Global immersions enhance Kelley Direct Online MBA experience

Each term, students from our No. 1-ranked Kelley Direct Online MBA program can travel internationally to study a country’s business culture or consult with real clients through KD global immersions.

With each experience, Kelley Direct students connect with classmates and faculty, creating a network to rely on throughout their careers. Global immersions are one of the highlights of a student’s KD experience. 

This winter’s immersion in Guatemala was designed to provide a transformative cultural business learning experience through students conducting a consulting engagement with Ecofiltro, a social enterprise in Antigua. The project was to help Ecofiltro determine how to penetrate the rural Guatemalan market to provide clean water to 1 million families in rural areas by 2025. 

During the course, students met virtually to learn about Guatemalan culture, international business, consulting and strategy frameworks, and project management. Students engaged with the client and began project work: building team charters, defining project scope, and providing an in-country plan.

Once in-country, the 27 students divided into six teams, continued working with the client for three days and followed up with a final recommendation on day four. At the end of the program, one team’s recommendation was chosen and will be implemented by the company. 

In the spring, 34 KD students traveled to Singapore to explore a country that has risen from a small unknown enclave of Malaysia to a mighty independent island nation that now hails as the third most significant financial hub in the world.

The course and in-country immersion was a masterclass in networking with Kelley’s many alumni leaders there, while learning and gaining insight into what has made Singapore so successful. Many thanks to those who hosted students during this transformative experience. In the coming months, KD students will travel to Switzerland and Greece.  

In the next Kelley Global newsletter, we will highlight more exciting global programs at Kelley in the Graduate Accounting and MS in Information Systems programs.