Learning together as leaders, classmates, and friends
The Gies Business Cohort Sequence enables you to gain valuable skills, real-world experience, and the mindset to lead with purpose, integrity, and impact. Unique to Gies, the Cohort Sequence consists of transformational courses in each of your four years: Business Foundations, Business Dynamics, Business in Action, and Crafting Your Purpose in Business.
You progress through these courses with the same cohort of classmates – resulting in a robust learning community as you collectively gain a deeper understanding of business and your purpose within it. Together you'll learn to collaborate with others from diverse backgrounds, tackle complex challenges, foster empathy, and have opportunities to make an impact for good. This sequence embodies Business on Purpose.
Foundational courses offered through the cohort sequence
BUS 101: Professional Responsibility and Business
"Professional Responsibility and Business" explores the social value of business, the vocation of business, and ethics and professional responsibility. Business 101 helps you think aspirationally about business and how it adds value for customers. You will emerge with a strong sense of what it means to participate in communities of all kinds – and why responsibility and accountability are so essential to a career in any type of business.
BUS 201: Business Dynamics
"Business Dynamics" is built around a business simulation. You will be introduced to the primary functional areas of business and how each functional area relates to creating a business system. In addition to engaging in a dynamic business simulation, you are taught to think and engage like a leader. The ability to manage teams, become an effective presenter, network, and manage conflicts prepares you to enter Business 301: Business in Action.
BUS 301: Business in Action
“Business in Action", one of the largest experiential learning courses in the nation, is offered through the Magelli Office of Experiential Learning. You will spend the semester analyzing and solving business problems for Fortune 100 corporations, midsize and startup companies, and nonprofit organizations. Working in teams of 6-7, you will learn to develop strategies to solve complex problems and prepare to share your story with recruiters. This valuable experience means you will graduate more prepared for the real world, more prepared to add value from day one, and more prepared to succeed in your career.
BUS 401: Crafting Your Purpose in Business
"Crafting Your Purpose in Business" enables seniors to develop the mindset and skills to lead purpose-centered lives. In this culminating course, you will learn to talk about your purpose, assess your skills for enacting it, and carry out self-directed projects related to skills-development and service. Through these activities, along with interactive lectures, speakers, and engagement with peers, you will build practices and relationships you can leverage for ongoing success as purpose-driven Gies Business alumni.
A purpose-driven student experience
At Gies Business, you can discover your own path to purpose. Inclusiveness, collaboration, and intellectual curiosity make for a strong community, and entrepreneurial thinking encourages you to challenge the status quo. Integrity and professional responsibility are at the heart of it all. These values help prepare and empower you to become an exceptional, innovative, purposeful, and ethical business leader.
