Elective Classes That Business Students Should Take (and Take Seriously)
These are three courses I took during my program that provided incredible amounts of value in the form of soft skills. In the last few years, soft skills have been incredibly important to my success, and having these courses under my belt has made a difference in my ability to progress in my career. Today, I’m going to share some important courses that you may see as electives that can be essential to your professional growth.
Business Communication
When taught properly, business communication courses are going to be one of the most important classes you take at your university. Your value as an employee or a consultant to a third party heavily depends on you being able to impart value onto others, the process of doing so will universally involve some type of business communication. Personally, I typically write technical memos, emails, instructions, and feedback on a daily basis. While a lot of this learning is done on the job, many business communication courses teach you the fundamentals that aren't obvious in the field. When you combine the fundamentals learned from the courses with additional sources of education (like my blogs) and on the job training, you will have a very strong communications skill set to utilize.
Human Resource Management
I took a human resource management course as a part of my master's degree program, and it opened my eyes to how important human resources can be to a functioning organization (no matter how large or small). Understanding concepts like creating SMART goals for your employees, aligning those goals with critical business objectives, and creating supporting reward systems that incentivize the right thing has made me stand out among my peers. Even with tons of advances in technology, people will still be at the core of many businesses. Therefore, it's important for you to know how people work within the business environment and taking a course like this is a great place to start.
Negotiation
I'll admit, this course did not help me very much when getting my first job in public accounting due to the nature of standardized salaries that many firms use for entry-level employees. However, the core concepts taught in my negotiation course about empathizing with the person on the other side of the table and expanding the pie (incorporating more aspects into the negotiation to create win-win scenarios) have been incredibly useful throughout my career. These negotiation skills have not only come up in potential job interviews, but also annual performance evaluations, conversations over client fees and services, and talks regarding staff development and scheduling. Being able to frame a conversation properly and understanding the wants, the needs, and the potential of multiple parties has been incredibly valuable to me over the years.
Just like many things, you can learn more about these concepts and how they can benefit you on this blog and other places on the internet if you are so motivated. However, if you get the opportunity to take these as a part of your university curriculum, I highly recommend these courses because you can earn credit towards your degree while learning valuable skills. Do you have any questions about what other courses might be very valuable? Let us know in the comment section below!