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How Many Classes Do I Need to Take to Earn an MBA?

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Getting an from the Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado can help you expand your business knowledge, open doors and build a foundation for your future. Whether you’re going through our or our part-time, , we provide a high-quality, unique learning experience. You may be wondering how many and what types of classes you need to take to earn your MBA, and the MBA length, so we’ll briefly describe our requirements. 

MBA Curriculum Requirements

At the CU Leeds School of Business, we offer a variety of options to enable you to build a program that supports your goals. To earn an MBA, full-time MBA students must take 55 credits and evening MBA students must take 43 credits to complete the program. Each class is 3-4 credits and both programs are designed to complete in two years. The number of MBA hours varies per semester and program. Read more about our requirements.

Our core classes are in economics, accounting, finance, quantitative methods, operations management, corporate social responsibility and corporate strategy. We’ll challenge you to think critically about business issues, ask questions and find strategic solutions.

Our electives classes are in the functional disciplines of finance, marketing, management and systems-operations. We recommend focusing on one of these areas to help you gain specific knowledge and enhance your marketability.

In addition, you can choose to specialize in , or . Finally, you can choose to add graduate classes from other University of Colorado departments to your MBA hours. In some cases, these options can alter your hour requirements or MBA length.

Full-Time vs. Part-time Program Design

Our full-time and part-time programs vary in their structure. With the full-time program, you take more classes consecutively on multiple days throughout the week. In the first year, you take the 31 core curriculum credits which are spread across two semesters (fall and spring) followed by a summer of internship opportunities. The last year (fall and spring), you take the 24 hours of elective courses. See an outline of our full-time .

With the part-time program, you take a smaller number of classes consecutively, two nights a week, year-round, while also working. The program has six semesters with your core classes first followed by your elective classes. See an outline of our .

Unique Opportunities While Getting Your MBA

Getting your at Leeds offers a wealth of unique experiences. One of those is the lock-step design, which means an entire class, or cohort, moves through each of the core classes together. This design keeps students working together and collaborating throughout the school experience, much like you will do in the real world. We’ve found that the group setting results in better student success.

In addition to the classroom, we provide numerous networking opportunities and co-curricular events. We also offer academic advisement, mentoring and academic clubs. For our full-time students, we offer summer internship opportunities.

Going to business school is an opportunity to network and build a foundation for your future career. Learn more about the CU Leeds School of Business program and how we determine the number of .