SOM educates graduate students to study private, public, and nonprofit organizations. The School is committed to the proposition that understanding how organizations function and the environment in which they operate is critical to this study. To begin with, students get trained in the core underlying disciplines. Following the core, our graduate students are encouraged to pursue their enquiries beyond the boundaries of their "home" disciplines. Intellectual contact with other schools and departments at Yale is encouraged.

Each student develops a program in consultation with the relevant faculty members and the Director of Graduate Studies for the program. During the first two years students normally take four courses each term, gain experience in research, and prepare for the qualifying examination in their chosen areas of concentration. All program requirements except the dissertation must be completed prior to the start of the fourth year of study.

While it is possible for a well-prepared student to complete the program in three years, four to five years of study are more typical. Upon completion of the program, most students elect careers that combine scholarly research with teaching in a university setting.

This program has been designed to enable a student to concentrate in any of a number of traditional or innovative areas of the management process. The format allows informal arrangements to surface in response to diverse faculty and student talents and interests. The flexibility is a central feature of the doctoral program. We expect area studies to evolve and grow as faculty strengths and interests change and grow.