Starting this summer, TCNJ is rolling out a program that brings liberal arts and humanities students a new perspective on their future careers, according to Dr. William Keep, Dean of TCNJ’s School of Business. It’s called TCNJ Business Institute and it’s a 5-week long academic and professional development curriculum made exclusively for non-business majors.
“Designed as a five-week, intensive summer program, students take classes for six hours each day on a whole host of Business topics,” explained Dr. Chandru Rajam, co-coordinator of the Institute and Vice Provost for Graduate, Professional and Continuing Education. The topics include marketing, finance, economics, business strategy and people management.
The Institute will provide students new to Business with rigorous course material, lectures from guest speakers, a site visit (which is to be determined), and final team projects that will allow students to apply what they learn to real-life business plans and analyses.
“The idea is that the student gets a more holistic view of these business activities,” Dean Keep said. “Although businesses do have distinct areas, inside the organization they have to think holistically.”
The institute’s mission is to teach non-business students how different business disciplines can work for them, according to Dean Keep.
“We want students who have different backgrounds but see the potential for a career in business,” said Dean Keep, “We can highlight some of the strengths that they bring, along with familiarizing them with how business works.”
Among the academic assignments, students should expect to learn the lingo of being in business and how to operate one from the marketing to the management; to learn how to navigate a job interview; to gain proficiency in software, such as Excel; and to become familiar with the importance of working in a global environment.
“We will talk to students about how these disruptions cause businesses to think differently about the future,” Dean Keep explained, “You could be working for a business that is not u.s. owned or that is a U.S. joint venture with a company in another country.”
The coordinators of the Institute stressed that this program goes beyond any other courses students may have taken. They will learn not only how businesses are built, but how to build their own skills and promote their professional growth.
“At the end of [it], they will be able to go and be comfortable on their first job,” said External Programs Specialist from the Office of Graduate, Professional and Continuing Education, George Hefelle. He claimed that the Institute’s long-term goal is “to honor the liberal arts and humanities and sciences.”
“This business institute will support that,” he said of the myriad disciplines.
Dr. Rajam summed up that the Institute’s mission is “to prepare non-Business majors to better compete for jobs in the private sector, prepare for upward career-mobility within their employer-organizations and/or help them launch their own businesses.”
For more information: the brochure for this summer’s TCNJ Business Institute.
—Story and Interviews by Jack Meyers