It’s hard to pin down who the business majors really are, because they go by so many names. There are the assured-admits, who were accepted into UNC’s business school, Kenan-Flagler, before their years at UNC began. Pre-business students, who are fulfilling their prerequisites to complete a business school application after their freshman year, and a small group of students who claim that their major is the “investment banking track.” As if someone fresh out of high school even really knows what investment banking is.
Unlike being a pre-medical or pre-law student, being a pre-business student doesn’t merely involve completing a list of prerequisites: it’s a lifestyle. They must involve themselves in all possible business extracurriculars, to increase their chances of making it to Wall Street, or at the very least, to the hallowed halls of Kenan-Flagler.
From the age of 18 these students are being asked to give up ambitions of working in other industries and solely focus on building their business expertise.
These expectations are not the fault of pre-business majors. Kenan-Flagler’s admission standards ask for student work experience and extra-curricular involvement which “correlate to career focus,” driving students to abandon all other passions to join business frats, participate in consulting case competitions and complete investment pitch decks.
The skills Kenan-Flagler asks of their potential admits include “effective communication skills,” “analytical skills,” “intellectual curiosity,” “community service” and “strength of character.” There is no doubt that these qualifications would make for an excellent business major. However, these are attributes students can acquire doing a ton of other activities unrelated to business.
Being a writer for The Daily Tar Heel has trained my intellectual curiosity. My strength of character develops every time I have a challenging conversation with a friend. And my analytical skills grow every time I have to analyze a complex case study with my Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl team. So why are students being told these are skills they should only be acquiring in business-oriented activities?
By providing students time during their university years to investigate different subjects and learn outside their majors, they can guarantee that business is really what they want to spend the next 40 years doing. And if it is? Great! There are so many ways to get involved in business endeavors at UNC.
However, if students realize that it isn’t business alone that they want to pursue, they should be able and encouraged to involve themselves in as many extracurriculars as possible to gain knowledge of various industries.
Beyond this, UNC is doing itself a disservice by training students to all look the same on paper. It becomes much more challenging to stand out as a Kenan-Flagler graduate in a competitive job market when everyone is encouraged to rush the same business frats and interview for the 180 Consulting Club.
