The faculty-led MBA Global Business Treks are an opportunity for students to expand their global mindset and global business savvy while immersed in an international context.
While traveling abroad with a professor, students visit companies to enhance their business acumen and apply their knowledge and skills to solve a cross-border, cross-cultural business challenge. Students choose courses based on opportunities to develop expertise in their area of interest and based on the opportunity to network with colleagues, faculty, and international company executives in their field.
Course Objectives:
- Develop a “global mindset,” an openness to and awareness of diversity across cultures and markets, with an ability to see common patterns.
- Sharpen your “global business savvy” by gaining substantive knowledge of business organizations and the institutions in a given country, region, or industry as well as the capacity to contextualize this knowledge in a comparative perspective.
- Gain career skills by working for an extended period of time to investigate and respond to an authentic, engaging, and complex challenge.
- Network with colleagues, faculty, alumni, and international company executives in your field of interest, while enhancing your cultural knowledge.
The location of the field experiences may change annually.
Information Session: Friday, March 13 from 12-1 p.m.
- Hear directly from faculty about the upcoming MBA Global Treks in Brazil, the UAE (Dubai and Abu Dhabi) and Asia (Malaysia and Singapore). This information session reviews how the Global Business Treks work, costs, scholarship opportunities, registration, and program-specific information.
- Fall registration will open on Tuesday, March 24 at 12:30 p.m.
AY 2026-27 Portfolio
Dates Subject to Change
Fall-Spring Program Information (4* credit course)
2 credits, Fall Term B and 2 credits, Spring Term C (non-repeatable)
Cost for Fall: 2 credits of Tuition + $3,175 program fee + $700 Education Abroad Fee + $39 Health Insurance Fee
Cost for Spring: 2 credits of Tuition
- BUSM788B Section GX01 Brazil: The Role of the Private Sector in Addressing Grand Challenges, 4 credits
- Faculty: Paulo Prochno
- Locations: Sao Paulo, Brazil and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
- Focus: Private Sector and Grand Global Challenges
- Tentative Travel Dates: January 9 - January 17, 2027 (subject to change)
- BUSM788M Section GX01 Lessons in Customer Experience Design in the UAE, 4 credits
- Faculty: Judy Frels
- Locations: Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah, UAE
- Focus: Hospitality and Retail
- Tentative Travel Dates: January 15 - January 23, 2027 (subject to change)
- BUSM788W Section GX01 Doing Business in Asia: Innovation and Entrepreneurship Across Asia, 4 credits
- Faculty: Zhi-Long Chen
- Locations: Chiang Mai, Thailand and Singapore
- Focus: Supply-chain management in Asia
- Tentative Travel Dates: January 9 - January 17, 2027 (subject to change)
Scholarships/Stipend - Applications to open in the Fall
Logistical liaisons (1/program) - $1,800 each (TBD)
Title VI CIBE Scholarship - $1,000 each (TBD)
Questions?
Email smithglobal@umd.edu