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Description
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For two evenings per week in May and June, 2001, Columbia's Graduate
School of Arts launched a wildly successful new course for M.A. and
Ph.D. students in the humanities, social sciences and natural sciences:
Business Basics: opportunities, requirements and complexities. Most of
the 95 enrolled in the course were from PhD programs in the natural and
biomedical sciences. The course was taught by a Business Faculty member
who used the M.B.A. technique of engaging each student to participate
and not worry about making mistakes; the result was that most learned
how to make a business plan. The course assumed that some students may
become interested in starting businesses, or have the opportunity to
develop new business ideas, or face a decision about the health of
start-up firms where they are considering employment, or be called upon
to judge the inherent justification for joint ventures.
The objective of the course was to verse students in the basics of
the business environment. It offered participants the analytic skills
needed to identify and assess business opportunities and ventures, work
with advisers/consultants, and develop the other tools like accounting
necessary in business. It was assumed that students have little
advanced knowledge about business except what may be gleaned from the popular
press and general-interest books. However it also was assumed that
participants are highly motivated, experience independent study and
knowledgeable about scientific/scholarly methods.
With this and other workshops that prove to our students that their
skills are transferable to the business world, Columbia University
continues to prepare M.A. and Ph.D. students for the changing job
market, which has altered the nature of graduate education. Today,
there is much more of an effort to place M.A.s and Ph.D.s in
non-traditional jobs. It used to be that the primary career path for a
PhD was to become a university professor. Now there are many other
things you can do. There are employers who are looking specifically for
M.A.s and Ph.D.s and our job is to hook them up with them. Columbia's
new Business Basics course is one way to prepare our students. Another
is to hold career panels with alumni from the private sector who come
to campus to describe their successful jobs in non-academic fields with
Columbia MA and PhD students. A third way is for alumni and students to
join our alumni mentoring program.
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Contact
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Henry C. Pinkham, Dean
Beatrice Terrien-Somerville, Associate Dean
Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
Columbia University
Broadway and 116th Street
109 Low Memorial Library MC4306
New York, NY 10027
Email: bt3@columbia.edu
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