3 Tips for Online Business Students

Business Administration continues to be one of the most versatile and popular undergraduate degrees – and for good reason. The knowledge acquired and skills learned are useful in many of the highest-paying and best-retained jobs in the current economy. Business Administration is also becoming a popular choice for students who are pursuing a degree through online or hybrid format programs. For students interested in maximizing their opportunity and experience through an online business degree, here are a few helpful recommendations to work in over the course of the program.

Look for an internship in your desired business field.

If you do not already have a job that you are planning to hold while you work on your business administration degree, then you should know that it is never too early to get started on gaining relevant experience that will be attractive to a potential future employer. This can help you quickly and efficiently connect the lessons you are learning in the classroom with the real-world work you hope to be doing someday. It may be the case that you need to take a part-time, even unpaid, internship in order to find a worthwhile opportunity. If so, don’t get discouraged. Many companies look to hire internally for entry-level positions, and often draw from a readily-available pool of talented students who have been interns in various company departments.

Obviously you need to balance your financial needs – supporting yourself and your family while you are in school – with the opportunities available through such things as internships. But if you can make the sacrifice while you are in school, chances are you will be well-positioned for a great job right when you finish your degree.

Do your classwork in teams.

Whether it’s a group project, team-writing a research paper, or good old-fashioned study groups, such collaborative exercises are helpful in preparing for many a corporate environment. It’s unlikely that you will be working working solo on anything once you enter the business world. You will be relying on other people for information, feedback and input, and even to complete other necessary parts of work on your behalf, so it’s best to learn how to do that effectively starting while you are in school.

Many professors in a business administration program recognize this, and structure assignments accordingly. You may find that this takes some amount of adjustment on your part: you have to learn to work together well with other people, even – let’s be honest – people you would not readily choose to work with. That’s the reality of the business world. You have to be prepared to get along with and work effectively alongside anyone and everyone. This is a good lesson to learn while you are still in school.

Take classes from professors with “real world” experience.

This one may be the hardest to accomplish sometimes, as you don’t have control of which professors are teaching which classes in your school’s business department. But an increasing number of schools offering online business administration degrees and other such programs for working adults recognize the need to hire professors who have real-world experience.

Think about it: wouldn’t you rather learn from someone who is teaching you from actual first-hand knowledge about what you can expect when you enter the business world? A business administration degree requires learning, yes, but it also requires doing. When selecting a college or university for its business administration degree program, be sure to look at the bios of its teaching faculty and see if they are currently (or were previously employed) in the private sector. If so, you will likely find someone who can offer lots of business lessons that go beyond the textbook and the classroom.

Point University is a fully-accredited, not-for-profit institution with a range of degree program options grounded in a Christian worldview.

Point offers Associate of Arts and Bachelor of Science degrees in Business Administration in both fully-online as well as hybrid learning formats as part of its popular Access program for working adults.

For more information about Point’s online Business Administration degree, please visit https://online.point.edu/online-bachelors-in-business-administration/.