在当今瞬息万变的复杂业务环境中，组织面临着各种各样的风险。各种不可预见的因素都会干扰运营，这些因素包括自然灾害和政治风险等外部因素，以及产品设计错误和财务系统有缺陷等内部因素。首席执行官在竞争日益激烈的市场中做出错误的战略决策，而失误的成本很高。近年来，公司遇到了新的风险，例如恐怖主义，全球诉讼以及人力资源成本上升。宾州州立史密尔分校商业风险管理学院为有兴趣探索各种商业环境中的风险分析的学生提供了教育机会，并提供了广泛主题的教师研究和专业知识。
The Risk Management major prepares students for careers in a wide range of private industries and public service agencies involving such areas as operations, property development, financial strategy, and government. The major is integrative in nature by crossing traditional business boundaries while offering specific areas of study in enterprise risk management, and real estate. High profile risks are faced by leaders and managers up and down the corporate ladder and require specialized skills, knowledge, and preparation. The Risk Management major prepares students for this along with a chance to study risk from various perspectives by offering specialty courses along with a common pool of risk management courses. This structure assures that the students in the risk management major are equipped with the common tools of risk analysis while at the same time permitting the students to tailor the specifics of their training.