UNL College of Business

[KJ.]

One of my friends is a business major. At least he's smart enough to realize his education is terrible, and I thought I'd share this story he told me from his Management class earlier today.

 

As far as I understand, the class is the capstone course that is required to graduate from the college. They have a test coming up, and today they studied by playing "Strategy Bingo" using the vocabulary terms that will be on the test. The first half of the class was spent distributing Bingo cards and vocabulary squares, where the students needed to use glue sticks to strategically place their vocabulary terms on the card. The second half of the class they actually played bingo, in which it took someone 20 minutes to get 5 in a row (2 of the 5 spaces were freebies).

 

So, tell me CBA...this is your capstone course? You play Bingo in class and use crayons and glue sticks to organize it? In what ways do you possibly think this is making your students brighter and prepared for the real world? Is Goldman Sachs going to be impressed with you when you tell them you're the best bingo player in your graduating class?

 

Someone tell me, is this a UNL problem or a business school problem? I have a hard time imagining business at Harvard is anything like this, but what about other public, state schools? Is Michigan, Iowa, Illinois anything like this? I truly hope not, because that at least gives our University hope for one day fixing this awful mess of a school.

 

For your viewing pleasure:

 

[WIHusker]

I graduated from CBA almost 4 years ago now, and I never had an experience like this one. Your friend must have a crap professor.

 

My capstone management course consisted of class discussions during lectures, case studies with class discussion, and a group project, where we had to create a business plan from start to finish, and then present and defend the plan to the class.

 

I had maybe one or two bad CBA courses, but nothing resembling a 6th grade English class preparing for a vocab quiz. Maybe things have been dumbed down in 4 years?

[mabrown310]

Hmm interesting. I think I am in the same class, but with a different professor. We don't do stupid activities like this. C'mon now were in college! Vocab should be something you learn on your own time. Professors need to stay focused on teaching applications of the principles you learn, because memorizing a couple of terms will not help you at all in the real business world.

 

But all in all I am usually very happy with the professors at CBA. The accounting professors stink, but the marketing, management, and especially economics departments are awesome. Dr. Asarta teaches a lot of the econ courses here and while his classes can be tough, he is an amazing educator. Says from the very first class that his goal in intro to economics is for his students to be able to read the business section in the paper and understand it. And he does exactly that

[BigRedBuster]

I graduated from there over 20 years ago. I doubt very seriously if the CBA has dropped in quality that far. If that's true, it is obviously an isolated situation.

[mabrown310]

And for the record Im a Junior here at UNL right now majoring in Agribusiness through CBA

[BigRedBuster]

At least he's smart enough to realize his education is terrible

 

Also...this quote struck me.

 

It made me remember back to people I went to school with. Various people could be taking the exact same courses in the exact same major. One group would have the attitude..."This is stupid"..."This is a horrible education"....."Why the hell are we doing this"... bla bla bla....

 

This group typically didn't get squat out of college.

 

The other group learned it, took it serious, got involved in their majors...etc. These typically are the ones that excelled in college and in their jobs after college.

 

I know this is an over generalization. But, it held pretty true with the people I saw in college and know them now.

[It'sNotAFakeID]

I'm guessing that this is an isolated incident, with a crap professor who didn't have the time or the care to think of something more intuitive than that.

 

I'm a junior psychology major at UNL with a business minor. A class that I'm taking through CBA is BLAW, which consists of tests, class discussions, and papers. I'm almost positive that your friend is experiencing an isolated incident.

 

Some of my capstone courses in psychology require a research project...by the end of my time at UNL I will have done two research projects where I hope to present as a poster at conferences. Far from crap education.

[KJ.]

I seriously hope it's an isolated incident.

 

Said friend is also my roommate, so I've been hearing complaining about this junk for a while. The thing that I find funny is that he's a member of some student task force thing that works with professors to develop ideas on how to make the college better. So I think the administrators are aware that other business schools and UNL colleges laugh at them, but here's your answer on how to stop it. You don't need a fancy new building to be a better school.

[It'sNotAFakeID]

If he's part of a task force and nothing has changed, then the task force isn't doing it's job.

[Lyons in the Sea of Red.]

I'm a senior and never in my life have I even came close to having a class involve something like that. I think it is hilarious that a capstone professor would conduct a review. I didn't get stuff like that when I was a sophmore. It has to be isolated.

 

I'm actually thinking about prolonging my education and switching to the supply chain mngt major that was recently launched. I've been hearing good things about it.

[ZRod]

I'm a senior and never in my life have I even came close to having a class involve something like that. I think it is hilarious that a capstone professor would conduct a review. I didn't get stuff like that when I was a sophmore. It has to be isolated.

 

I'm actually thinking about prolonging my education and switching to the supply chain mngt major that was recently launched. I've been hearing good things about it.

That might not be a bad one, when I was looking for jobs a year or so ago there were a lot of those type out there. I took a class as a management elective for my major in supply chain management and it was way too easy so I didn't really pay attention. Now I wish I had because I'm sure I could have found a job a lot quicker if I could have regurgitated what I was supposed to learn.

 

For the most part unless you have an absolutely crappy professor and text to work from you basically get out of college what you put into it. I found that out the hard way.

[Lyons in the Sea of Red.]

I'm a senior and never in my life have I even came close to having a class involve something like that. I think it is hilarious that a capstone professor would conduct a review. I didn't get stuff like that when I was a sophmore. It has to be isolated.

 

I'm actually thinking about prolonging my education and switching to the supply chain mngt major that was recently launched. I've been hearing good things about it.

That might not be a bad one, when I was looking for jobs a year or so ago there were a lot of those type out there. I took a class as a management elective for my major in supply chain management and it was way too easy so I didn't really pay attention. Now I wish I had because I'm sure I could have found a job a lot quicker if I could have regurgitated what I was supposed to learn.

 

For the most part unless you have an absolutely crappy professor and text to work from you basically get out of college what you put into it. I found that out the hard way.

I've heard that different companies throughout the midwest pushed UNL to start the new major. I guess Union Pacific and several other companies are really wanting midwest kids in the field. The starting salary isn't half bad for most of them either.

[Haspula]

No wonder they left us out of the ARWU in business

 

http://www.arwu.org/SubjectEcoBus2010.jsp

[gobiggergoredder]

At least he's smart enough to realize his education is terrible

 

Also...this quote struck me.

 

It made me remember back to people I went to school with. Various people could be taking the exact same courses in the exact same major. One group would have the attitude..."This is stupid"..."This is a horrible education"....."Why the hell are we doing this"... bla bla bla....

 

This group typically didn't get squat out of college.

 

The other group learned it, took it serious, got involved in their majors...etc. These typically are the ones that excelled in college and in their jobs after college.

 

I know this is an over generalization. But, it held pretty true with the people I saw in college and know them now.

Buster,

 

You nailed it again my friend.

 

I haven't used my major since day one and I do fine. So many people think a degree = $'s. I laugh at all the people getting MBA's right now. They have no plan.

 

MBA is a good plan if you know what you are getting it for. I hear so many colleagues say that want more money or they want to expand their opportunities so they are getting a MBA. They are wasting their time. MBA's only = $'s if you go to Duke, Standford, Emory, Harvard..(there's a few more).

 

Your degree is what you make of it. If you want to complain about 'bingo' and then use that as a limiting factor in your future, you won't be successful.

[beanman]

I'm a senior and never in my life have I even came close to having a class involve something like that. I think it is hilarious that a capstone professor would conduct a review. I didn't get stuff like that when I was a sophmore. It has to be isolated.

 

I'm actually thinking about prolonging my education and switching to the supply chain mngt major that was recently launched. I've been hearing good things about it.

That might not be a bad one, when I was looking for jobs a year or so ago there were a lot of those type out there. I took a class as a management elective for my major in supply chain management and it was way too easy so I didn't really pay attention. Now I wish I had because I'm sure I could have found a job a lot quicker if I could have regurgitated what I was supposed to learn.

 

For the most part unless you have an absolutely crappy professor and text to work from you basically get out of college what you put into it. I found that out the hard way.

I've heard that different companies throughout the midwest pushed UNL to start the new major. I guess Union Pacific and several other companies are really wanting midwest kids in the field. The starting salary isn't half bad for most of them either.

 

I'm an engineer at 3M, but I sit with a bunch of supply chain folks. It's a good major, in high demand. We probably have 40 supply chain folks at my plant alone. I couldn't tell you exactly what type of salary they start with, but from what I gather their compensation is pretty good and can lead into LSS Black Belt positions and management positions if you play your cards right.