Capstone Project

The Capstone Project

The Capstone Project is a substantial part of your learning experience – it serves as the culmination of your work in the program and allows you to integrate your best insights and ideas in a project significant to you. The Capstone Project is designed to enhance your employability by giving you the opportunity to practice specific skills in line with your strengths and interests.

Option 1: Employment Experience

A supervised internship in your area of interest, specialization or emphasis. Your internship may be with an international organization, a business, a non-profit or a humanitarian organization. The internship experience is your unique opportunity to apply the knowledge-learnt throughout your studies, to develop your competencies in your field interest and to achieve the objectives set by the recruiter.

You will have to write a report where you will present the company and your team, describe your mission and the actions taken toward the objectives and share your learning outcomes. One of our faculty will guide you through this path: he/she will walk you to get the most out of this experience and in writing your report.

The internship work must be related to the Master program and must be aligned to one or more Master program learning outcomes.

Benefits

Your internship will provide you with a highly rewarding, full practical immersion in a real team within an existing company. This will grant you access to working opportunities in Switzerland and abroad and will allow you to begin the development of your own professional network.

Option 2: Industry Project Experience

The Industry Project Experience or Applied Business Project (ABP) is your opportunity to work on your entrepreneurial idea or to get involved with our vibrant community of entrepreneurs in collaborating in one of their projects at different stages of development.

Part 1 – During the first 10 weeks, you will work on your idea or for an external company. For your own venture your will need to explain the business concept, describe your business operation context, define your value proposition and describe how your innovation respect the sustainability standards. If working for an external company you will need to develop a business plan to address one or more issues within your chosen business/organization and find opportunities to introduce innovative and sustainable change.

This work will be achieved under the guidance of an appointed BSL supervisor. The output is a written report that includes the implementation process, expected outcomes and results and measurement of success. You will need to obtain feedback from the organization (if you have worked for an external organization) and your supervisor(s) and make sure that any required amendments are integrated in the report and carried forward to the implementation stage.

Part 2 – Under faculty supervision, you will work on implementing the action plan prepared in the first part. You will need to present the timeline and milestones, the strategy, the execution roadmap and the challenges to be overcome toward a successful completion of the project.

Benefits

Your Applied Business Project (ABP) will provide you with the exciting opportunity to conduct business transformation in a real-world setting, affording you crucial implementation experience and application of business processes and theories. This also serves as a business startup opportunity and way for you to begin the development of your own professional network development.

Option 3: Impact Experience

You may choose to get involved on a voluntary basis within NGOs or foundation based in Switzerland or in developing countries and contribute on the ground in building economic and social impact for vulnerable communities. Additionally, students can be directly involved in social projects or empowering small foundations building their business capabilities to be able to make a difference locally.

Benefits

Your impact experience will provide you with the opportunity to make a difference on the ground and apply the knowledge and tools acquired at BSL to real local issues. This will be an immersion in the social entrepreneurship world where you would be able to build your network and reflect on your contribution in fulfilling the SDGs.

Option 4: CFA® Level I Preparation
(for MIB Finance concentration only)

The course is formatted to cover the entire Level I CFA® curriculum and is structured in accordance with the Learning Outcome Statements (LOS). It offers comprehensive and detailed coverage of the exam material and helps you to adopt a disciplined and focused learning approach. The knowledge required to pass the exam is explained and applied to practical examples. It focuses on reviewing critical exam topics A specialized team of BSL faculty members mentors every student individually and guides the learning process with a personalized plan.

Benefits

You will receive a recognized professional qualification through rigorous development of your knowledge and skills through a guided study by expert BSL facilitators. This also includes industry recognition which yields greater employment possibilities.

Option 5: Master Thesis

The purpose of your Master’s Thesis is twofold: it allows you to show your acquired knowledge and analytical skills (the most important requirements to graduate), as well as to examine a specific issue in your professional area of interest by which you can demonstrate your expertise.

Beyond fulfilling the academic requirements of your studies, your Master’s Thesis should be seen as your ‘passport for your future’. You should choose a topic which you will examine in depth and which will propel you in the direction you wish to take after the completion of your studies at Business School Lausanne.

You will be supervised by one of our BSL faculty.

Benefits

Your capstone will afford you the opportunity of an in-depth study and testing of your chosen specific business topic. Through this, you will develop crucial research and writing skills, the opportunity for literature review and exploration of business processes and theories. In addition, you will be able to make a valuable contribution to your chosen field of study through hypothesis testing.