Emory Undergraduate Business Administration Degree Approved for STEM Designation

• Emory University's bachelor of business administration (BBA) degree program received a STEM designation.
• That STEM designation comes after the university's Goizueta Business School revamped the BBA curriculum to focus on tech and flexibility.
• A growing number of business schools are incorporating STEM into their curriculum.
• Tech-focused fields like artificial intelligence and data analytics are increasingly important to students and employers alike.

Bachelor of business administration (BBA) graduates at Emory University's Goizueta Business School will receive a science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) designation with their degrees starting next year.

The STEM designation comes after the school revamped its BBA curriculum last year following a lengthy review, according to a press release. Bachelor of business administration degree programs seek to shore up students' foundational skills in a wide range of business areas — but they can also include specializations and incorporate a wide range of disciplines.

"Our new curriculum equips BBA students for an increasingly data-driven world in which the outcomes of business decisions are multifaceted and far-reaching," Andrea Hershatter, Goizueta's senior associate dean of undergraduate education, said in the release.

"It simultaneously helps us build student competencies and addresses their desire to create individualized and customized academic experiences."

That revised curriculum includes built-in flexibility and a focus on data analytics, as well as an "immersive, experiential capstone," bootcamps, and a wide range of concentrations, according to a 2022 release from the school.

"At Goizueta, one of our key strategic priorities is fostering innovation for a data-and-technology-driven world," Goizueta Dean Gareth James said of the new designation.

"We are continuously innovating in our classrooms and research with an eye to the global economy and the skills leaders need now and in the future. Our faculty has always delivered a quantitatively rigorous curriculum, so a degree that qualifies for STEM designation has been a natural progression."

Emory's revamped curriculum — and recent BBA STEM designation — comes amid high demand from students and employers alike for tech skills.

Potential master's students highlighted tech skills, including digital marketing and artificial intelligence, as important to their education in a survey earlier this year. Prospective master of business administration (MBA) students also highlighted tech skills in a separate survey.

Business schools have increasingly sought to incorporate high-demand skills like data analytics and other tech-related disciplines into their curriculum.

The University of North Carolina Wilmington, for example, announced a STEM designation for each of its MBA specializations in August. MBA concentrations can include both traditional focuses like finance and emerging fields like cybersecurity.

Tulane University also revamped its MBA curriculum earlier this year to heavily focus on data and STEM.