Engage your skills. Engage your passion. Engage your curiosity.
Our project-based courses and experiential learning opportunities prepare you to solve complex business problems in ambiguous contexts. We offer coursework, projects, and student leadership roles that foster a learning environment focused on the practical application of knowledge. Besides our proximity to businesses and organizations in Metro Atlanta, Athens itself is rich with project and learning opportunities and home to 50+ startups and small businesses, a startup incubator, and about 100 nonprofits.
Project-Based Courses
Consulting Projects
MGMT 7440: Business & Corporate Strategy
This course enables you to develop a toolkit of skills and processes to succeed in a corporate consulting environment and transferable skills in any career goal.— Each student team is mentored by a consultant from a national consulting firm to solve a real problem for a client company. You’ll learn what it takes to drive change, advise a client, and interact at senior levels of an organization, as well as acquire the hard and soft skills that companies are looking for when hiring.
FinTech Projects
BUSN 7990: Capstone FinTech Project
The global FinTech payments industry is one of the fastest-growing, most innovative sectors in today’s economy. Headquartered in Atlanta, the Georgia MBA program is sought out by FinTech companies to collaborate with them on cutting-edge projects. . This course serves as a springboard to students wishing to connect with executive management in the FinTech industry.
Innovative Business Projects
ENTR 7320
Creativity and innovation are essential to leading industries and organizations. Students learn the design thinking methodology and apply it to real world business problems in collaborative project teams. Our students have earned kudos from a wide range of companies, from for-profit corporations like Creature Comforts Brewery, Merial, Caterpillar, Cisco Systems, Coca-Cola-North America, salesforce.com, and Toyota Motor Sales-North America, to business startups and nonprofits like 1000 Faces Coffee, Athens Farmers Market, the CDC, the Downtown Dalton Issues Work Group, and the Hambidge Center for the Creative Arts and Sciences.
Lean Six Sigma
MGMT 7160
Students earn 3 credit hours and gain invaluable international project experience through this course, which offers a trip to a different destination each spring. and team projects for companies in the targeted country. Students are given the exposure to work with international companies and connect with the international market to serve as consultants. Previous trips included Peru, South Africa, Spain, and Colombia. Peru, China, Costa Rica, Cuba, and Argentina.
International Residency & Consulting Project
INTB 7100: Special Topics in International Business
Students earn 3 credit hours and gain invaluable international project experience through this course, which offers a trip to a different destination each spring and team projects for companies in the targeted country. Previous trips include Peru, China, Costa Rica, Cuba, and Argentina.
MBA Leadership Fellows Program
Leadership Fellows develop their leadership skills by applying them in a variety of contexts:
- Leading Evolving Organizations: This core course is taught by four Management faculty and utilizes a number of activities focused on leadership development and collaborative learning.
- Service Leadership Projects: Student teams undertake a service leadership project for a local non-profit or community organization. Recent participating non-profits include United Way, Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, Interfaith Hospitality Network, Books for Keeps, the Clarke County School District’s Career Academy, and more.
- Dawgs on Top Case Competition: This internal case competition does double duty as an is an opportunity for all students to develop their strategic thinking, leadership abilities, and presentation skills, as well as to meet one of the requirements to earn an MBA Leadership Fellows certificate. As members of a company’s executive team, students make real-time business decisions that must serve diverse stakeholders—a Board of Directors, customers, community members, suppliers, and government entities—while preserving the company’s reputation and viability.
Experiential Learning Opportunities
Non-Profit Board Fellows Program
This program places first year MBA students on boards of directors of Athens area non-profits through a competitive application process. Students serve as nonvoting, ex officio members through the four semesters of the MBA program (a 20-month term). Participating non-profits benefit from the energy and fresh perspectives of dedicated Fellows, the network of the Georgia MBA community, and help shape the next generation of civic leaders. Students gain valuable governance experience as well as a unique avenue to put their MBA skill set into practice while making a positive impact on their adopted community.
Participating organizations include:
- American Red Cross of Northeast Georgia
- Ashton Hope Keegan Foundation
- Athens Area Community Foundation
- Athens Ciné
- Athens Community Career Academy
- Athens PRIDE
- B Local Georgia
- Books for Keeps
- The Cancer Foundation of Northeast Georgia
- Children First
- College Factory
- Extra Special People/Java Joy
- Envision Athens
- Foundation for Excellence in Public Education
- Hope Haven
- JROTC at Clarke Central
- Keep Athens-Clarke County Beautiful
Case Competitions
MBA students are encouraged to compete in at least one case competitions throughout the 2-year experience. before graduating. With all travel costs covered by Terry, students are asked only to give their best efforts and time. These competitions give students an opportunity to flex their strengths in a team on a case to suggest solutions for a potential problem a company is having within a short amount of time. In return, they receive invaluable experience working with a team and faculty advisors and inspiring each other to give their best. Possible cash awards go entirely to the team and are split evenly among the students. Recent big wins for Terry MBAs include:
- 2018 ROMBA Case Competition (Second Place)
- 2018 Merck/NC State Grand Business Challenge (Second Place)
- 2017 SEC MBA Case Competition (First Place)
- 2017 Goizueta Healthcare Case Competition (First Place)
- 2016, 2017, & 2023 NAIOP (Real Estate) (First Place)
- 2016 Finalist, CFA Global Investment Research Challenge
- 2015/2014/2013 Atlanta ACG M&A Case Competition (First Place)
- 2014 Leeds Net Impact Case Competition (Sustainability) (First Place)
MBA Volunteer Dawgs
Our students complete 50 hours of volunteer service during their two years in Athens. Each year, our students complete more than 2,000 hours or service. Our students apply what they learn on a wide variety of projects, including one-time events like nonprofit fundraisers, or more extensive projects like developing a business and fundraising plan for Five Freedom Farms, a dog rescue farm and animal sanctuary that provides “deaf space” to the local deaf community.
Net Impact Club-Sponsored Projects
Members of the Georgia MBA Net Impact Chapter consult with local companies on achieving B-Corp certification, most recently with Terrapin Brewery and Ad Victoriam Solutions. MBA students have also worked on campus-wide projects with the University’s Office of Sustainability.