The one-year mid-career program is designed to provide Vietnamese professionals with the knowledge base and the quantitative and analytical tools they need to
become more effective policymakers and managers. Faculty review the curriculum on an on-going basis to ensure that it anticipates and responds to the current
conditions of Vietnam’s economic development. The program is exceptionally challenging and graduates frequently look back on it as the most demanding intellectual
experience of their lives.
The academic year is organized into four terms. The summer term provides students with prerequisites for the entire program: basic computer skills, and
an overview of the fundamental principles of accounting, math, and statistics. Students are also introduced to research techniques and the case method of learning. The fall term
provides conceptual frameworks for analysis, including micro-and macroeconomics, analytical methods, and financial analysis. These courses are tailored to issues and
conditions of particular relevance to Vietnam. Students place economic development within a historical perspective in a course on economic growth models in Asia from 1967 to 1997.
During the four-week winter term students synthesize and connect what they have learned to Vietnam’s economic and cultural context. Classes are
offered on technology and development, international trade, current trends in the economic
development of the region, and emerging issues in globalization.
In the spring term students apply analytical tools mastered in the fall term to specific problems. Courses include project appraisal, development finance,
rural transformation, international trade, public finance, and marketing places. Classroom
learning is supplemented by field trips and intensive use of computer-based resources to access and analyze data.
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