Majoring in Business – Intellectual Benefits: When I am really getting into studying or writing a paper, I listen to music that pushes me to think and to sustain this effort over time. What is your playlist (or other form of art or music) that puts you into this type of zone? What are you looking forward to studying as an undergraduate business major?

The only thing that puts me in the zone to get work done is peace and quiet. If I am listening to music, I can’t read or write very well because I feel distracted and it breaks my focus. The thing that I am most looking forward to studying as an undergraduate business major is a little bit of everything. I don’t have any background in any business concepts really because my school didn’t have very many quality business courses. So, I am very excited to explore business through the required business general education.

Majoring in Business – Intellectual Deficits : While our motivational/inspirational playlists for academic work and research inspire us to push ourselves to great lengths in our areas of interest, we also need to consider the Pink Floyd song that is linked to the blog post prompt. Undergraduate business education can be driven by a focus on grades, and landing high paying and high status internships and jobs. This can push us away from intellectual pursuits (similar to “We Don’t Need No Education…..”). Where do you see this in your choice to major in business:

While I am setting out to have a successful career, I am mostly looking to find what I am interested in and what I want to spend my entire life doing. I do not know what I want to do, so I feel like I will stay open to new things and exploring new fields and careers for the majority of my time as an undergraduate. I want to make sure that I will be happy with what I end up doing so that I can have a fulfilling life.

Other Examples Like This?: With four years of business education in front of you, how do you anticipate being able to take advantage of opportunities for intellectual challenge in your studies and personal/professional development and how can you take steps to mitigate the likely intellectual deficits that can arise through the heavy attention to monetary outcomes, status outcomes and the semester grind for grades?

I am definitely going to focus on understanding all areas of business while I am an undergraduate. This focus will help me to grow intellectually and discover my path. While it will be hard to not get caught up in grades and getting a job, I think that the hands on projects that I’ve been hearing a lot about will help me to focus on learning and succeeding on smaller scales. What I mean by this is for example, a consulting project where a group in a class makes a proposal for a company would be about more than a grade. This type of assignment would be very engaging and help me almost forget about grades and getting a job and just focus on that one proposal for that company.