Students often ask about the Executive MBA weekend residencies: How do they work? What happens during the weekend? The goal of this post is to shed a little more light on the weekend residency experience.
The base location for our Executive MBA program is the Washington, D.C., area. All weekend residencies are headquartered at UVA Darden DC Metro, and these weekends are action-packed with class sessions and extracurricular programming.
The Executive MBA format is hybrid in nature, with two-thirds of the content delivered in person and one-third delivered online via distance sessions.
The in-person component consists of:
- Two weeklong leadership residencies in Charlottesville, Virginia on the main Darden Grounds. There’s one leadership residency at the beginning of the program and one at the very end.
- Weeklong global residencies are delivered in locations around the world. EMBA format students are required to participate in one global residency, while GEMBA format students participate in four global residencies.
- Weekend residencies take place about once a month and are held at UVA Darden DC Metro. EMBA and GEMBA format students both participate in 20 weekend residencies over the 21 months of the program.
Interested in learning more about how the academic quarters work? Check out our website.
Weekend Residencies
During a typical weekend, students will have 13 class meetings, spread across the three courses they are taking during that quarter. For an example of a weekend residency schedule, check out the block schedule from our Class of 2021’s recent 17-19 January residency.
Weekend residencies run from Friday through Sunday. Class begins on Friday at noon and runs through Sunday around 3 p.m., making it easy for students to commute into and out of the Washington, D.C., area for class. UVA Darden DC Metro is located five miles from Reagan National Airport (DCA) as well as Union Station. Two other airports — Dulles International Airport (IAD) and Baltimore Washington International (BWI) — are within a short drive.
Class Format
There are typically four class sessions on Friday, five sessions on Saturday and four sessions on Sunday. Classes on Friday run from noon to 6 p.m. Classes on Saturday begin bright and early at 8 a.m. and end around 5:30 p.m. Sunday features another 8 a.m. start and class wraps up around 3 p.m. There are often class-wide social activities on Friday and Saturday evenings. These often include a guest speaker, a group dinner or an event outing (Washington Nationals game, bowling, etc.).
The weekends are designed to be residential in nature, and, as you will note from a quick look at the Class of 2022 Tuition and Fees, lodging and most meals are included in the cost of the program. For our D.C.-based readers, you may be surprised to hear that most of our students stay in the hotel during the weekend residencies.
Accommodations
Students are not required to stay in the hotel, though it does have many benefits. For one, you will have more time to spend with your classmates during the weekend. While class at Darden is interactive and discussion-based, a lot of the relationship development and networking takes place after class has concluded for the day.
In addition, the commute on Saturday and Sunday mornings is much easier (i.e., walking two blocks from the class hotel in Rosslyn vs. driving from home).
If you listen to our podcast, you will hear students repeatedly champion the importance of being present and giving your full attention to whatever you are doing at a given time. This practice also applies to the weekend residencies.
Weekend residencies are intentionally very full days, and students who are constantly toggling between school and home sometimes report that they feel like they are doing a less than great job being present in either location. By staying in the hotel, you can carve out the space for yourself to be fully immersed in the weekend.
Interested in learning about the other components of our program? Read our recent global residency-related post, and stay tuned for entries about distance learning and leadership residencies in the coming weeks.
Check out faculty thought leadership published on Ideas to Action. And stay connected with us via social media: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, WeChat
