Academic Challenges

Each year student teams spend several days working on simulated cases for corporate-sponsored academic challenges. The teams make presentations to executives, who select winners and offer industry-specific feedback.

Challenges include:

• Consulting Challenge
• Finance Challenge
• Marketing Challenge
• Tech/Operations Challenge
• Global Business Challenge
• National Real Estate Challenge
• National Energy Finance Challenge

Investment Funds

MBA Investment Fund

The MBA Investment Fund, L.L.C. is the first legally constituted, private investment company to be managed by students. The Fund is a limited liability company registered under the laws of the State of Texas. It was created in 1994 to enable MBA students at McCombs to obtain real world experience in the process of managing investment portfolios and in developing relationships with clients. The Fund has about 60 investors and $13.5 million under management in three different investment products: a growth-oriented equity portfolio and a value-oriented equity portfolio, which are managed for individual and institutional clients, and an endowment portfolio, which supports the activities of the AIM Investment Center.

Visit the MBA Investment Fund website.

REIT Fund

The McCombs Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) Fund is a student-managed investment fund based on the MBA Investment Fund but distinct in that it invests solely in U.S.-based REITs. MBA students with the help of undergraduates in the Business Honors Program who act as the MBA’s "analysts," will value pairs of REITs in an industry sector (e.g. office, retail, industrial, etc.). Following this analysis, the students present their findings and resulting recommendation to how the Fund should invest. The REIT Fund offers students a unique opportunity to learn principles of investing, the nuances of REIT structure and operations, as well as a further education into the fundamentals that drive real estate investing. The REIT Fund is lead by Professor Greg Hallman and Professor Sheridan Titman, both highly regarded professors in the MBA program.

CCIMS Marketing Fellows

With the avid support of the Marketing Department and the Center for Customer Insights and Marketing Solutions (CCIMS), students from the class of 2009 founded the CCIMS Marketing Fellows program in the fall 2008. The objective is to give selected students the opportunity to go beyond the typical marketing curriculum with a tailored curriculum and concurrent consulting projects. The program is student led and managed with support from the CCIMS and Marketing faculty.

Visit the Marketing Fellows website.

Sigma Fellows

The Sigma Fellows program provides select MBA students who are committed to pursuing leadership in the functional areas of Operations, Supply Chain, and/or Information Management the opportunity to develop their management and leadership skills through a comprehensive integrated learning opportunity. This is achieved through a combination of focused classroom discussions and consulting projects to develop a better understanding of real-world challenges and enhance the Texas MBA experience within the three Sigma disciplines.

The program is ideal for anyone focusing in consulting, operations, supply chain, information management, business analytics, project management, process re-engineering and/or general management.

Visit the Sigma Fellows website for more information.

Texas Venture Labs

Launched in 2010, Texas Venture Labs is a campus-wide initiative making it easier for student entrepreneurs to start businesses by providing a faster, step-by-step method to bring their innovations to market. Venture Labs directly links students to the appropriate entrepreneurial, business, technology and legal resources available both on the campus and in the Texas entrepreneurial eco-system while providing the mentoring, team-building, market and business plan validation, technology commercialization and domain knowledge needed to start and grow innovative ventures.
http://www.texasventurelabs.net

Venture Labs Investment Competition

The Venture Labs Investment Competition, formerly known as Moot Corp, creates an environment in which the world's entrepreneurially minded MBAs solicit startup funds from experienced investors in a simulation mirroring the real-world process of raising venture capital. MBAs from around the globe converge in Austin each May to present their business plans to panels of investors, demonstrating diverse and creative perspectives on business and society. In May 2010 40 teams from 12 countries competed in the event.

Founded as Moot Corp in 1984, this investment competition is both the first and longest operating, inter-businessschool, new-venture competition in the world. The competition's winners earn $100,000 in seed funding as well as a year's office space and overhead costs in the Austin Technology Incubator. About half of each year's teams actually go on to start companies based on their ideas.

Venture Fellows

Formed in the fall of 1999 by James Walbom, MBA ’01, the Venture Fellows program is an organization that offers entrepreneurial MBA students the opportunity to gain real world experience with local venture capital firms through an internship program and a unique venture capital–focused curriculum.

Venture Fellows is not a student club, but rather an organization outside of the MBA program founded and managed by MBAs and funded by outside sponsors. In essence, the VF program is its own startup business—a startup that continues to refine its business model and build on the momentum gained in the prior years. The program develops leaders in the field by offering select students the chance to work with venture capital luminaries. Upon being selected for the Venture Fellows program, each of the ~20 students is connected with a venture capital firm, private equity fund or portfolio company for a semester-long internship that allows them to contribute to an organization while earning degree credit.

Learn more at http://www.venturefellows.org.

Washington Campus

The Washington Campus Consortium Seminar, “Understanding Washington: Business and the Public Policy Process for MBA Students,” is a week-long intensive seminar that addresses the intersection between political economy and business strategy.

The Washington Campus is a consortium of the McCombs School at UT Austin and 16 other nationally prominent business schools in a nonpartisan, not-for-profit organization committed to educating business executives on the public policy process. All lecturers are guest speakers drawn from the highest ranks of government (such as members of Congress and current and former Executive Branch officials), the media, business and academia.

Each fall and spring, students from member schools are selected to attend one of the consortium seminars. Students come away with valuable political insights and knowledge about the inner workings of the public policy process. The curriculum consists of topics such as: “Policy Development in the Executive Branch,” “Congress and the Legislative Process,” “The Formation of Economic Policy,” “Government Regulation,” and “Business Strategy and Comparative Political Studies.” Classes meet Sunday through Friday and consist of lectures, class discussion and guest speakers. There are also field trips to Capitol Hill and executive branch departments and agencies.

Prerequisites

Current enrollment in the Texas MBA Program and successful completion of the first MBA year (30 hours). Participants must be in good academic standing with a minimum cumulative UT MBA GPA of 3.0.

How to Apply

Complete and submit the UT application. Applications are available in the MBA Program Office, CBA 2.502. Please note that each seminar has its own UT application deadline (see below). Selection is based on three essays, UT MBA academic performance and resume. If you are selected by UT, you will then be provided with Washington Campus payment and registration information. Please note that the January seminar is restricted to current 2nd Year MBA students. May and June seminars are only available to 1st year MBA students.

UT Application Deadlines

Applications for the January and March seminars will be available in early October 2011 (note: the January session is restricted to 2nd year students)

Program Expenses

$1300 tuition + $350 activities fee. Tuition and fees are payable to the Washington Campus. Housing, meals and transportation costs are not included in the tuition fee. Students are responsible for making their own accommodation arrangements once they are selected for the Washington Campus Program. Students do not incur any costs to The University of Texas at Austin.

Course Credit

Three hours of “waived elective credit” will be awarded upon successful completion of the program, which is defined as a B average across the program, as demonstrated on the required project and final examination given at the close of the program. 

2012 Program Dates

January 9-13
March 12-16
May 14-18
June 11-15

For more information contact:
Chris Johnson
512-471-7608