PhD Program: Academics

Program of Study

The PhD Program at the Simon Graduate School of Business is designed to equip students with the necessary analytical skills to carry out high-quality teaching and research in various fields of management. The most common fields for major are Accounting, Competitive and Organizational Strategy, Finance, Marketing, Computers and Information Systems, and Operations Management. Regardless of the major, all students start with the first year, called the core, building a firm foundation of mathematics, statistics, and economics. While the majority of the courses are taken in common by all the incoming students, there is some specialization. This specialization becomes more intense in the second year when the students concentrate on their major and minor fields of study. The common major and minor combinations are shown in the table below.

Major Field	Minor Field
Accounting	Finance Competitive and Organizational Strategy
Competitive and Organizational Strategy	Accounting Applied Statistics Finance Macroeconomics
Computers and Information Systems	Applied Economics Management Science Operations Management
Finance	Accounting Applied Statistics Competitive and Organizational Strategy Macroeconomics
Marketing	Applied Statistics Competitive and Organizational Strategy
Operations Management	Applied Economics Computers and Information Systems Management Science

The other thrust of the training is to provide the students with a considerable breadth of experience in relevant, related fields. For this reason, students are required take courses from areas other than their minor and major. This is usually done in second and later years.