As summer unfolds at the College of Business, we’re advancing our mission to drive discovery, create opportunity and empower future business leaders.
We welcomed nearly 150 high school students from across the country to campus through our free summer programs, Discover Accounting, Discover Actuarial Science and Discover Business: DREAMBIG Academy. With no prior business coursework required, the programs provide meaningful introductions to business education while students experience college life. They stay in residence halls, explore careers, visit businesses and sharpen their leadership and networking skills. They also may potentially qualify for scholarships.
This summer we are also preparing to launch a bold, new undergraduate curriculum this fall. These efforts reflect our commitment to making business education immersive and inspiring—from a student’s first steps toward college to the capstone experiences that prepare them to thrive in the professional world.
Our new core curriculum is an exciting step forward for our first-year students. From day one, they will begin business courses designed to develop them into data-driven decision-makers, effective communicators, purposeful strategists and empowered professionals. No matter their major, every business student benefits from an integrated and intentional experience grounded in real-world application, strengths-based leadership development and career readiness.
In their first year, they will:
- Tackle real-world challenges with corporate partners. In a new first-year course, students explore every business discipline and compete in their first business case competition with support from peer coaches and industry professionals.
- Stretch their strengths where CliftonStrengths® first started. Our students discover and develop their strengths through the CliftonStrengths® assessment in Investing in Strengths, a course offered at the place where strengths-based psychology began. Each student receives one-on-one coaching from trained student mentors to create personalized plans for academic, career and personal success.
- Apply classroom learning to career planning. In Career Development & Planning, students practice networking and refine their resumes with guidance from peer career coaches.
As they progress, students take distinctive classes like Applied Improv for Successful Business Leaders to enhance their communication and adaptability and Navigating Emerging Technologies in Business to stay ahead in a rapidly changing business landscape. Free tutoring through our donor-supported Teaching and Learning Center further enhances student success while giving student tutors valuable mentoring experience.
The new curriculum culminates in a capstone course where students collaborate in multidisciplinary teams to solve a real business problem with a corporate partner. This project brings together everything they’ve learned—strategic thinking, data analysis, communication and collaboration—while showcasing the value of a Nebraska Business education to industry leaders.
As we innovate and evolve, we need more industry professionals to mentor students and corporate partners for projects. The College of Business offers many ways to partner so those interested should complete this form.
Let's work together to continue building business leaders like only Nebraska can.
Go Big Red!
Kathy Farrell
