A business minor is now available to all undergraduate students through the Rady School of Management.
An information session on the business minor will be held on Oct. 5 by the Rady School and the pre-business fraternity, Delta Sigma Pi. UCSD currently has no business major — the most comparable major is management science, which has an economic focus. Until this year, the Rady School of Management only offered an accounting minor.
Delta Sigma Pi Vice President of Professional Activities Joshua Chang said the minor could allow students to explore aspects of business without having prerequisites in economics.
“It’s not something for only the econ majors or the management science majors,” Chang said. “It’s something that’s universal. Everyone can be an entrepreneur. Anyone can learn these work ethics and business ethics.”
The minor is hoped to further satisfy the Rady School of Management’s goal to provide business education to UCSD students. Students can take courses in areas such as management, communication, math and psychology.
“The Rady faculty as well as faculty from at least six supporting departments believe that students from a wide range of academic pursuits can benefit from some knowledge of business principles and practices,” Clark Jordan, Assistant Dean of the Rady School of Management, said in an email.
Jordan emphasized that Rady is not planning on launching a business major in the future as it believes that business insight coupled with a non-business major is the ideal combination for undergraduates.
“I like to use the example of an art student who would like to not only paint great works, but also have his or her own gallery to display and sell those works,” Jordan said. “That entails knowing how to market the gallery and its works, raising and budgeting financial resources, managing operational details and knowing how to work with the public and employees just as a start. The same could be said of most other career options.”
Rady has been providing undergraduate business courses for over four years — with over 2,500 students enrolled in classes last year.
“I have had hundreds of inquires from students over those four years asking when the business minor would be in place,” Jordan said. “Strong support was also voiced by the advising groups at each of the six colleges who understand best the educational and career interests of our undergraduate population since they work directly with this group daily.”
Jordan said that the business minor was only added this year because Rady had to build up faculty and administrative resources before it could take on the task, explaining that launching both minors at once would have put a strain on the department.
Plans for the business minor were conceived of around the same time as the accounting minor. Rady launched its accounting minor two and a half years ago, and it is now the largest minor on campus with nearly 500 enrolled students.
“We had to be assured of the success of the accounting minor before we could move on to the business minor,” Jordan said. “To have launched both minors at once would have put too big a strain on what was then more limited resources.”
Currently, 104 students have declared a business minor. Rady expects to have 500 to 600 business minors by the end of June 2013.
