Meeting Professionals International has partnered with San Diego State University's L. Robert Payne School of Hospitality and Tourism Management to create a graduate-degree program in meeting and event management, which is now accepting students for 2019. First announced in December 2017, the Meeting and Event Management Master's was designed to elevate meeting professionals to business-event strategists in the age of high-tech event-experience applications, comprehensive data capture and analytics, return on investment/return on experience demands and other evolving challenges.
The master's program will begin with a one-week session on the campus of SDSU, followed by 18 months of online courses. The final week of the program will also be held in person at SDSU. Both SDSU professors and meetings-industry professionals connected to MPI will run the sessions and maintain regular contact with students for the duration of the program.
In its August 27 announcement seeking students, MPI stressed that industry professionals who already possess the certified meeting manager or the certified meeting professional certificate would nonetheless benefit from the master's program. And SDSU noted that graduate students in its other programs earn an average of $12,000 more than they did prior to receiving a master's degree.
What makes the master's program different from those two professional certificate programs administered by MPI Academy, however, is that a student need not have extensive real-world experience in the meetings and events industry to enroll. And while it is unlikely that many program enrollees will have no industry experience, it is possible for those who are determined to work in the hospitality and meetings industry to move straight from their bachelor's program to the master's program.
For more information on the master's program starting in 2019, click here.
