B-Schools Finally Acknowledge: Companies Want MBAs Who Can Code

Companies want to hire technically skilled MBAs, and business schools are finally starting to get it. MBA programs equip students with management techniques, accounting skills, and increasingly, entrepreneurship chops. Some top programs, however, believe MBA should learn to code.

Harvard Business School is planning to offer a computer programming elective within a couple of years, says Paul Gompers, who chairs the MBA elective curriculum. Students have formed coding clubs, and dozens go “across the river” to take the introductory computer science class at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass. But professors need to tailor a course specifically to business students in Boston, says Gompers.