At Seton Hall University Stillman School of Business, there are so many experiential learning opportunities that every student finds themselves learning by doing at some point in their undergraduate experience.
In a survey of alumni from the Class of 2016 by Poets&Quants, 100 percent of graduates said they were engaged in a “signature experience” that includes project work, simulations, global immersion, experiential learning, senior thesis, or capstone project.
As a private Roman Catholic University in South Orange, New Jersey, the school also believes that leaders need to “learn to make a difference.” Students of the Seton Hall University perform over 25,000 hours of community service every year, and ethical considerations are integrated throughout every business class at Stillman.
On top of the usual concentration offerings in Accounting, Economics, Business Administration, Entrepreneurship, Legal Studies, Management Information, Management, Marketing, Marketing, and Sport Management, Stillman School of Business also offers a Leadership Development Honors Program, that has consistently ranked No.1 in the nation for four years in the LEAD Awards sponsored by HR.com. The program was specifically named the No. 1 Certificate Program with Emphasis on Leadership/ Organizational Development.
Those who make the cut for the high-selective program will be part of a Junior Year Mentorship Program, where they work with an Advisory Council executive from the Center for Leadership Development on a one-on-one basis. Students will experience being in the role of a senior officer, and be presented with opportunities to deal with an issue they identify, produce a paper and present it to a faculty committee. The top three students will be awarded scholarships.
As part of the program, students will also take a course called Ideas & Trends, where junior year students are guided to think about innovative technology, engage in fieldwork, and collaborate to identify ideas and trends and explore how they connect with the future. The experience is intended at preparing students for top-level positions in the business industry, where they should expect disruption, but can fundamentally prepare for it through critical observation and thinking.
“It was a program that provided me opportunities and connections and teachings that really helped advance me through both universities, graduate school, and professional life,” alumni from the Class of 2016, who was part of the program, said.
Students in the program will also take a Leadership 101 course, and a engage in many other projects and team activities to help grow the center, sometimes engaging with external businesses that need support with their business needs. The time spent on these initiatives not only ground the students in their community, but they also give them an opportunity to build a leadership portfolio, while developing their professional network.
Previous classes of the Leadership Development Honors Program have worked in the Program’s Code of Conduct, helped out with a funding initiative to improve the Center’s ability to support student and Program development, and helped develop and implement the program’s Study Abroad Program.
In addition to the opportunities mentioned above, student leaders are expected to complete 80 hours of community service, since good leaders lead, and great leaders serve.
EVERY STUDENT EARNED A SCHOLARSHIP THIS FALL
Stillman School of Business offers a four-year undergraduate business program that was ranked 108 by U.S. News & World Report’s 2019 America’s Best Colleges guide and is one of 186 programs worldwide to hold the AACSB accreditation to both business and accounting programs.
The school saw 3,902 applications to join their undergraduate program in Fall 2018, and admitted 2,247 students, giving the program an acceptance rate of 58.6 percent for direct applicants. The acceptance rate for transfer students is 61.5 percent.
Of the 85 percent of students who reported their SAT scores to the school, the average score was 1257, and the incoming Fall 2018 class had an average high school GPA of 3.56.
The school estimates that the total four-year cost of attending, covering tuition and fees, is $155,144 and that additional expenses on a room, board, transportation and living expenses, books and supplies, are likely to add up to another $70,000. The school added that every single student in the incoming Fall 2018 class received some form of scholarship support, with the average amount being $22,919.
Over 80 percent of alumni from the Class of 2016 told P&Q that they believed their business degree was worth its cost in tuition and 87 percent of them said that the program had prepared them exceptionally well for the world of work.
EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES ABOUND
Students at Stillman School have plenty of opportunities at experiential learning even if they are not part of the Leadership Program. Finance students who have their eyes set on Wall Street will get practice with stock evaluations, take classes in the school’s Center for Securities Trading and Analysis, and even attend the annual Capital Markets Colloquium. At this event, students not only network with industry professionals while discussing market trends and global events, but they also attend sessions on topics including real estate finance and investing in corporate credit, and have their questions on the overall economy answered.
Finance students get to grow their knowledge and practice their skills at the many classes on Financial News, Fixed Income Analysis and Futures, and Securities Trading at the university. They are also encouraged to bring out their competitive sides at the New York Security Analysts Investment Research Challenge, where the Seton Hall University were the Americas Regional Final Co-Champions in 2017. Students can also get hands-on practice by joining the Stillman School of Business Investment Club, and helping to run the Hall Street Fund, a student-managed investment that’s an equity, long only fund, and is benchmarked on the S&P 500 index. In 2017, the fund returned 20.41 percent, beating its S&P benchmark. The S&P 500 returned 18.74 percent that year.
The school’s major in Mathematical Finance is also unique, comprising a blend of higher-level math and quantitative finance course designed to prepare students for careers in corporate treasury, investment banking, commercial banking, hedge funds, insurance, and risk management.
Marketing majors at Stillman can pick up skills in conducting interviews, moderating focus groups, creating web-based surveys, uncovering insights, and developing actionable solutions for real business clients from a variety of industries at the Market Research Center with state-of-the-art facilities. The center has been in operation for eight years and has benefitted over a thousand students who have worked on 182 projects in partnership with over 119 companies including Mendham Township Library, and Garden Savings Federal Credit Union. By participating in these projects, students get to hone their problem-solving skills and add to their portfolio of work, while businesses get insights and actionable recommendations at an affordable cost, and the community is build up further as a whole.
In addition to all that is currently going on at Stillman School of Business, the school shared that they recently added competency in business analytics to the list of required undergraduate learning outcomes. They have also added an option to earn a Certificate in Business Analytics for all business majors, in line with the growing demand for graduates with experience, skill, and knowledge in the way data and analytics can affect demand, supply, and the markets.
The school has also introduced a “Practice Partner” program, where faculty members pair with business professionals to team-teach business core and elective courses, which makes their classes even more in-touch with industry trends, topics, and needs.
Students at Stillman can now also take a semester-long supply chain management consulting course, where teams of students provide consulting services to real companies.
The school shared that about 57 percent of the graduating Class of 2018 participated in a consulting project with an external organization, while 88 percent of students had a business-specific internship before graduation. Later on, 58 percent of the Class of 2018 found full-time jobs within a couple of months of graduation.
VERY STRONG ALUMNI SURVEY RESULTS BOOSTS STILLMAN UP THIS YEAR’S RANKING
About 60 percent of alumni from the Class of 2016 told P&Q that they believed their business degree would be instrumental in helping them reach their dream career and that it would help them climb to a new socioeconomic status.
Students at Stillman can choose from 16 business-specific student organizations and 5 study abroad opportunities to broaden their business education.
From the Accounting Cub, Supply Chain Club, and Entrepreneurship Club, to the Marketing Club, Sport Management Student Association, and Stillman Exchange, there’s no way a business student at Seton Hall can say they are having a hard time meeting like-minded people.
The Stillman Exchange is Seton Hall University’s Business Publication. Articles on the site cover everything from tech and innovation, money and investing, and spots, to international news, and international business.
Seton Hall University also hosts two Student Entrepreneurship Clubs. The Seton Hall Chapter of Epsilon Nu Tau is the nation’s collegiate entrepreneurship fraternity, where students can get involved in the annual conferences that allow them to meet entrepreneurs from other universities, attend networking events, and speaker series. The Seton Hall Entrepreneurship Club meets bi-weekly, and also hosts guest speakers on a regular basis.
About 50 percent of alumni from the Class of 2016 said that they traveled abroad as part of their undergraduate studies, and places they went to included Spain, Greece, El Salvador, Portugal, and Ireland.
What was particularly outstanding was that many alumni who responded to the survey said that they had gone on multiple trips. One even shared that he had gone on four study-abroad trips to Spain, Portugal, Greece, and Ireland, all while working on his degree in Finance, Marketing, and IT, with a Minor in Legal Studies.
Francis Ahmed, Class of 2016, said that he not only traveled abroad while at Stillman, he was also part of a semester-long sophomore assessment project where his team worked on analyzing a case study, then planned and conducted a 40-minute presentation on their findings to an anonymous panel, fielded questions. He also took business writing assessments and a financial literacy test as part of the required business curriculum.
“I traveled to Athens, Greece and attended workshops at various businesses to understand how they started, what’s the cash generator and what challenges they were facing as the recession came on: Ahmed, who now works as a Financial Analyst with The Boston Consulting Group, said. “It was an amazing experience and I learned so much about so many different industries.”
Over 90 percent of alumni from the Class of 2016 said that they would recommend the business program at Seton Hall University to a close friend or colleague, and 70 percent of them said that their business school experience was very life-changing.
About 90 percent of alumni also said that their first job after graduating was in their desired job function, and 73 percent said their first job was also at their desired company.
About 49 percent of business students graduated with student debt in 2018, with the average debt amount being $24,746, and among the list of top employers of students from Stillman are JP Morgan Chase, Ernst & Young, Deloitte, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Johnson & Johnson, Prudential, KPMG, and Grant Thornton.
