Stanford Business magazine

Stanford Offers Joint Degree in Business and Environmental-Resource Issues

During his time at Stanford, David Mount, MBA/MS ’08, (at left) spent his share of hours in Business School classes learning how to run a business. But he also tested the efficiency of solar panels and used light meters to measure the efficiency of compact fluorescent vs. incandescent lights.

“I sat in the computer lab on Thursday nights doing problem sets with classmates,” he said.

This shift from “very high-level strategic thinking” in business classes to “very specific problem-solving” was part of Mount’s joint degree: Along with his MBA, he earned an MS in environment and resources.

The joint degree program, which was approved in 2007, allows MBA students to apply during their first year to complete a joint MS/MBA degree in collaboration with the Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources, or E-IPER.

Once accepted, students continue their MBA courses and simultaneously take classes toward the MS. Typically students take two years plus two or three additional quarters to complete both degrees, which are awarded simultaneously because it is a joint degree program.

The Emmett program in the School of Earth Sciences has offered doctoral degrees since 2001, and it also offers joint degrees with the Law School and the School of Medicine.

Students in the joint degree program design their own course of study, choosing classes from a range of departments, said Helen J. Doyle, associate director of the program. Faculty advisors guide them, and the students also help one another. The program has about 70 affiliated faculty members from all 7 schools at Stanford.

“It’s so daunting to say, ‘What classes at Stanford should I take for my areas of interest?’” said Emma Wendt, (at right) an MBA/MS ’09. Because her focus is on green building and energy efficiency, she took most of her classes in civil and environmental engineering.

In the first two years of the joint degree program’s existence, 10 students from the Graduate School of Business have enrolled, and 18 have been accepted for Fall 2009. Once there, they find themselves moving between very different worlds.

“Engineers think totally differently about problems,” Wendt said. For example, when engineers talk about “efficiency,” they mean energy. At the Business School, a discussion about “efficiency” would likely focus on finances.

“That’s what I really enjoy about the program: that I get to play in these two different worlds,” Wendt said. “In my engineering classes, I’m the business guru. In the Business School, I’m the environmental science expert.”

Aldo King (at right), in the MBA/MS ’09, took a class on energy-efficient building in which he had to make a model of a house and estimate its energy use. This “very practical, hands-on” knowledge is a step toward his career goal of working in real estate development with a focus on green building. It’s just one example of how graduates hope to combine business knowledge with technical expertise.

Wendt is interested in “the intersection of policy and business” and is now working for Pacific Gas & Electric on renewable and clean energy within the energy procurement department.

Mount has used the knowledge he gained by earning his degrees in his work as a member of the green tech investing team at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. For his MS degree, he focused on the fundamentals of how energy works.

“I thought I would become a better investor or a better manager in the energy world if I had a better fundamental understanding of energy processes,” he said. Now, “I know enough to be able to comfortably ask questions when I see new things come around.”  — Margaret Steen

Photos by Saul Bromberger/Sandra Hoover