Many MBA applicants feel that they are purchasing a brand when they select a business school, but the educational experience itself is crucial to your future, and no one will affect your education more than your professors. Each Wednesday, we profile a standout professor as identified by students. Today, we profile Kenneth French from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College.
Kenneth French (“Investments”) has published numerous papers in collaboration with the famous Eugene Fama of the Chicago Booth School of Business, who is widely recognized as the “father of modern finance.” French is notable in his own right, however, and was elected to head the American Finance Association in 2007. His popular “Investments” course is a “must take,” according to students we interviewed. “People really enjoy that class,” a second-year student emphasized to mbaMission. In fact, approximately 50% of each class enrolls in the course. Given the demand for the class, students must rank it highly when selecting their electives to have a shot at gaining a spot.
French teaches the course using a lecture format, but a recent graduate explained to mbaMission that French likes to use the Socratic method and challenge student assumptions: “French has a dry sense of humor with some sarcasm, but he is very approachable.” One alumnus told us, “French is a very compelling speaker—probably one of the best at Tuck, and he does a good job of explaining complex material well.” And a second-year student we interviewed remarked, “He has a cutting-edge academic mind in terms of how to look at investments, and his theories are different from what a lot of academics teach.”
For more information about Dartmouth Tuck and 15 other top-ranked MBA schools, check out the mbaMission Insider’s Guides.