NYU Stern MBA Admissions – Stern Tech Blog

April 1, 2025April 1, 2025

Pursuing an MBA Later in My Career and How It Equipped Me with Valuable Skills

Author: Tom is currently pursuing his Tech MBA at NYU Stern, specializing in Tech Product Management and Brand Management. Before joining NYU, he spent 11 years in marketing leadership roles at top tech companies in San Francisco, including Uber, SoFi, and OpenSea, where he built and scaled marketing teams, drove customer acquisition, shaped brand strategy, and led go-to-market initiatives in highly competitive tech markets.

Thomas Burke Headshot

The Value of a NYU Tech MBA for Experienced Professionals

Many people warned me about pursuing an MBA in my 30s. I was told MBAs are mostly “networking,” impractical coursework, and a huge opportunity cost. I’m glad I ignored them.

The past eleven months have been an amazing opportunity to level up my skills and live out a lifelong dream of experiencing New York City.

With eleven solid years of work experience, the NYU Stern one-year Tech MBA has been a perfect fit. When I started evaluating MBA programs, I didn’t realize one-year options existed. This accelerated program has been ideal for someone like me who wants to stay in the tech space while minimizing lost opportunity costs.

From May to August, I refreshed my foundations in finance, accounting, databases, and other core MBA courses. The 21-credit summer workload was intense, but it was helpful to start by reviewing the basics. Building a solid foundation was incredibly valuable and has helped me understand technology businesses at a much more granular level.

In the fall, I dove into more specialized elective courses that deepened my understanding through practical, hands-on experiences. Courses like brand strategy, data science, and tech product management helped me solidify concepts I had experience with in my career but never formally studied.

For example, after spending 11 years working closely with data scientists, I understood their impact but not the mechanics behind their models. In our Data Science course, I had the opportunity to learn directly from Netflix Prize-winning professor Chris Volinsky, who broke down decision trees, random forests, neural networks, and ensemble models in a way that finally made their logic click.

I also participated in the Leadership Fellows program, where we tackled real-world leadership challenges and practiced navigating difficult workplace scenarios.

Spring semester has been just as hands-on. We kicked off the new year in our January West Coast Immersion by visiting tech giants in San Francisco and Seattle, including Nvidia, Microsoft, and Waymo, to see firsthand how AI is transforming their business models. Hearing directly from leaders at these companies gave me a clearer perspective on the intersection of technology, strategy, and execution.

Back in New York, my coursework this semester continues to be incredibly applicable.

Consulting Lab: Branding and Innovation offers a real-world experience working directly with Mastercard on a brand consulting project, applying strategic frameworks to solve tangible business challenges.
Technology Innovation Strategy, taught by an adjunct professor from Meta Reality Labs, provides an inside look at how emerging technologies such as AI, AR, and VR are influencing corporate strategy.
Developing Managerial Skills, taught by New York Times best-selling author Suzy Welch, takes a highly practical approach to leadership, focusing on how to be a more effective and authentic manager.
DevOps and Agile Methodologies has provided hands-on experience with GitHub, along with practical applications of Agile methodologies and CI/CD pipelines.

Stepping back from the daily grind and exploring potential career paths through hands-on learning has helped me refine my goals and strengthen my resolve to lead marketing teams at breakthrough tech companies. My experience as an NYU Stern Tech MBA has been life-changing and incredibly valuable.

It’s hard to believe I’m already three-fourths of the way through my Tech MBA. While I’m sad to see the program coming to an end, I’m excited to put these new skills into practice.

March 20, 2025April 11, 2025

Experiential Learning at Stern: Where Theory Meets Practice

Author: Hailing from Melbourne, Australia, Emma is currently pursuing the Andre Koo Technology and Entrepreneurship MBA at NYU Stern. Before Stern, she earned a Juris Doctor and a Bachelor of Arts in Politics and History, which led her to a career spanning law, startups, and venture capital. At Stern, Emma is actively involved in the Private Equity & Venture Capital Club and also serves as the captain of the Women’s Touch Rugby Team.

Emma Ferguson Headshot

The Power of Hands-On Business Education

As someone who “learns by doing”, I didn’t want to move halfway across the world for an MBA program only to be sitting in a lecture theatre all day. I wanted more than just case studies and hypothetical simulations. Thankfully, NYU Stern’s emphasis on experiential learning has really delivered. Since starting the Tech MBA Program in May, I have had the opportunity to undertake a number of immersive classes where I’ve worked with real clients on real business problems. This hands-on experience has been incredibly beneficial, reinforcing academic knowledge in practice, while also helping me develop new skills and build a professional network in a new city.

What is Experiential Learning at Stern?

Experiential learning goes beyond traditional classroom instruction and allows students to apply their knowledge to real-world business challenges. Through project-based classes, students work in teams directly with top companies and startups to tackle genuine business problems. This allows us to dive deep into specific industries, immersing ourselves in environments where we can truly understand and appreciate what working in that industry or company is really like whilst also adding value back to the business. One of the key benefits of experiential learning at Stern is the chance to work with iconic brands such as Adobe, Nespresso and WarnerMedia.

NYU Tech MBA – Experiential Core Classes

Two of the core classes in the Tech MBA program are experiential courses that place students within businesses in the technology sector.

Over the summer, we undertook the NYC Immersion course which focuses on startups, allowing students to work directly with emerging businesses. Here, I had the opportunity to collaborate alongside four of my peers and work directly with the founder and CEO of Intelizen – a Series A stage startup that provides an AI-powered solution to streamline contract and document management for businesses. As a lawyer in a past life, Intelizen’s use case resonated strongly with me. For 3 months over summer, I worked closely with my team and the founder to refine the customer focus and develop go-to-market strategies. We provided our final advice in a presentation to the founder, a key investor of the company and NYU’s interim Dean, JP Eggers.

On the other hand, the Tech Solutions class centered on large and established companies. During the fall semester, we worked with teams from major corporations, such as Target and IBM. My team was paired with Versalie, a division of Kenvue (a recent spin-off from Johnson & Johnson). Our brief was to help Versalie reimagine its Symptom Navigator Survey for users on the website who were navigating their menopause symptoms. This semester long project involved distinct stages of:

Research – turns out menopause is so much more than hot flashes
Ideation – thanks to Miro for making sense of our creative ideas
Building – developing our MVP wireframes in Figma
Testing – nothing like user feedback to keep you humble

At the end of the semester, we presented our recommendations to the Kenvue team. Two of the key client representatives (Kristin Chung and Ben Serbiak) even came into Stern for the meeting which reflected a genuine business meeting rather than a hypothetical presentation to a classroom. We capped it all off with a lovely lunch (thanks Kenvue!) and got to talk about careers and life which made for a great way to connect and finish off the project.

NYU Stern – Experiential Electives

Beyond the core curriculum, NYU Stern offers a variety of electives that embrace the experiential learning model. These courses span different industries and business functions, providing students with a wide choice of hands-on experiences in fields that are relevant to their career interests. These classes include Stern Consulting Corps, Tech and the City, Stern Signature Projects and FinTech Experiential Learning.

In the Fall Semester, I participated in the Branding + Innovation Consulting Lab led by the powerhouse mother-daughter duo Fran Gormley and Ali Taylor (industry titans who are the very top of the branding game). In this class, we had the enviable opportunity to work with EstéeLauder as our client. Our class was split into teams and tasked with leveraging AI to elevate the brand’s presence with younger generations. Over a 12-weeks, we engaged in research and ideation to develop comprehensive insights, strategies and tactics. We were given access to Estée Lauder’s proprietary AI systems, which proved particularly helpful in brainstorming and refining ideas. This project culminated in a pitch to over 20 Estée Lauder executives including the EVP, Enterprise Marketing & Chief Data Officer.

Group of five Stern students in suits — My “Dream Team” for Consulting Labs on the night of the final presentations

Two Stern students presenting in front of Estée Lauder executives — Presenting live to the Estée Lauder executives was slightly nerve racking but a great experience. We even received comments from Jane Lauder (Estée Lauder’s granddaughter)

All in all, the experiential classes have been a highlight of my Stern learning experience and provided me with invaluable opportunities to present strategic solutions to executives, forge meaningful network connections, and gain a firsthand taste of working in new fields

March 17, 2025

Balancing Academics and Life: How Stern Students Thrive

Author: Arjun moved to NYC immediately following undergrad and has been here since (and hopes to be here forever). He has a background in product management and has previously worked as a PM in various flavors – growth, data, and technical. Before joining the Tech MBA class of 2025, Arjun worked at BEES (AB InBev’s digital arm) and prior to that was at IBM. He is passionate about creating delightful and ethical digital user experiences, focusing on data-driven strategies and scalable solutions. Over his 10 months at Stern, Arjun has had the opportunities to consult for a variety of tech firms, spanning pre-seed to publicly traded, visit various tech firms on the West Coast, and squeeze more time out of the day than he ever thought possible.

Arjun Grama Headshot

Can you have it all in a Tech MBA—balancing academics, networking, and personal life? It all depends on how you approach it! As any MBA graduate will tell you, what happens outside the classroom is just as crucial as what happens inside. The challenge is managing it all effectively, and that’s where an Agile mindset comes into play.

Just like in Agile methodology, the MBA experience consists of overlapping epics—broad themes that encompass multiple sprints of intense learning, networking, and personal growth. You set an overall goal, but to succeed, you must adapt, prioritize, and seize incremental value along the way.

Epic 1: Learning Beyond the Classroom

An MBA is fundamentally about two things: acquiring new skills and building relationships. When approached correctly, these two aspects often blend seamlessly.

Learning happens everywhere—not just in the classroom. Stern’s Tech MBA offers a mix of formal and informal learning experiences:

Lunch and Learns by classmates allow us to leverage the cohort’s expertise in a casual setting.
Happy Hours often turn into deep discussions that challenge and refine perspectives, whether about something we’re learning in class, or a random philosophical debate.
Consulting projects and internships provide hands-on experience while fostering collaboration and give you low-risk opportunities to better understand how you work with different people and in various environments.
Life itself is a classroom—from managing stress to prioritizing commitments, every challenge is an opportunity to learn and better your approach to whatever you’re tackling.

To truly gain knowledge, you can’t operate in isolation. The 80/20 rule is key here: rather than striving for perfect grades, focus on extracting key learnings and engaging in discussions that enhance understanding. You can’t gain deep insights from a textbook alone—you need people to dissect and apply ideas with.

A group of Stern students Celebrating Diwali — Celebrating Diwali with the Cohort!

Epic 2: Building a Strong and Supportive Network

Networking in an MBA program isn’t just about coffee chats with alumni or reaching out to industry professionals—it’s about building genuine connections with classmates. Bonding and networking is baked into the very DNA of the program and occurs naturally and quickly, especially during the summer semester when the cohort is in the same classes.

Within the first six weeks of the program, I had already:

Visited a classmate’s childhood home and met their family.
Celebrated multiple birthdays with my cohort.
Gone on a trip with the entire cohort, sharing a house with 15 people.
Hosted classmates at my own family’s home.

While all of these were great fun and created cherished memories, they weren’t just social events; they became the foundation of lifelong friendships and professional bonds. MBA students at Stern look out for each other—whether it’s supporting a startup venture, recommending each other for jobs, or simply covering for each other when life happens.

When I got married in September, my classmates stepped up without hesitation. They scheduled meetings around my availability and even covered my portion of deliverables early in the semester. Later in the term, I had the chance to return the favor. This culture of mutual support is what makes the Stern experience unique.

Epic 3: Prioritization and Avoiding Burnout

The key to thriving in an accelerated MBA program is knowing how to prioritize and when to say no. Overextending is sometimes necessary, but it’s not sustainable for an entire year.

Here’s what works:

Mix personal and professional whenever possible. Example: During our West Coast trek, we visited CloudChef—my cousin’s startup. We got hands-on exposure to their tech, met the founders, and enjoyed a meal cooked by one of our classmates using CloudChef’s platform.
Leverage your calendar, but remain flexible. At this stage, if my calendar told me to walk off a bridge, I’d at least consider it—past me clearly planned this for a reason. But while planning ahead (at least two weeks out) is critical, some of the best experiences are unplanned—like an impromptu board game night or an unexpected invite to lunch with a visiting executive.
Set expectations with friends and family. Giving them access to a simplified version of your calendar can help them understand how busy you are. At the same time, remember that their time is just as valuable as yours, and it’s not on them to track you down. Set realistic expectations and live up to them.

Mini cohort visit

Embracing the Agile Mindset

Just like in Agile, an MBA isn’t about rigidly following a pre-set plan—it’s about constant iteration, reassessment, and adaptation. You start with a vision (earning the degree and advancing your career), but success comes from making continuous progress, embracing change, and leveraging the incredible people around you.

Balancing academics, networking, and personal life isn’t about perfection—it’s about flexibility. With the right mindset, a strong support system, and a willingness to adapt, Sternies don’t just survive the MBA experience—they thrive.