Every Student Benefits From Business Classes
One of my favorite classes to teach is ‘Fundamentals of Business.’ It is our introductory business course and required for all Business, Finance, or Marketing majors.
Teaching at a liberal arts college means I have students from every major, and it is one of the reasons I teach where I do. I firmly believe that whether you are going to be an artist, work in a laboratory, or be a psychologist, having a basic understanding of how businesses run is vital.
Everyone should understand the basics of accounting, the importance of marketing, and what the human resources department does. Understanding how companies are organized, respecting how hard sales can be, and grasping the basics of good communication will help anyone.
The first assignment I give my students is writing a “business autobiography” inspired by my dear friend and inspiring colleague Kim Miller. We co-taught a first-year experience course called “Storytelling and Social Change,” and one of her assignments was to have our students write a ‘gender autobiography,’ and I loved it so much that I reimagined it for my class.
In it, students are asked to write about how business has impacted their lives. It is a wide open prompt on purpose. I explain to them that perhaps they talk about their entrepreneurial aunt who runs a successful business or how a layoff or promotion for one of their parents changed their lives. Perhaps they want to write about their career goals and what/who inspired them.
My purpose is to get to know my students better, and it is also a question most of them have never thought about before. It also prompts them to reflect on the businesses around them and the impacts they may never have considered.
During the semester, teams have to conceive, write a business plan for, and launch a revenue generating business. Any profits are donated to a charity of the teams' choosing. This experiential learning opportunity forces students to move beyond my lectures and struggle with the ups and downs of starting a business. I know not all of them are going to be entrepreneurs, but I want them to realize how much work goes into any business. I know that overcoming the logistics, sales, and communication struggles will help them down the road.
At the end of the semester, I have them write a reflection piece on their business. They are asked about what went right and what could have gone better. I also ask them what their favorite part of the process was. This is when I read statements that start with “I had no idea I liked…” and each one makes me smile.
Every fall, my course is restricted to incoming first-year students and my spring course is open to all. Each has a unique energy that I love. In the fall, they are full of that new student energy. In the spring, I always get seniors who need the credits and have heard positive things about me. The variety of majors always makes for fun in-class discussions.
What prompted this post was a student I met at summer orientation who was pre-med, and as I assisted them in choosing classes, I mentioned my course, and their response was, “Why would I ever want to take a business course?”
My response was simply, “Do you think you might ever want to be a lead or manager in your department? Any thoughts of down the road going into healthcare administration?”
I could see the gears turning, and we chatted some more. The times in all of our sections didn’t work for the fall, but they are planning on taking it in the spring. They had never thought about that before and assumed they only needed to take courses that were directly part of their major or in a similar path.
No matter what a student ends up doing for work, they are going to have to interact with the business world. It is all around us and hard to escape. They also need writing, philosophy, art, and any course that teaches them critical thinking, but that is a whole other post.
