Wharton School Offers Business Foundations Specialization
The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania will offer a Business Foundations Specialization series through Coursera, combining the school’s four-course Foundation Series with a Capstone Project that allows participants to apply their knowledge to real-world business problems.
The Business Foundations Specialization, taught by Wharton faculty, provides a Coursera Verified Certificate for participants who complete the Foundation Series courses – Accounting, Finance, Marketing and Operations Management – as well as the Capstone Project.
The Capstone Project allows participants to complete a project with industry partners to help solve a specific real-world problem. Wharton has initial partner agreements with Snapdeal and Shazam to provide Capstone project topics.
“The Business Foundations Specialization continues our outreach to students around the world, especially those who want to sample the power of Wharton knowledge,” says Geoff Garrett, Dean of the Wharton School. “We are especially excited about the unique industry partnerships we can offer through the Capstone Project, allowing participants a glimpse into the real challenges businesses face.”
Kunal Bahl, CEO and co-founder of Snapdeal.com, says his time as a Wharton student had a profound impact on his career path and outlook on life. When commenting on the new partnership through Coursera, Bahl says, “This is the power of applied knowledge and it gives me immense pleasure to now be in a position to co-create life-changing learning opportunities for a global pool of highly motivated learners in the domain of business foundations.”
Wharton will invite the top 50 performers each year to apply to one of the school’s graduate business programs, and waive the application fee. It will also offer up to five $20,000 scholarships to students admitted to its MBA program who have excelled in completion of the Specialization in the previous twelve months.
“A key component for us as an institution is the possibility to identify talent from a pool of participants who might not have considered business education before,” says Dean Garrett.
The Wharton Business Foundations Specialization begins this spring with An Introduction to Marketing on April 6, led by Professors Barbara Kahn, David Bell and Peter Fader.
All courses in a Specialization series must be taken through the Coursera Verified Certificate path to be considered completed. The cost of the four courses and the Capstone Project with a Verified Certificate is $595.
Additional details regarding course format and curricula of the Wharton Business Foundation Specialization, and all other Wharton online opportunities, can be found at http://online.wharton.upenn.edu.
