MBA Skills for Today’s Workplace: Inside UMass Global’s MBA

The need for business and financial professionals continues to grow. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that employment in business and financial occupations will grow faster than the average for all occupations from 2025 to 2035. GMAC also reports that more than one-third of global employers expect to expand hiring of MBA talent in 2026. 

If you are considering an MBA, you may be asking practical questions: What will I learn? How will the coursework apply to my job? Can I earn the degree while managing work, family, and other responsibilities?

For professionals who want to build management, analytical, and leadership skills without stepping away from their careers, an online MBA can offer a practical way to move forward. In this Q&A, University of Massachusetts Global faculty explain what students learn in an MBA program, how they can apply coursework at work, and how UMass Global’s revised MBA is designed to support you.

What’s new in UMass Global's revised online MBA?

UMass Global updated its online MBA to create a more focused program for working professionals and students with busy schedules. The curriculum is designed to be rigorous, career-relevant, and efficient.

1. A curriculum mapped to business education standards

The revised MBA is mapped to ACBSP standards as it moves along its path to accreditation. This work helps guide the program’s curriculum, learning outcomes, and approach to continuous improvement.

2. Projects connected to your career goals

MBA projects are designed to connect with a student’s current job or future career goals. Instead of completing assignments only for a grade, students can use course concepts to examine workplace challenges, assess options, and make recommendations.

3. A 30-credit MBA

The revised MBA requires 30 credits, down from 36 credits. This structure can help students complete their degree sooner while reducing the number of credits they need to pay for.

4. Five digital badges built into the degree

Students can earn five digital badges as part of the MBA program. The badges are included in the degree pathway, so students do not need to take additional courses, pay additional fees, or add time to their program to earn them.

The badges are designed to show progress in specific skill areas before degree completion:

• Strategic Leadership and Business Execution
• Financial Decision-Making
• Data-Driven Business Analytics
• Organizational Leadership and Workforce Dynamics
• Innovation, Marketing, and Growth Strategy

Micro-credentials may help employers understand the skills a candidate has developed. In Coursera’s 2025 Micro-Credentials Impact Report, 96% of surveyed employers agreed that micro-credentials strengthen a candidate’s job application, and 90% said the skills gained through micro-credentials are immediately applicable on the job. 

5. Flexible online learning options

The MBA offers two online learning modalities using the same curriculum: instructor-led and self-paced. This structure gives students options when their schedules, work demands, or preferred learning approach changes. Whether students want more defined course deadlines or greater flexibility in moving through coursework, they can choose the modality that fits their needs at that point in the program.

What do you learn in an MBA program?

MBA programs provide a broad view of how organizations work and how different areas of business connect and reinforce one another. Online MBA courses include areas such as leadership, finance, accounting, marketing, operations, strategy, human resource management, and organizational behavior. The value of an MBA is not simply learning each discipline separately, but about learning to see the organization as a whole system and understanding how a decision in one area can affect overall organizational performance. 

“In our MBA program, we place particular emphasis on moving from knowledge to application. Students are not learning business concepts simply to remember them for an exam. They are asked to analyze situations, evaluate alternatives, solve problems, and make recommendations, which will help them develop workforce-relevant skills. Our goal is to nurture in our students the ability to take what they learn and use it to make better business decisions.”

— Dr. Evelina Atanassova, Associate Professor of Business Administration, Human Resources and Leadership 

That applied approach can be especially valuable for working professionals. Many MBA students already bring professional and life experience to the classroom. As they encounter new concepts, they can connect them to an existing challenge, a team dynamic, a business process, a customer need, or a strategic initiative in their own organization.

“Ultimately, an MBA should change not only what you know about business but also how you think about it. Students begin to move beyond looking at individual tasks or their functional areas of expertise and develop a broader, more strategic understanding of organizations, their people, their customers, and the environments in which they operate.”

— Dr. Evelina Atanassova 

Faculty Q&A: building MBA skills for work and career growth

What skills do MBA students build?

MBA students build a combination of analytical, strategic, leadership, communication, and collaborative skills. They learn to work with information and data, assess business problems, manage competing priorities, communicate recommendations, and make decisions even when there is no single obvious or perfect answer.

“I think one of the most important skills students develop is critical thinking. Business leaders rarely face a problem with all the information neatly organized and a single correct solution waiting to be discovered. They must determine what matters, ask the right questions, evaluate evidence, recognize tradeoffs, and make a defensible decision.”

— Dr. Evelina Atanassova 

How do MBA courses apply to real workplace challenges?

The strongest MBA learning often occurs when students connect a course concept to a problem they recognize in their work. 

• A finance course can help a student think differently about allocating limited resources. 
• Marketing coursework can strengthen how they evaluate customer needs and target markets. 
• Operations courses can help them examine processes, quality, capacity, and efficiency. 
• Leadership coursework can help them navigate motivation, team dynamics, and organizational change.

“For experienced professionals, this approach creates an interesting learning cycle. They bring their workplace experiences into the classroom, examine those experiences through new theories and frameworks, exchange ideas with their peers and faculty, and then take that new perspective back into the workplace. The learning, therefore, moves in both directions. This is also why an online MBA can work particularly well for adult students. They do not necessarily have to wait until graduation to benefit from what they are learning. When coursework is intentionally designed around authentic business problems, students can begin applying concepts in their current roles while still completing the program.”

— Dr. Evelina Atanassova 

“UMass Global’s MBA curriculum is designed around practical application rather than theory alone. Throughout the program, you’ll analyze real organizational challenges, evaluate business data, develop strategic solutions, and create implementation plans that reflect the types of decisions leaders make every day.”

— Dr. Rick Mask, Associate Professor of Project & Operations Management 

How does this MBA support working professionals?

UMass Global’s MBA is designed with working professionals in mind. 

“Flexible online learning allows you to balance your education with career, family, and personal commitments while maintaining consistent progress toward your degree. Courses emphasize practical, career-relevant projects that can often be applied directly to your workplace, without putting your professional life on hold.”

— Dr. Rick Mask 

What careers can an MBA help prepare me for?

An MBA prepares graduates for leadership and management opportunities across a wide range of industries. Depending on your experience, interests, professional background, and career goals, MBA graduates may pursue or advance in roles such as: 

• Operations manager
• Project manager
• Business consultant
• Marketing manager
• Financial manager
• Human resources leader
• Supply chain manager
• Business analyst
• Director
• Executive leader

“Beyond preparing you for specific positions, an MBA develops the strategic leadership, analytical thinking, and decision-making skills needed to lead organizations through growth, innovation, and change.”

— Dr. Rick Mask 

Advance your career with an online MBA

An MBA can help you deepen your understanding of business, communicate more effectively, use data to guide decisions, lead through change, and connect daily work to larger organizational goals. UMass Global’s revised MBA pairs those outcomes with a focused 30-credit format, embedded digital badges, project-based learning, and flexible online modalities designed for working adults.

Ready to explore the program? Learn more about the online Master of Business Administration degree at UMass Global or contact an enrollment coach at (800) 746-0082 to discuss your educational and career goals.