The real-world experience of running a business for a semester is one opportunity the students in the Marketing Department can receive. The Integrated Business Core is a class where groups of students create and run an actual business for the whole semester.
“And so, what IBC does is it kind of puts people in this pressure cooker,” said Matthew Maroon, the chair of the Department of Finance at BYU-Idaho, “IBC kind of becomes the vessel by which these soft skills are taught. And what it allows students to do is to really not just focus on kind of the academic component and doing the work to kind of get the grade but becoming a disciple leader in this kind of fiery environment.”
Ethan Richards was taking the IBC class when he was interviewed for this podcast episode. He says each student in the group has a different job in the business. Whether they’re the CEO, marketing, finance, they collaborate to make the business successful. He says it’s the soft skills he’s learning the most while having this experience.
“How deo we be more honest with each other? How do we talk about the real problems? Hey, what you’re saying is hurting my feelings. What’s going on here? And so, I think it’s been way more of an eye opener of this is what the real world looks like, much more than what are the shortcuts you can use on Excel,” Richards said.
IBC is not the only class available in the Marketing Department. The majors and minors include Business Management: Marketing major, a Marketing minor and an Associate of Applied Science in Marketing.
BYU-Idaho’s mission is to build disciples of Jesus Christ who are leaders in their homes, their communities and in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Maroon says it’s important for the teachers at BYU-Idaho to be intentional about setting the example for students.
“We’re not only talking about the secular things that I’m passionate about and I feel like is really going to prepare students to get jobs, but more importantly, allowing us to kind of nurture that spiritual side of student development because this is a time that, whether they know it or not, that they’re probably going to be having spiritual discussions more often than maybe any other time in their lives,” Maroon said.
You can watch or listen to this episode of the Fulfilling the Mission podcast on YouTube, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. The episode is also available below.