Editor’s Picks: Our Favorite Stories Of 2018

The Best Summer Jobs That Aren’t Internships

Sometimes a summer internship just doesn’t work out. But fear not, young business majors. There are other valuable options! We covered a few of those options earlier this year. For one, many B-schools have an extra pot of money to fund students who want to team up with professors for research opportunities.

Rebecca Cassidy, a senior assistant dean at McDonough and director of the school’s Office of Professional and Leadership Development, told us, “Students pick any subject and professor they want to work with to develop a summer research project and sometimes they work part-time on the side as well. We usually get about 15-20 students per summer and they’re often on the younger end. Usually, it’s students at the end of their sophomore year. They’re not quite ready for a traditional internship, but they also don’t want to go home for the summer either.”

Studying abroad is another worthwhile option that not only includes a unique experience, but can be a talking point on a resume and in future job interviews. Simply job shadowing is another option for internship-less students. No matter what, not having a summer internship isn’t the end of the world for business majors and their are many other viable options.

Getting the job you really want–not merely a job

Family Business Programs On The Rise At Universities

With the rise of popular companies like Amazon, Google, or Tesla and sustained interest in finance and consulting firms, it’s easy to overlook a staple of the historic American economy — family run businesses. But at a few schools like Babson College and Washington University in St. Louis Olin Business School, family business initiatives are having some renewed interest.

Indeed, family businesses remain a substantial driver of the global and American economy, responsible for 80% of new job creation, says Olin Dean Mark Taylor. Globally, family businesses account for 70% GDP output. Family businesses contribute more than $68 trillion to global GDP and drive 64% of the U.S. economy, Taylor adds.

“Some students may be interested in family businesses to help grow their own family’s business, but many are interested because when you look at family businesses, they drive two-thirds of the U.S. economy,” Taylor says. “About a third of Fortune 500 companies are family controlled, and the return on investment is greater in family businesses. These companies are not thinking of the next year or quarters results. They’re thinking about the next generation. ”

Commencement at Washington University’s Olin Business School. Photo by Jerry Naunheim Jr.

How B-Schools Are Embracing The #MeToo Movement

Business schools do not exist in a silo. They are impacted by not only what is happening in the industry, but also political and social movements of our time. One of those movements to impact industry and future business leaders alike over the past year was the #MeToo movement.

“Once entering the workforce, students may find themselves embedded in organizations that may have problematic gender dynamics, as well as strong organizational cultures that make it difficult to speak up,” Rachel Ruttan a professor at Washington University’s Olin Business School, whose research interests are in compassion and prosocial behavior, motivation, and emotion, says. “We thought it was important to speak to concepts of moral courage and how students can seek to proactively design their organizations to remove barriers to speaking up.”

Beyond speaking up, many schools have implemented student-run clubs focused on gender equity. On top of preparing their business students to be able to identify unhealthy workplace environments, and how they are contributing to or can change them, the Olin Women in Business club also launched a Men as Allies initiative in March this year. These actions are being echoed at many other business schools, where professors are using companies like Uber to reference the morphing handling of sexual harassment, and engaging students in discussions of subconscious harassment with words and gestures that make others uncomfortable.

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