re going to find out there. Having graduated from Duke this year with no job prospects, it was a juicy option until I looked at the price tag. I think we’ll have to wait atleast a year or two to see much more about the program and what it can really DO for you.</p>
<p>The WallStreetOasis comments don’t refer to the one-year Graduate program, as you noted. Any other comments out there?</p>
<p>If you were going to take some business courses at Duke (though not a whole program) and you wanted to focus on developing the basic skillset it takes to manage personnel, maintain a budget for a small organization (under 15 people), basic financial planning/budgeting etc. What would you look into? Would it be courses taught in this MMS program? Would it be select courses from the MBA programs?</p>
<p>If you’re not interested in doing an MBA but looking for, like you said, that basic skill set, than the MMS program might be a great option, but you’re not going to be able to take these classes without being enrolled in the degree program (you couldn’t enroll in a Fuqua course as, per say, a Post-Bac student).</p>
<p>For undergrad, the Markets and Management Studies certificate (also abbreviated MMS) would be what you were looking for.</p>
<p>The MMS program is nice because it is only 1 year and will give you that basic skill set, but like I said, the price tag is high and it’s hard to really gauge what it will be worth career-wise yet.</p>
<p>If I were looking to just take a few classes, I would probably not choose to take Post-Bac classes at Duke, to be honest. I’m 95% sure you can’t take Fuqua classes as a Post-Bac student, and it’s probably not worth the money to take UGrad Markets and Management classes, just because they’re big classes and tend to be on the easier side…I don’t know anyone who found them all that valuable to be honest, compared to their work experiences. I’d look into other universities in the area which put more of an emphasis on Undergraduate business education. BUT, then again it might be favorable to employers if you do have that Master’s degree which gives you some of those basic foundations as well.</p>
<p>Make sense?</p>
<p>Thanks for the comments so far. The intention is to eventually get an MBA, but the best programs require work experience, which seems hard to come by - at least on Wall Street. This program is a way to stay in school, improve the grounding in basic business principles, and get a degree from a terrific school.</p>
<p>
But undergrads can’t join this program, it’s for students who already graduated from undergrad or grad school (hence why they call it post-graduation).
From Duke’s own website:
</p>
<p>I’m just wondering, this program says one year. Why spend one year to get a certificate that no one has really heard of and hasn’t really been around long enough to earn credibility when you can get a highly respected and top notch MBA from Duke’s Fuqua School of Business? I mean I don’t think the certificate can really boost your chances at a getting a high paying job but a Duke MBA will. I just don’t find spending one whole year getting an unfamiliar certificate (unfamiliar to employers) is worth it when you can spend one more year and increase your job opportunity and salary with a Duke MBA.</p>
<p>cdz512,</p>
<p>The program is NOT a certificate program, I think you are confused. Let me help explain a couple of things:</p>
<p>1) As an undergraduate at duke you can get an MMS certificate. This is the Markets and Management Certificate, it takes about 6-7 classes to receive this certificate.</p>
<p>2) This new MMS program is a full master’s degree. It is a Master of Management Studies degree from The Fuqua School of Buisiness, you are NOT getting a certificate you are getting a master’s degree. This degree was designed for people without work experience, which is very different from an MBA which usually recommends ~4-5 yrs of work experience.</p>
<p>This NEW MMS degree is a one year program. You take 3 courses over 4 quarters (just like MBA students at Fuqua do). So you have a total of 12 courses over the year. This degree is meant to make an undergraduate student more marketeable in the working world. Right now the program is on a 3 year pilot, if it does well and accomplishes the goal it has set out to then it will become a permanent program at Fuqua.</p>
<p>I know some of the students that will be attending this program and there are many smart kids. You will see students with 700+ GMATs good GPA’s and some even have work experience (1-2 yrs). Who knows what the employment numbers will look like but I think it gives the students an edge. If a company is going to recruit a duke undergrad, why not just recruit a duke undergrad that just finished their MMS and has a liberal arts education as well as a strong foundation in business coursework.</p>
<p>Ah, sorry, I probably added to the confusion by not initially clarifying what I was talking about when:) Thanks everyone for making more sense!</p>
<p>Oops. My bad. Why did they have to name it the same thing?</p>
<p>You know I really don’t know why they named them the same thing, that was probably a bad idea on Duke’s part. I think it would have been better if they named it something along the lines of MA in Management, or MS in Management or something like that.</p>
<p>Thanks, everyone! atl_living, it sounds like you’re very familiar with the program Are you in it? Other questions:
An interview is required before the app. can be submitted. Is everyone interviewed?
Do the kids in the program feel it’s worth the money (about 40K/year)?
Do you think a graduate has a leg up on getting into a top MBA program (including Fuqua’s)?</p>
<p>Neuron,</p>
<p>I went to Duke and graduated a few years ago and I know a couple of people who will be attending the program. I also have a few friends that work at Duke and have let me know about what is going on over there. </p>
<p>To answer your other questions:</p>
<p>1) From what I have heard all applicants are interviewed, there are no invitations you just sign up.</p>
<p>2) The total cost of the program (including cost of living) is 56K, and as far as whether or not it is worth it, it’s hard to know. Obviously there are no employment statistics, but it does seem like the career center is working hard to help these MMS students. You have access to Fuqua’s Career Management Center and they set up your career fair, so you will have some great opportunities. I don’t see how having this degree will hurt you when you are competing against undergrads with no business background.</p>
<p>3) And as for a leg up on the MBA programs, again hard to tell. From what I know and have heard the most important part of an MBA application is your work experience (mainly leadership). IF and this is still an “IF” this MMS program helps you land a better position with more leadership potential then it will have done its job. So if you can land a great job out of undergrad and have 1 more year of experience over that MMS candidate then you should obviously go straight into a career, but if you are worried about not landing the “right” job then the MMS program might give you that leg up.</p>
<p>There are two programs:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Markets and Management Studies Certificate
Undergraduate, classes are a joke. </p></li>
<li><p>Master of Management Studies
Graduate, created for kids who couldn’t get jobs. It was created to keep Duke’s high percentage of students who have a job or are in graduate school 12 months after graduation.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Just wondering Does the MMS certificate (for undergrads) even help?</p>
<p>Duke500,</p>
<p>I think saying that the MMS master’s degree was created for “students who couldn’t get jobs” is a little off base.</p>
<p>Like I said before I know a few of the incoming students to this program and I can tell you there are some pretty good students, just to give you an idea:</p>
<p>One is working at a top accounting firm
Another was a consultant for a year
Another has a 730 GMAT
And finally there is one who is a Harvard graduate</p>
<p>In addition to this there are several universities (especially abroad) that have similar programs. To name a few:</p>
<ul>
<li>Wake Forest has an MA in Management degree for recent grads. </li>
<li>HEC (Paris) has an MS in Management (18 month program) which is more in depth, but similar idea in that they accept students with little to no work experience, average salary for those going abroad after graduating is just north of $100,000. Also the average GMAT for this program is 717 (range 640-780)</li>
<li>London School of Economics has an MSc in Management (22 month program) that is intended for students without prior work experience. </li>
<li>London Business School offers an 11 month Masters in Management program, again for students without work experience where they won’t consider applicants with GMAT scores below 600, and they recommend you score over 700.</li>
</ul>
<p>As you can imagine I can go on for a while. There are over 50 of these programs in Europe with the top 10 ranking programs having an average starting salary of $63,000. </p>
<p>Now this degree hasn’t really caught on in the USA yet. There are a couple out there, most notably Stanford, but their program is focused on executives with 10+ years of experience and NO MBA.</p>
<p>But knowing Duke and knowing how competitive the school is and how well they run their programs I am guessing that this will be a solid program. I don’t think the school and the faculty would agree on a program that would damage Duke’s reputation.</p>
<p>atl_living gives a great synopsis of the Master of Management Studies program at Fuqua. I believe I fit the characteristics outlined of the sampling of student credentials listed. So far, I’ve met at least 15 or so other students in the MMS program and everyone seems to have very interesting and impressive backgrounds. </p>
<p>Moreover, everyone seems to have made it through a rigorous screening…Fuqua admissions knows what it’s doing, and, like mentioned already, would definitely have NOT agreed to push this program into reality and invest all of this time and effort were it not serious about making the MMS a world-class program. Also mentioned was the fact that this model of earlier business education is modeled after programs that are already well-established in Europe. This fits in with Fuqua’s aim at a truly global business school.</p>
<p>I am actually in the program. We are about to start orientation this week and if all of the academic preparation and career assessment tools we’ve already been asked to undertake are any indicator of things to come, this is going to be an intense year. Our professors are the same as the MBA professors. Our classes are nearly identical in curriculum and structure to the core MBA classes. The only difference between the Fuqua MBA and Fuqua MMS I can see at this point is the fact that the MBA students will obviously be in a 2-year program (daytime) and thus have a 2nd year to “specialize” and take electives and more advanced core courses towards their specialization. We (MMS students) will be taking “only” the core MBA classes since that is the goal of the program and explains its year-long structure.</p>
<p>I’m excited for the program to get underway. I gave up a very solid job in high-tech to pursue this program, so I obviously have a solid investment in getting as much ROI on my education costs as possible! For my personal, both short and long-term career goals, this program is a great fit. And if the MBA may not be the right commitment to make now, the MMS will (theoretically) help leverage you into similar industries at the entry level and save you a year’s worth of tuition/cost-of-living expenses you would have otherwise put towards the MBA degree. And chances are, if you have only 0-2 years of work experience, you are NOT getting into a top MBA program. It’s just the competitive reality. So if you a) want advanced business education at the Master’s level now in order to b) take off in a business role or transition into a new, business-focused industry, then absolutely consider the MMS. The price tag is farrrr cheaper than any 2+ year program at any top 5 b-school MBA program.</p>
<p>It seems prospective MMS students will more than likely be those who are tempted by the top MBA programs but know they need/want to get more business experience first in order to get the most out of a full MBA program (daytime or executive) later on.</p>
<p>I’ll check back in around the holidays to update on the experience.</p>
<p>hurleysurf101: any update?</p>
<p>Bump. Anyone?</p>