These are the 20 most interesting business courses in the world today

How do you choose which business school is right for you? As an international student, you might start with filtering a few select countries – preferably those with good job prospects and even better industry connections.

Or you might look into rankings – there are many, from Forbes‘ Best Business Schools to the Financial Times‘ MBA Rankings. They have many indicators and figures, from global surveys of employer engagement to the number of research citations and academic reputation.

Still, these can fail to really give you the deep insight you need for one of the biggest decisions of your life. Ideally, you want to get a sense of the nitty-gritty, as if you are sitting in a class at the very business school you’re considering. The stakes are high and after all, fail to prepare and you could be stuck with a course or school that not only drains your finances but wastes a few good years of your life.

If that’s the case, try looking into the Ideas Worth Teaching Awards instead. The awards list the most “exceptional courses” that prepare business students for tackling “society’s largest challenges”, striving to create a “more inclusive, just, and sustainable version of capitalism”.

Congratulations to the winners of the Ideas Worth Teaching Awards who are redefining excellence in business education! https://t.co/kSFVnHjvwK @AspenBizSociety #IWTAwards

— The Aspen Institute (@AspenInstitute) May 8, 2018

According to Quartz, this year’s edition “focused on critical social issues ripped from the headlines —populism, water scarcity and artificial intelligence among them — and illuminate how and why these issues are business issues.”

Most importantly, it honours “curricula that bring to life the promise of meaningful work in business”. This is the crucial bit for prospective students. Nothing tells you what an actual class will be like than the syllabus it entails. Aspen Institute’s award makes things even better by ranking the world’s most ground-breaking 20 into a neat little list just for you.

For example, the College of Business’s Business Ethics: Critical Thinking Through Film  class at Stony Brook University uses films as a clever simulator for the decision-making process within business, just as pilots and astronauts use flight simulators before launching into space.

Meanwhile, at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, the Fault Lines & Foresight (A Primer for Future Worlds) class tackles the issue of the commodification of water, challenging students to use foresight tools to solve other global “fault lines”.

If all these are up your alley, here are the awards’ top 20 most exceptional business courses in the world today for your consideration, in no particular order. (Click through on the course name to get to the syllabus):

Corporate Purpose & Leadership

Course	Lecturer	University
Business Ethics: Critical Thinking Through Film	Jadranka Skorin-Kapov	Stony Brook University
Issues in CSR	Talia Aharoni	Tel-Aviv University
Prospering Over the Long-Term	Tima Bansal	Western University
Reimagining Capitalism: Business and the Big Problems	Rebecca Henderson & George Serafeim	Harvard University
The End of Globalization?	David Bach	Yale University
Why Business?	Matthew T. Phillips, James Otteson & Adam S. Hyde	Wake Forest University

Economy

Course	Lecturer	University
Alternative Economic Models	Sandrine Stervinou	Audencia Business School
Economic Growth, Technology, and Structural Change	Peter Kriesler	University of New South Wales
Economic Inequality and Social Mobility	James R Freeland & R Edward Freeman	University of Virginia
Impact Investing and Social Finance	C Sara L Minard,	Northeastern University
Peer to Peer Economies	Melissa L Bradley	Georgetown University
Urban and Regional Economics	Jaime Luque	University of Wisconsin-Madison

Employment & Social Sustainability

Course	Lecturer	University
Human Capital Sustainability	Patrick P McHugh	George Washington University
Intrapreneurship: Leading Social Innovation in Organizations	Gerald F Davis & Chris White	University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
Management of Services: Concepts, Design, and Delivery	Zeynep Ton	Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Technological Change at Work	Adam Seth Litwin	Cornell University

Environmental Sustainability

Course	Lecturer	University
Fault Lines and Foresight	Regina M Abrami	University of Pennsylvania
Sustainability & Environmental Accounting	Dror Etzion	McGill University
Sustainability Tools & Processes for New Initiatives	Robert Sroufe	Duquesne University
Sustainable Business In Iceland	Andrew J Hoffman	University of Michigan-Ann Arbor

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