The students are all in the Fullbridge Program, a new kind of business school, akin to an MBA -- a baby brother, perhaps, but with a speed addiction. Fullbridge's founders, husband and wife Peter and Candice Carpenter Olson (he a former CEO at Random House; she a founder at iVillage) have even developed a new certificate for graduates of their program: the XBA.

The XBA mixes drills with a bit of theory. Participants learn to read balance sheets, income, and cash flow statements in small groups for eight hours a day. They evaluate global companies' strategies and performance based on those numbers, and then present their findings in teams at the end of a 20-day, four-week boot camp -- typically over winter or summer break. Fullbridge recruits students and early-career professionals in their late teens to late twenties. Its appeal is that not only will the program help students be more valuable at their jobs, but it will also help them find fulfillment in their careers.

The Olsons founded Fullbridge in 2010 to address a problem they saw their seven children's friends struggle with: Academia gave them critical thinking skills, but left these young people unprepared for real-life work. When Peter, 62, first graduated from college, he recalls that employers either had "extensive training programs or almost unlimited amounts of patience." That's no longer the case and graduates are entering high-expectation jobs with little experience, proving problematic for both parties.

The Olsons say they have little desire to replace the traditional undergraduate or MBA experience. They see the XBA as a new category of education -- the finishing touch on the 21st century liberal arts degree. They enlisted their network of successful business friends -- from Kleiner Perkins Caufield &Byers partner Randy Komisar to Communispace founder and CEO Diane Hessan -- and put together bite-size presentations that address topics like being smart versus being effective at work and how to make good use of Excel. The lessons also dive into companies like Apple (AAPL) and Starbucks (SBUX), talking about how these brands have thrived in competitive environments. And Peter gives an abbreviated step-by-step of how he examined cash flow statements and the like while he was CEO of Random House. After running a successful pilot with Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher &Flom first-year associates, the duo fine-tuned Fullbridge's curriculum for undergraduates.

Though Peter still teaches business administration at Harvard Business School, the pair say that the new program has forced them to reevaluate traditional teaching methods. Candice, 60, has focused on how Fullbridge's learning materials are designed. To create a visually appealing environment for Fullbridge participants, she hired firms like Tank Design and Mechanica to create eye-catching content for the students. "We could be called an education-slash-tech company, but the two biggest checks we've written have been to design firms, " she laughs. Short video lessons and team activities serve as the program's foundation.

Students pay between $5, 000-6, 000 to attend Fullbridge, depending on date and location. Students can also access housing at an additional cost of $1250-$1450. Since the program's 2010 launch, 584 students have participated.

The power of a good coach

At the Omni Parker House, Luke Owings' 6'6" frame towers over five Fullbridge coaches. Owings, 28, played basketball at Princeton. It's a day after the program's most intense lesson, "Cintas y Lazos," where students review the financials of a new company (it makes ribbons, of all things), and are then tasked with presenting investors with a plan to reach profitability, taking into account brand, salaries, manufacturing costs, and other factors. There's one message in the coaches' room: "Whatever you do for this opener, bring the energy." Owings bounces as he advises the coaches: "We're really trying to get them into that culture of feedback, feedback, feedback."

In the same way that a terrible boss can create a hellish workplace, an ineffective Fullbridge coach can ruin the XBA program. Fullbridge assigns one coach to every 16 students. Owings plays coach to the coaches.

Peter recruited the former McKinsey analyst in 2011, just after he graduated from Harvard Business School. Owings looks for approachable professionals with credibility when he searches for coaches. Many Fullbridge coaches are current MBA students with several years of work experience. He argues that coaches get just as much out of the program as the students: they gain leadership skills and awaken otherwise latent teaching talent.