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This study aimed to analyze how academic experiences developed by Master's degree students in Business Administration from a private institution situated in Belo Horizonte (MG), contributed to the formation and development of their professional competences, including the teaching ones. The theoretical framework focused on the theme of professional competence and on the analytical model adopted, namely by Paiva (2007). The research was characterized as descriptive, employing a qualitative approach along the lines of a case study. The unit of analysis corresponded to the research subjects, which are the graduates of such a course. Data collection was carried out by means of questionnaires with open and closed questions. The data of 24 questionnaires were processed according to their nature (univariate descriptive statistics for socio-demographic information and content analysis of the responses to qualitative questions). The analysis of the collected data were separated into three parts: formal description of the academic experiences which were gained in the master's program; profile of the respondents; and the graduate's academic experiences and professional competences. The most recursive experience, out of 48 of which were reported, was the one found in a research (21 of them) which directly involved the interests of the Master's degree students in gaining experience, improving and even "training" for the dissertation. The second most performed by the group of respondents, was the business experience followed by the teacher's one, although they showed a lower level of competence, given the professional background of the graduates where their choice was concerned. As teachers and businessmen, they chose to do something they already knew, in which we could not notice any significant advances on the formation and development of their professional competences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]