This summer, the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania took an important step toward the future of business education with the launch of Wharton Academy.
The two-week residential Academy, during which students live on Wharton’s Philadelphia campus, serves an education niche for visiting undergraduate students and recent graduates from various backgrounds and majors, notes Serguei Netessine, Wharton’s senior vice dean for innovation and global initiatives and the Dhirubhai Ambani professor of entrepreneurship and innovation.
“Wharton Academy is for students who are currently enrolled in an undergraduate program and are looking for ways to experience the best business school in the world, or maybe they have already graduated and are hoping to upskill or reskill,” says Netessine, who led the creation of Academy with Eli Lesser, Wharton’s senior executive director of innovation and global initiatives.
It is a new way to learn in person at the Wharton School, adds Lesser, noting that students earn a Wharton certificate of completion with a digital version. “The opportunity to combine an existing undergraduate degree with skill-based credentials from Wharton will give these young people a chance not only to differentiate themselves in a competitive career marketplace but also to acquire skills and knowledge that will equip them to be today’s business leaders,” he says.
Lesser emphasizes the Academy goal of making Wharton content and learning accessible to a wider range of students, beyond those admitted to the Wharton School: “The mission of Wharton Academy is guided by Dean Erika James’s Wharton Way strategic plan to deliver a Wharton business education to more people as a way of driving greater influence and progress in the world.”
Summer 2024 Finance Program
Wharton Academy piloted its first two-week program, Fundamentals of Corporate Finance and Valuation, from June 10 to June 21, 2024. Led by Wharton finance professor Michael Roberts, the initial cohort of 25 students explored the core concepts of finance, including company financial statement analysis, inflation, interest rates and business decision-making, financial modeling, capital structure, company valuation, private equity and mergers and acquisitions. A second cohort of nearly 40 students attended the Wharton Academy from July 9 to July 19.
During the finance program, case studies and real-world examples help to put lecture theory into practice, culminating in a capstone group project assessing the accuracy of company valuations. The approach models the framework of a Wharton class, incorporating case studies, tools, and the application of those tools. The program also features workshops, panel discussions with industry experts, and ongoing group activities.
“The Wharton Academy students are getting something unique and, I believe, very valuable,” observes Roberts, who designed the curriculum that delivers key finance fundamentals. “They are getting a two-week executive education program that distills many of the essentials of two Wharton courses: Core Finance and Corporate Valuation. The material and delivery are such that students can leave the program not only with new knowledge and skills, but also with increased confidence because they have applied the knowledge and skills to practical applications and case studies throughout their experience.”
How Wharton Academy is Growing New Community Roots
Roberts felt a “real sense of community” among the first summer 2024 classes of Wharton Academy students, whom he describes as “intelligent and engaged.” The cohorts, which were recruited from Wharton partner institutions and programs, represented 11 countries and 20 higher-ed institutions.
Many of Wharton Academies’ inaugural students have since praised their two weeks of immersive learning as “exceptional,” broadcasting their Wharton campus highlights on social media and displaying their digital certificates. Their reflections have confirmed a core Wharton Academy value: a significant part of the learning – in addition to the academics — comes from the people you are with and the relationships you cultivate. “Not only did I get to dip my toes into the world of high finance, but I also gained a community of individuals who provided me with new perspectives,” said Veronica Rubio, a student at the University of Miami, on LinkedIn.
Anika Rao Thakkar, 19 and a sophomore at Cornell University’s Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, enrolled in the first Wharton Academy class. She was eager to spend at least part of her summer getting hands-on experience in finance, ideally in a smaller-group learning environment.
“I have only had introductory finance courses at Cornell and thought it would be helpful to go more in-depth into financial topics,” says Thakkar. “The content was both challenging and engaging. Professor Roberts was able to dissect the harder financial topics and make them very accessible and digestible for all of us.” Among her favorite lessons was a mergers and acquisitions case study involving luxury goods companies LVMH and Tiffany, her first exposure to the world of M&A.
“It was really nice to be on a different campus and to immerse myself in the material,” adds Thakkar. “I still talk to many of the students from Wharton Academy; we became close living on campus together. It was cool to meet people from different universities and to hear about their experiences and their processes recruiting for internships. I learned so much from them and feel like I have developed a network for life.”
For the Love of Learning
Wharton Academy is meeting a market need for in-person, skills-based training, suggests Lena Elguindi, director of partnership programs for Wharton Academy.
“The more we can expose students to different learning styles and content, the more competitive they’ll be in the job market,” she says, adding that she believes this summer’s students began to think differently about higher education. “Whether you’re already studying finance or majoring in English, you can explore finance concepts in a new way. There are no grades or quizzes. You are learning for the love of learning. Many of our students expressed that this was a refreshing approach to higher education.”
Elguindi and her team are working to expand Wharton Academy beyond the initial finance focus, with plans to offer one-week programs in January 2025 while undergrads are on winter break. Those programs include AI for Business and Society with Wharton’s Sonny Tambe, an associate professor of operations, information and decisions, and Personal Finance and Valuation with Michael Roberts. The application process for January classes launched on September 5, 2024 and runs through November 15. Applicants can submit by the October 15 priority deadline to hear back sooner on November 1.
In addition to the signature finance course, the roster of summer programs, beginning in early June 2025, will include a social entrepreneurship class taught by Tyler Wry, a Wharton associate professor of management. Summer Academy applications open on November 1.
“While the team anticipates strong demand, the program is not eyeing expansion simply for the big numbers,” cautions Elguindi. “We want to carefully manage the growth of Wharton Academy to ensure the quality and tone of the programs align with Wharton’s values,” she notes. “This is an important program to show that Wharton can be for everyone in a variety of ways. We are one impactful stop on the journey of a lifelong learner.”
Send questions to the Wharton Academy team at AcademyPrograms@wharton.upenn.edu.
– Diana Drake
Posted: September 10, 2024
