Cohort experiences at the Sawyer Business School concentrate on specific topics each year. In your first three years, you’ll focus on the community, leadership, social responsibility, and experiential learning, all the while forming bonds with your fellow students. Each year’s experience builds on the last, to present more complex challenges, until in your senior year you’ll focus on life-long professional development. 

Freshman Cohort Experience – Experiencing the Suffolk Community

Experiencing the Suffolk community will introduce you to the rich culture and diversity of Boston, beginning with a Boston Duck Tour of the city.  Once you’ve taken the tour, you’ll discuss the business with your peers and use it as a basis of a case study.  Finally, you’ll hear presentations from Boston-area business leaders, and work with a team to make your presentation before some of them.  

Sophomore Cohort Experience – Leadership and Social Responsibility

In your second year, you’ll focus on how organizational ethics creates positive social change. This cohort emphasizes learning outside the classroom and integrates what you’ve learned in your freshman year courses.  You’ll also begin practicing collaborative writing skills and decision making.

Junior Cohort Experience – Group Dynamics and Experiential Learning

As a junior, you’ll take part in an experiential lab as part of your Organizational Behavior course, in which you’ll participate in a hands-on team project studying a local organization. Here you’ll gain experience in identifying a problem or need and learning how to formulate a viable solution. You’ll build skills in teamwork, analytical thinking, data collection and synthesis, group decision making, and oral and written communication.

Senior Cohort Experiences – Professional Development

Your senior year cohort experience has a different purpose than the first three: its focus is on creating networking opportunities and building career skills you’ll use throughout your working life. Your cohort will participate in networking events and workshops throughout the year, covering professional behavior, business customs and etiquette throughout the world, job hunting, getting hired, and life-long learning.