Every Bentley student is required to fulfill general education requirements. The current seniors were the first to encounter the new General Business (GB) courses, leaving them to be the guinea pigs as professors’ work out the kinks to their new curriculum. Throughout campus, students know of the dreaded GBs to look forward to each year.
Freshmen are quickly torn from their honeymoon of First Week as they commence the first GB: GB 112. For those of you who enjoy accounting and finance, this course may have been a breeze. But for many of us who are less fond of balance sheets, my accounting lab, and time value of money, the fun was only just beginning. The next semester, GB 212 would continue to haunt freshmen, as they took accounting and finance to the next level.
of the sophomore classes is GB 214: Marketing – Operations Fundamentals. It is here you learn the value of a good group. Those unfortunate souls who were placed in a less than ideal group learned quickly how difficult group work can truly be. It was this class that prepared us for the big kahuna: GB 320.
I’ve heard the stories, seen the 3am Facebook posts, and heard the sighs of relief of the class before me as they completed GB 320: the Integrated Business Project. The course list says, “In this course, students work on a project team to solve real world problems for real organizations. The project enables students to develop a better understanding of how the traditional business functions are integrated in the workplace”. From what I’ve heard and am currently experiencing, this course actually leads to anxiety, fatigue, and hair-pulling madness.
At the end of last semester, Facebook was littered with posts such as this one:
Students were exasperated and exhausted. Pleased to finally be finished, the students set to social media to criticize their experience, which in turn instilled fear in those sophomores about to suffer the same fate.
I am attempting to avoid those all-nighters and cramming. With my group showing great potential, my nails are safe, but the fear still remains for what is to come in future assignments..
In the end, the rigorous GB core prepares us for something far more challenging—the business world. They’ve taught the technical skills needed, but also the more subtle ones, like how to work with a difficult group member or complete a difficult task on short notice. While we may complain now, ultimately we’ll be grateful for the experiences (and hair-raising stories) that they’ve given us.