When I first read that Bentley is a business school, I thought all of my classes were going to be about black-and-white, concrete technical concepts – a dry subject for a creative person like me. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. Once I discovered my major, Information Design and Corporate Communication or IDCC, and the world of creative and thought-provoking arts and science subjects available, I knew I could find my footing here.
In my opinion, I think the university succeeds at keeping with its core business course offerings while giving enough attention (both academic and extracurricular focus) to arts and science and creative subjects. Bentley is, first and foremost, a business school, but that doesn’t mean that those other subjects are not relevant. In fact, there’s so much value in gaining an integrated education – a “best of both worlds” kind of situation.
In that spirit, here are some of my favorite classes I have taken so far in my 3.5 years at Bentley. (I will try my best to not make this sound like a RateMyProfessors review.)
1. Public relations writing
By far, my favorite class I’ve taken at Bentley is Public Relations Writing during the spring of my sophomore year. When I first registered for this course, I had a very vague idea of what PR is, and I couldn’t tell you anything about PR writing besides that it involved sending out press releases. By the end of the semester, I had a portfolio of sample PR materials covering not just press releases but also a brochure, feature story, media advisory, fact sheet, blog, speech, op-ed, and a group campaign for a governmental organization. It was one of the most rewarding courses I’ve taken.
One aspect of the class that I appreciated was the weekly structure. The class met twice per week, and on the first day, we learned the basics of a communications tool, such as a blog. Then, the second day was treated as a “lab” period, where we took what we learned earlier that week and applied it. I gained a lot from this structure because it allowed me to stretch my writing skills and receive feedback on my writing before submitting a full graded assignment.
After taking this class, I was more certain about my career path and it sparked my desire to work in content writing within public relations. Also, the class happened to be all female students, which made me feel comfortable participating in discussions. If you are studying IDCC or Marketing, I would definitely recommend enrolling in this class! Even if you aren’t, taking PR Writing as an elective will be highly rewarding and challenging.
2. Crisis Communication and Management
Fast forward 1 year and a half, and I discovered another class in the same field of study of PR. This time, it was hyper-focused on organizational crises. Think product recalls, data breaches, tech malfunctions, and more. As someone who enjoys consuming and writing more positive stories, I hesitated about taking this course because of the subject matter. Surprisingly, I found the material to be very interesting. We looked at different cases like Tylenol’s product tampering case, and other real-life situations where crisis communication played a pivotal role. I personally enjoy case methodology when trying to grasp complex concepts, so this style was helpful.
One of my favorite parts of the semester was when we did crisis simulations in groups and drafted communications as if it were a live case. It was exciting and fun, and I also learned a lot about what working in a crisis communication/crisis management role might be like. (As a side note, I also took this class with the same professor as PR writing!)
3. User Interface Design
This is another course I took for my major, but the order in which I took the design-related courses was not typical. This was the first web design-related course I’ve taken at a college level, and it wasn’t until a later semester that I completed the Web Design requirement for IDCC. User Interface Design was very challenging, and it required so many more skills beyond graphic design. It challenged my ideas and assumptions of consumers when crafting target personas, and it taught me the importance of small, minute details of mobile apps.
This class allowed me to think from a particular user’s perspective and understand their unique journey, which is worlds different from the next user’s journey. Two of the projects were related to designing health apps, and I enjoyed the challenge of stepping into the environment of a health platform. I also learned how to use key design tools such as Figma. One of my biggest takeaways from this class was how critical each step of the design process is. Our natural tendency can be to skip to the actual designing phase, but it serves us – and the consumer – better to do more research, test, and test again.
4. Social Psychology
I’ve always been interested in psychology, so it was a natural decision for me to choose a Social Psychology course for an elective. Knowing what the class is about, it may not seem like rocket science to you. And it’s not. However, there are so many insights I gained from this class, especially related to culture, race/ethnicity, biases, and human nature. In many ways, this class combined my love for communications and psychology as we analyzed concepts such as persuasion. I appreciated how the professor included real-life and business applications of the ideas we talked about to make it even more relevant to students.
5. Human Behavior and Organizations
Similar to Social Psychology is Human Behavior and Organizations, a required course for Bentley students. I took this course online during a shortened, intensive summer session. It opened my eyes to how ideas from psychology can connect to the business world. I understood more about my personality through the MBTI assessment, analyzed my conflict management style, and so much more. As a fourth-year student entering the workforce soon, I hope to use some of what I learned from this class with me to a work environment. I think this class can be extremely valuable for students of all majors because of the insights you gain about yourself and how you work with others.