Professor Szymanski is a well-known face around Bentley’s campus, especially if you’ve taken science classes or frequent the first floor of Jennison. Perpetually smiling, always jovial, he appears to have never experienced a bad day in his life and seems incapable of not making friends with students, faculty, or anyone else he meets.
He greets all of his past and present students with unbridled enthusiasm, and gets to know them on a personal level, breaking down the traditional barriers separating professors from their students. Before landing at Bentley, Professor Szymanski tried his hand in public policy, serving as a Congressional Science Fellow for Montana Senator Jon Tester in Washington, D.C. We met with Professor Szymanski to ask about integrating science into a business curriculum, as well as how and why students should be willing to connect with their professors outside of the classroom.
HCB: What unique issues do you face as a science professor at a business school?
DS: The biggest challenge, which is also the reason I came to Bentley, is finding the best ways to show students how important the sciences are to a career in business. Bentley has a long history of integrating arts and sciences with a business curriculum, but students sometimes still see science courses as general education requirements they “have to” fill. As a science faculty, our job is not only to teach students the important concepts in our fields, but also to show the relevance of those concepts to business and society. In other words, we should also be teaching why science is important. That’s easier said than done. But when you love the challenge, being a science professor at Bentley is the best job in the world.
HCB: How can business students integrate science into their careers?
DS:Choosing science courses that fit their interests is the best first step. Most organizations want graduates that are well-rounded, in addition to being competent in their fields. If we’re doing our jobs right, we’ll help inspire you to see the connections among scientific and business disciplines. When students are really interested in integrating science into a business field, they can go even further and pursue a liberal studies major in Earth, Environment and Global Sustainability (EEGS) or Health and Industry (HIND) in addition to their business major. The department of Natural and Applied Sciences is also starting a new stand-alone Arts and Sciences major in Sustainability Science in the fall of 2012. All of these programs are specifically designed to help students integrate sciences into their careers. Students graduating from these programs go on to internships and jobs with cutting-edge science and technology firms, governmental organizations, non-profits and NGOS, in addition to more “traditional” businesses.
HCB: You seem to take the time to get to know your students and develop relationships with them. How should a student go about interacting with a professor outside of the context of a class?
DS: In my experience, professors that aspire to be great teachers try to develop relationships with students outside of the normal classroom interactions. Developing those personal ties, while maintaining a professional relationship, makes it so much easier to teach and to learn. When students and professors view one another as colleagues like this, it starts to break down barriers. It’s a motivating experience to know that your professor (or your student) cares about you as a person. So take the time to talk to your professors outside of class — most of us really do want to see you in our offices or around campus! As with anything in life, being respectful is the most important thing you can do to cultivate relationships. But being respectful doesn’t mean being strictly “professional” all the time. Talk about things that interest you outside of classes and don’t be afraid to joke around. Of course, professors aren’t all the same, so tread lightly. But take the risk. Good professors know that they aren’t smarter than their students; the difference is that they have spent more time learning how to learn. In the broadest sense, our job is to teach you how to keep learning. And that doesn’t happen just by being in the same classroom twice a week.