The High-Impact Benefits of Micro Electives According to a Michigan Ross Executive MBA Student
Micro electives at the Ross School of Business are short-format, high-impact courses designed to complement and enhance the core curriculum of the Executive MBA Program.
These flexible, half-credit offerings allow leaders to explore emerging topics aligned with their career goals or interests and stay current on issues that impact their organizations. EMBA students learn from proven frameworks and research to immediately address their most pressing business challenges.
Michigan Ross currently offers four micro electives, with the potential for more as new issues and popular topics emerge.
Executive Primer on Generative AI - EMBA 701
Dynamic Power - Unlocking Team Potential - EMBA 702
Digital Innovation in the Entertainment and Media Industries - EMBA 703
Behavioral Decision Making - EMBA 704
For further insight into the value of micro electives, we asked a Michigan Ross EMBA student to share their experiences and takeaways from the three they have taken so far.
Neha Dhawan
Hometown: West Bloomfield, MI
Program/Grad Year: EMBA31/ May 2026
Current Position: Global Director – Product Training
Company: Insightec
Which micro electives did you take?
I have taken three micro electives: Executive Primer on Generative AI (EMBA 701), Dynamic Power - Unlocking Team Potential (EMBA 702), and Behavioral Decision Making (EMBA 704).
Why did you choose to take these micro electives?
I was particularly excited to take the generative artificial intelligence course because I was curious about more ways to use AI. Prior to the course, my use of artificial intelligence hadn’t extended beyond much of the basics.
Dynamic Power - Unlocking Team Potential was another course I was particularly interested in signing up for. At the time, I was leading a large, diverse team that spanned the entire United States. I took the course with the hope of finding ways to support my team in the best way I could, while also being as efficient as possible with the limited time I had with my team members, who were always in the field.
Behavioral Decision Making was another course I was instantly drawn to. Working with such a diverse group of people, my boss and I often found ourselves saying we should have taken a psychology course. This course was one I knew would give me a different perspective.
What did you enjoy most about them?
For all of the micro electives, I appreciated how much the professors packed into the courses, even though there were only two sessions. I also appreciated that the courses were offered later in the evenings and didn’t interfere with my working hours. Particularly for the Executive Primer on Generative AI, the interactive portions, when we all walked through the steps of various simulations together, made for more engaging sessions.
The thing I enjoyed the most about Dynamic Power - Unlocking Team Potential was that it had us consider how we’d apply the concepts we learned to our work, from start to finish.
For the Behavioral Decision Making course, I found the assignments unlike any other I have done at Ross thus far. While the content itself was interesting, Professor Scott Rick made the class engaging and enjoyable.
In what ways were the micro electives beneficial to you? How do they align with your career goals and interests?
The Executive Primer on Generative AI has really opened my thinking about how I can make better use of AI to work smarter, not harder. In my role, there are so many different projects going on at the same time. AI allows me to be more efficient than I was in the past and focus my efforts on projects that may benefit from AI at this time.
Dynamic Power - Unlocking Team Potential offered more perspective into the team dynamics I was building at work. It brought forth ideas for improving my team's dynamics and offered tips for me, as the team’s leader, to make effective, long-lasting changes.
While some of the concepts discussed in the Behavioral Decision Making course overlapped with topics learned in other courses, like Strategic Leadership Development, the course introduced some ideas that had me looking at things from a different perspective. So many of the topics learned in this course can be applied both to home and work life.
What were your most significant takeaways from the micro electives, and how do you anticipate applying them in your academic, professional, or personal life?
From the Generative AI course, I learned that there’s so much more that I can be doing at work and at home to take advantage of AI that I’m not even brushing the surface with. Though AI continues to evolve, this course got my wheels turning on more ways I can incorporate AI — whether it be helping plan a personal trip, planning 20 different work trips for members of my team, or crunching data efficiently. I anticipate that I’ll continue to find new ways to use this transformative technology.
From Dynamic Power - Unlocking Team Potential, my most significant takeaway related to psychological safety and my team at work. I learned ways to improve my team meetings to encourage more team members to speak up.
There were two significant takeaways from the Behavioral Decision Making course. The first was the importance of diversity of thought and of incorporating it into various projects to avoid groupthink. Being involved in various projects at work, I think about this concept regularly. The second was on persuasion and the various methods that can be used to get what you need from people. This is one I’m sure to make use of in all aspects of life.
