Many MBA applicants feel that they are purchasing a brand, 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 Arnold Barnett from the MIT Sloan School of Management.
MIT Sloan’s George Eastman Professor of Management Science, Arnold “Arnie” Barnett (“Communicating with Data”), is an expert in applied mathematical modeling with a focus on problems related to health and safety, and he is widely considered one of the nation’s leading experts on aviation safety. According to students we interviewed, he is known at Sloan for being able to make statistics not just comprehensible, but fascinating and even funny. Sometimes, according to an April 2012 MIT Sloan Students Speak blog post, he even dresses in vibrant and colorful outfits to help get his point across. For example, when teaching about a California court case, Barnett wore a Hawaiian style shirt to make the statistical aspects of the case more “real” to students. Despite what some might consider the somewhat dry nature of his subject matter, Barnett has been honored by Sloan students with teaching awards no less than ten times, including the Teacher of the Year Award in 1995 and 2008. One second-year student we interviewed noted in particular “his humorous approach in examining the world.”
For more information about the MIT Sloan School of Management and 15 other top-ranked MBA schools, check out the mbaMission Insider’s Guides.
