Coming back to Carolina after nine months of being away from the University, interning with Amnesty International in Washington D.C. through the Burch Washington Seminar program during the spring and traveling throughout Asia while studying Chinese Foreign Policy in Hong Kong, was a transition for certain. However, the Business Essentials program, an online initiative created by Kenan-Flagler to give non-business major undergrads an opportunity to gain a topical grasp on a plethora of business issues, was a wonderful transition between the two. With an emphasis on a tangible skill set, the flexibility of the UBE program allowed me to become an ambassador and complete the program, despite intermittent Internet access and the epitome of an erratic schedule. In return, when Read More
Tag Archives: business-focused
Complement the Major of Your Choice
I will always remember the night my freshman roommate came home after taking her first ECON 101 exam. The week before the test, it seemed as though a highlighter and textbook were glued to her arms and she spent her nights gulping coffee down while she made notecards. She had entered “Business Administration” as her perspective major at CTOPS earlier that summer, and she was dead-set on going through with the major—no matter how challenging she found the classes. She came home from her test devastated and disappointed. She braced for the worst as she checked her exam score online. She opened her squinted eyes just enough to see the “F.” We spent the rest of the night eating ice Read More
On the Road with UBE
I gained an incredible amount of knowledge about the essentials of business – such as accounting and operations – over the course of just a few months, thanks to UBE’s certificate program. However, my favorite aspect of the program is undoubtedly its flexibility. This past summer was a very busy one for me; I was not only completing the program, but also working a 9-hours-a-day internship and traveling with my family. For these reasons, I was more than a little nervous that I would not be able to find enough time to devote to studying and moving through the modules. UBE is designed to ensure success, though, and the ability to download the program to my computer and work through Read More
Breaking Expectations
Starting the UNC Business Essentials program at the beginning of the summer, I thought I had a pretty good idea of what it would be like. I assumed that, as an overview of such topics as accounting and marketing, there would be summaries to read, some activities to complete, and a test at the end where I would repeat back what I had just read; I was quite wrong in a couple of fundamental ways. Primarily, I had not expected the program to be nearly as time-consuming or in-depth as it was. While it is probably possible to complete the program by skimming over certain topics – especially for those people who have taken relevant classes in the past – that Read More