Skip to main content

Year 2: Electives

Explore and deepen your expertise

As a student at Yale SOM, you will learn from faculty advancing the frontiers of knowledge and learn with peers who bring remarkable backgrounds and accomplishments to classroom discussions.

You will tailor your course of study by taking business, management, and leadership courses from SOM and adding as many courses as you choose from other parts of Yale University.

Interests & Industries

As you design your course of study, you'll find unique depth and resources in the following areas:

Preview image for the video "A Multidisciplinary Case Study Explores the Birth of a New Haven Arts Incubator".

Connect with a great university

Expand your range of knowledge and team up with experts across disciplines. The challenges faced by global and ambitious organizations exceed the abilities of any individual. At Yale SOM, we engage closely with our home university, leveraging the expertise of the world’s best scientists and thinkers. That sort of engagement is how you build powerful organizations and accomplish more than any individual can alone.

SOM students who take a class in another Yale department
75%
Yale students in SOM classes
1200+
MBA students pursuing joint degrees
14%

Yennie Lee ’18

Yennie Lee 2018
Strategy/Design and Innovation

“Having worked in a creative field, I had always wanted to learn the craft and skills of visual design, but never had the time or access to learn them properly. I took three semesters of graphic design at Yale School of Art. Taking courses in graphic design helped me understand how utilizing a creative process can yield new insights, discipline, and rigor in my work.”

Selected Electives

Management

Policy Modeling
Strategic Leadership across Sectors
Entrepreneurial Finance

Art

Graphic Design

Sociology

Sociology of Markets

Eve Kordyback ’18

Eve Kordyback 2018
Finance/Sustainability

“I’ve taken electives in capital markets, corporate finance, and financial statement analysis. And then, of course, there are all the cross-listed classes we have at other Yale schools. I’m taking a class called Renewable Energy Project Finance, which is cross-listed with the forestry school. I’m building models every week and I’m learning from a practitioner who has both an environmental perspective as well as deep financial industry knowledge.”

Selected Electives
 

Management

Race and Gender in Corporate Law and Governance
Global Financial Crisis
Interpersonal Dynamics
Behavioral Finance
Creativity and  Innovation

Vance Lewis ’18

Vance Lewis
Consulting/Education

“One of the electives I’m taking is Rethinking and Leading Talent in Public Education, which is about human capital management in schools. I was thrilled to find a course that was almost perfectly aligned with my interest. We take the personnel management learnings from the core and apply them to cases involving very specific, very complex, massive political structures in school districts and charter networks. I’m also taking Urban Poverty and Economic Development, which of course also has a massive educational aspect. A lot of my struggles when I was teaching weren’t education issues but poverty issues. Being able to study the economics and the workforce development that cities rely on to help their populations out of poverty has been fascinating.”


Selected Electives
 

Management

Human Capital Strategy
Supply Chain Management
Strategic Management of Nonprofit Organizations
Ethical Choices in Public Leadership
Twelve Design Ideas that Changed the World

Olivia Shen ’19

Olivia Shen 2019
Finance

“Both the core curriculum and electives I took helped me to better prepare for my summer internship. One of the electives I took, Deals, was taught by a senior banker at Goldman Sachs. In this class I learned how social, regulatory, and political factors could impact the structure and execution of a transaction.”

Selected Electives

Management

Security Analysis & Valuation
Entrepreneurship through Acquisition
Endowment Management
Game Theory and Market Design
Business Ethics

Fei Shen ’18

Fei Shen
Consulting/Marketing

“I’ve really benefited from organizational behavior classes that focus on skills like effective team building. During my internship at L’Oreal, I was assigned a project to help the company gain a better understanding of young consumers born after 1995. We conducted a lot of interviews with people in this age group to learn their customer behaviors. It wasn’t always easy to connect with them. But in my classes, I learned that in order to build trust, I first need to reveal a little about myself. So, I would start by being very open and sharing stories about myself when I was their age... Ultimately, we put together a report that’s going to be very beneficial for L’Oreal in conducting future social marketing activities for these young consumers.”


Selected Electives
 

Management

Corporate Finance
Negotiations
Advanced Customer Analytics
Big Data
Personal Leadership

Gabriel Pinto ’17

Gabriel Pinto
Energy/Sustainability

“One course I’ve really enjoyed is Nonmarket Strategy, at SOM. It looks at how companies interact with today’s very complex societies, where policymakers, regulators, NGOs, and the media play big roles. How do you, as a company, navigate in this environment? Do you lobby? Do you fight? Or do you form partnerships?”

Selected Electives
 

Management

Financing Green Technologies
Economic Strategy for Doing Business in Developing Countries
Advanced Business Analysis with Spreadsheets
Competitive Strategy

Forestry & Environmental Studies

Green Building Intensive