MBA@American Immersions

Immersions complement online learning by furthering students’ connections and knowledge in a real-world setting.

Connections in Washington, DC

At least one immersion a year will take place in Washington, DC, on American University’s campus. This allows students to explore the unique culture of business in the nation’s capital while immersing themselves in American University’s home city.

Students will have opportunities to visit local companies and network in this international business hub and learn how Washington, DC, organizations are making a global impact through service, business excellence, and community engagement.

Domestic and International Exposure

Immersions enable students to experience different business capitals across the globe. Students will immerse themselves in the local culture and gain an understanding of how their industry fits into the global business ecosystem.

Students can elect to complete an extension after the international immersion for an additional 3 credits. Extensions count as an elective and are a continuation of what students learn in the prior immersion.

Networking Opportunities

Immersions are designed to strengthen students’ connections with their peers during the program and with business professionals who can help students continue to advance their careers long after graduation. During the immersion, students will:

• come face to face with executives at top companies in Washington, DC, and other global business capitals
• interact with their classmates who come from different industries and have unique perspectives
• develop lasting relationships with faculty who have extensive connections in the field and the experience to advise and support students throughout their careers

This course explored negotiation and aspects of global trade in business management in the Chinese context. Students visited local companies, including multinational corporations, transportation and logistics hubs, and other enterprises. The class considered Chinese history to assess the viability of China’s “One Belt, One Road” initiative toward trade collaboration and applied negotiation principles to resulting opportunities.

Company visits and structured meetings with managers, executives, government officials, and experts provided an important experiential element to the study of global business and trade in the nation that will soon surpass the U.S. as the largest global economy.

This immersion offered three tracks for students to choose from:

The Entrepreneurship Track explored starting your own business and the world of start-ups. Students immersed themselves in the thriving Washington, DC, entrepreneurial scene and learned how local companies are continuing to dominate important areas of innovation. Students joined a team of others and created their own company based on the group’s interests, and then pitched their final ideas.

The in-person component included visits to thriving start-ups and meetings with successful entrepreneurs to provide an important experiential element to the study of business in the District. By the end of this course, students were able to better understand how start-ups start and thrive, and how they fail.