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School of Business > UPDATE > Spring 2002 > Article One View of Today's Undergrads
Q: How would you say undergraduate students today are different from students in your day? A: The biggest difference is that in the '60s people were throwing stones at the business school, breaking windows during the Dow riots. Now they're breaking the doors down for a different reason-they want in. Students today are much more concerned about their future than we were. I don't know what it was back then in the '60s when I was in school but we sort of figured, "We'll get a degree, we'll find a job and we'll get on with our lives." Today's students aren't like that. In part it's because of the competition they face. When I was student it was much easier to get in here. Now you have to be in the top 20 percent of your high school class, and have an ACT of 27. Almost two-thirds of the students are coming in with Advanced Placement courses. The competition is much heightened over what it used to be. Q: Are there other ways that today's students are different? A: Thirty years ago, when I was a student, we spent summers bagging groceries for the IGA. Now students are working for investment banking firms, summer interning at Procter & Gamble or General Mills or Ford. The depth and breadth of business knowledge students bring to the classroom as undergraduates far exceeds what I saw in my undergraduate classes. So that's a real positive. I get a sense there's a much greater sense of community these days among students and I think a large part has to do with Grainger Hall. All their courses are here, the library's nice, there's a deli with a lounge for them downstairs, the Business Learning Center, computer labs. Everything is right here. Grainger Hall pulls people together. Students seem to know each other much better. Their involvement in student activities is greater than in the past. Q: What do you think a business student from 30 years ago would find most surprising about business education today? A: Besides the level of competition and internationalization of the student body and faculty, I think they'd be most surprised by the wide variety of undergraduate courses. Undergraduates have the opportunity to take the basic theoretical courses like we took in school, but they also have much greater opportunity to take advanced electives and practice business in applied programs. Almost every department has some sort of practical, hands-on experience built into its curriculum. Q: What are the challenges facing undergraduate business education? A: In this day and age, when so much emphasis is put on MBA programs, which are very costly, the question is: What's available for undergraduate education? As the undergraduate dean, I'm concerned with what we're able to offer undergraduates in terms of course selection, instruction, computer labs and other resources. That's a major concern of mine. Across the country, you see undergraduate programs being denuded in order to provide resources for master's education because that's where the rankings are. There are major business schools that have faculty who don't teach any undergraduates. That's a disturbing trend. At Wisconsin, a lot of our loyalty has always come from our undergraduate alums. I would hate to lose that.
Lari Fanlund is the editor of UPDATE magazine.
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