Many MBA applicants feel that they are purchasing a brand when they choose a business school. However, the educational experience you will have is what is crucial to your future, and no one will affect your education more than your professors. Today, we focus on Dan Ariely from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business
Dan Ariely’s “Behavioral Economics” class is reportedly a popular one at Fuqua. “It always has the longest waiting list,” remarked one second year we interviewed, and an alumna said of Ariely, “He was wonderful.” When mbaMission asked a first-year student about Ariely’s class, he said jokingly, “I’m pretty sure you have to snag that class within one or two seconds of it becoming available!” The course explores how people actually act in the marketplace, as opposed to how they might act if they were being completely rational. (Note: “Behavioral Economics” is not available during the 2020–2021 academic year, according to the Fuqua course catalog.)
Ariely is also author of the books Dollars and Sense: How We Misthink Money and How to Spend Smarter (Harper, 2017, with Jeff Kreisler), Payoff: The Hidden Logic That Shapes Our Motivations (Simon & Schuster/TED, 2016), The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone—Especially Ourselves (HarperCollins, 2012), The Upside of Irrationality: The Unexpected Benefits of Defying Logic at Work and at Home (HarperCollins, 2010), and Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions (HarperCollins, 2008).
An alumna told mbaMission, “He got us to think about everyday things in a totally new way,” and a second-year student commented, “Everyone takes his course. Everyone. He’s our rock-star professor.” Another second year agreed, saying, “He is one of the superstar professors here. He explains more complex research in an easy-to-understand way.”
Ariely maintains a blog that can be found at http://danariely.com. He also writes an advice column for the Wall Street Journal titled “Ask Ariely,” bits of which were published in book form under the title Irrationally Yours: On Missing Socks, Pickup Lines, and Other Existential Puzzles (Harper Perennial, 2015).
For more information about Duke Fuqua and 16 other top-ranked business schools, check out our free mbaMission Insider’s Guides.
