Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management

The history of Tsinghua SEM dates back to 1926, when Tsinghua University established its Faculty of Economics. In 1956, when the Chinese government decided to regroup higher education institutions in an attempt to build a Soviet-style education system, the Faculty of Economics was separated from Tsinghua and merged into other universities.

In 1979, with the Chinese economic reform taking place, Tsinghua University began setting up a new School of Economics and Management Engineering. The School of Economics and Management was officially established in 1984, with Zhu Rongji serving as the first dean.

There are 8 majors within SEM, namely: management science and engineering, finance, economics, accounting, corporation strategy and policy, marketing, human resources management, and technology economics and management.

The school also operates a number of prominent research centers, including: the Research Center for Contemporary Management, the Research Center for Technological Innovation, the National Entrepreneurship Research Center, the China Center for Financial Research, the National Center for Economic Research, the China Retail Research Center, the China Business Research Center, the Center for China in the World Economy, the Research Center for Contemporary Management and Technological Innovation, and the China Insurance and Risk Management Research Center.

Since 2006, Tsinghua SEM has been recruiting faculty from reputable Ph.D. programs around the world. A majority of new faculty members have international educational backgrounds, representing such alma maters and prior faculty assignments as Harvard, Yale, Wharton (University of Pennsylvania), MIT Sloan, and Stanford.

Tsinghua SEM's undergraduate program is known in mainland China as one of the two most competitive undergraduate business programs (the other being the undergraduate program in Guanghua School of Management of Peking University). More than half of the students admitted to Tsinghua SEM rank in the top 10 in their respective provinces on the National Higher Education Entrance Examination (also known as the Gaokao).

The Tsinghua-MIT Global MBA is a two-year, full-time MBA program born out of a collaboration between Tsinghua University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).[12] Tsinghua has partnered with MIT since 1996 and first established the International MBA (IMBA) program in 1997.[13]

In 2007, the MIT-Tsinghua China Lab was jointly launched by the Sloan School of Management, Tsinghua SEM, and five other business schools to provide China-focused enterprise management and consulting services.[14]

In 2013, the IMBA program and Tsinghua's Chinese-instructed full-time MBA (FMBA) program were integrated into the Tsinghua-MIT Global MBA (GMBA) program, based primarily on Tsinghua's campus with elective module and dual-degree options on MIT's campus as well as a GMBA-specific seminar series and elective courses from visiting MIT Sloan faculty on Tsinghua's campus.[15] Of the restructure, MIT Sloan Professor S.P. Kothari asserted, "It is not just a renaming, but it actually reflects the world change ... MIT has been collaborating with Tsinghua for 17 years. We have the foresight in predicting that the sun will shine directly on China and we wanted to bask in that sunshine."[16]

The GMBA program now offers global courses and elective modules in cooperation with several other highly ranked universities as well as international teaching resources in both English and Chinese.[17][12] It is particularly visible as an academic collaboration between the United States and China by virtue of frequent lectures and course offerings from prominent executives and business thought leaders.[18][12]

Unlike most Western MBA programs, the Tsinghua-MIT Global MBA (GMBA) program adheres to a thesis (or "graduation case report") requirement for graduating students. In contrast to a fairly rigid first-year curriculum similar to those of many Western MBA programs, the second-year GMBA experience balances a more flexible variety of on-campus elective coursework at Tsinghua, academic exchange stints abroad, work opportunities for domestic and international students, and thesis completion and defense. Upon completion of required courses, students may select from varying curricular tracks such as banking, enterprise innovation, accounting analysis, and international business administration.[13] After two academic years (21 months) of business and leadership education, students obtain a Masters of Business Administration (MBA) degree from Tsinghua University as well as a certificate from the MIT Sloan School of Management and receive MIT Sloan affiliate alumni status. Besides the international orientation, the program aims to immerse students into Chinese language and culture.[19] The GMBA program is distinct from Tsinghua's three-year part-time MBA (PMBA) program, which is open to domestic and international students with Chinese-language skills and is offered on evenings and weekends.[13]

Leading economic and business thought leaders give regular guest lectures, including McKinsey Chairman Dominic Barton, Rio Tinto CEO Tom Albanese, and Walmart President Doug McMillon.[16] During the 2015–16 academic year, elective courses available to first- and second-year GMBA students included one- to two-week module courses delivered by Peter Thiel and Harvard Professor Niall Ferguson. In recent years, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Tim Cook, and other CEOs have given guest lectures and participated in dialogues with GMBA students during the annual advisory board meeting at Tsinghua SEM.[20][21] In 2015, Zuckerberg posted one such lecture, describing it as "my first ever speech in Chinese" and describing Tsinghua SEM as "a great center of innovation."[22]

The Tsinghua-MIT Global MBA program (GMBA) incorporates collaborations across several other globally oriented universities. The GMBA program offers dual-degree opportunities with MIT, HEC Paris, and Columbia University in New York City.[23] By 2013, the GMBA program maintained partnerships with 58 universities in 26 different countries.[13] The program also offers short-term overseas modules at MIT Sloan, Stanford University's Graduate School of Business, and other partner institutions. Visiting faculty and guest professors from both MIT and a variety of other universities come to Tsinghua each year and offer lectures and module courses for GMBA students.[13]