To succeed in the modern global marketplace, you have to be willing to leave your backyard. Bentley University’s Global Business Experience (GBE) program gives MBA and MS candidates the opportunity to study abroad as a grad student in an immersive foreign learning experience.

In addition to course credit toward their graduate degree, GBE participants get a fresh, practical look at challenges facing today’s world business leaders — in a way they never could in the classroom.

“This knowledge can’t just be taught. It has to be experienced." - Bill Starner, Professional MBA Program Director and leader of UAE / Bahrain trip

“This knowledge can’t just be taught. It has to be experienced,” says Bill Starner, director of Bentley’s Part-time MBA program for working professionals. “It’s something at the forefront of what Bentley is thinking about: How can we merge the traditional MBA curriculum with the things that really do matter on a practical level? Having that appreciation and that understanding is going to be a rich experience that’s going to make our students more adaptable in a global environment.”

Studying abroad as a graduate student is much shorter (about 10-14 days) and much more business focused than a student exchange or semester abroad as an undergrad. Master's level courses overseas offer students the opportunity to combine classroom and cultural activities with business, NGO, or other relevant site visits. Students have the advantage of meeting contacts at overseas organizations they would not likely encounter as a tourist, all while getting to travel with other Bentley students in their class. This intensive time spent together, both as colleagues and travel companions, can be transformative.

“There’s a really key component of growth that the students experience over this Global Business Experience,” explains MBA Faculty Leader Patrick Scholten. “They connect with each other in just a multitude of ways. They strengthen their own relationships, their bonds, their working experiences, so they really build a close collaboration. But they also build very strong relationships with their faculty. They get to know people in a different way.”

And because GBE courses take place during the January break, Spring break, or in May after exams, graduate students can study internationally with minimal disruption to their personal, professional, and academic lives.

Students can apply and register for a course abroad months in advance, depending on which of the graduate study abroad programs they are interested in. In recent semesters, graduate students traveled abroad to:

• China, to examine the ongoing socio-economic transformation of the largest country on the planet.
• United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, to observe the contradictions and complexities of developing effective business relationships in the Middle-East.
• Czech Republic, Austria and Hungary, to learn more about the challenges the emerging economies of Central and Eastern European Countries face in competing within the global economy.
• France, to study effective management in culturally diverse settings, focusing on the specific field of innovation in traditional industries such as tourism and manufacturing, as well as new technology industries.
• Bermuda, to go beyond the island nation’s natural beauty to see how its sophisticated financial services environment and stable government present a warm and inviting (not to mention tax-free) culture to do business in.

Each international business trip includes lectures and company visits as well as a wide range of cultural activities and excursions. In the end, GBE students return to Bentley with a better understanding of their coursework, the larger world around them, and, oftentimes, even themselves.

“The biggest thing that I obtained from this experience was learning from people around you,” says Christina Bakolas, a Bentley Emerging Leaders MBA student on track to complete her degree in 2016. “You should really embrace these new experiences because that’s where you can learn the most, and that’s where you can find the most information that can help you down the road. These trips are a perfect setup for that, because they’re with people that you never would’ve met before, and you can learn so much from them.”   

Note: The Bentley MBA program has three built-in study abroad experiences, which are not open to other masters students like the GBE courses described here.