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    Department of Business Management

    Foundational business management major.  Focused minors.  Real world experience. Engagement with the entire College.  

    Department of Business Management views business as the active liberal art, with ethics and social responsibility central to corporate success.  Our graduates make positive impacts in the worlds they enter as leaders in traditional business venues such as the worlds of finance, accounting, and marketing, and in other organizational contexts such as the worlds of government, law, and non-profit organizations - reflecting Washington College values of critical thinking, effective communication, and moral courage.  The diversity of our talented faculty of teacher-scholars and practitioners echo the global nature of business.

    Learning in the classroom is only the beginning.  Rigorous classes ready you to participate in a wide range of real-world experiences and settings, including an award-winning student-managed investment fund program with a $1M+ portfolio, internships, our summer study abroad program, student-designed experiential projects, faculty-student research, and more.  And there’s funding available to help you achieve your goals.  

    Our major can be combined with any other major or minor offered at Washington College. In fact, at Washington College, Business Management majors can not only aspire to Sigma Beta Delta, the International Business Honor Society, they can also aspire to Phi Beta Kappa, the pre-eminent honor society for students pursuing a liberal education.

    Business Management at Washington College - transforming students into leaders to create better worlds.

    Pathways for the Major & Minors

    Our business management major provides a systemic, holistic view of business, forming a critical foundation for your future career.  Our minors in accounting, entrepreneurship, finance, international business, and marketing build on this foundation with challenging upper-level courses, preparing students to enter careers directly upon graduation or to pursue graduate study in their fields of interest.   

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    The Business Management Major

    Perhaps you want to go into marketing, or become a consultant, or earn a CPA and become an accountant.  Perhaps you have the entrepreneurial drive to start your own business.  Perhaps your passion is people and you want to go into human resources.  Maybe you live and breathe investments or know that you want to use business to make a difference for underserved populations. 

    No matter why you want a career in business, you first need to understand what makes the complex systems that comprise for-profit and not-for-profit organizations work.  The business management major is designed to do just that. 

    You’ll learn hard skills – accounting, finance, statistics – and people-oriented skills – marketing, organizational behavior.  You’ll learn how today’s industries have been digitally transformed and why social responsibility is becoming the strategic norm.  You’ll learn how to infuse ethics into organizational decision-making to achieve corporate excellence.

    The major stands alone in providing essential skills; it also provides the foundation for our minors.

    BUSINESS MANAGEMENT MAJOR

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    The Business Management Minor

    A little business sense is helpful regardless of the career path chosen, and the Business Management Minor can help any major build basic business skills.  The minor consists of three required courses (BUS 111 Principles of Marketing; BUS 112 Introduction to Financial Accounting; BUS 302 Organizational Behavior) and two electives drawn from a 200-level or higher BUS-prefix courses. 

    Keep in mind that ECN 112 Principles of Microeconomics is a prerequisite for BUS 111 Principles of Marketing.

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    Departmental Minors

    We offer minors in Accounting, Entrepreneurship, Finance, International Business, and Marketing, designed to help you delve more deeply into the area of business that sparks your passion.  Each minor requires a minimum of four upper-level courses beyond the Business Management major. 

    Can you take one of these minors without majoring in Business Management? Absolutely, we’ll just ask you to complete four additional courses to fill in essential background knowledge. 

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    Interdisciplinary Majors and Minors

    The interdisciplinary majors in International Studies and Communication & Media Studies draw on courses offered by the Business Management department.  In addition, we partner with other departments in offering interdisciplinary minors in Data Analytics, Information Systems, and Arts Management & Entrepreneurship (see pages describing these minors for more information).  We also contribute courses to the International Economics minor offered by the Economics Department. Ask us how combining these programs or other majors/minors with the Business Management major can provide you with a significant career boost.

     

    Eleven formally-dressed students work in the Brown Advisory Investing Lab under the supervision of an older advisor.

    Student Opportunities

    Organizations like Enactus, our student chapter of the American Marketing Association, and the Brown Advisory Student-Managed Investment Fund Program give students in Business Management the chance to hone their skills outside the classroom.

    Learn More

    Four female and two male student members of Enactus stand in front of an Enactus banner. They are formally dressed.

    Honor Societies and Awards

    Academic excellence, business savvy, leadership potential—there are many ways to stand out and win recognition for excellent work in Business Management.

    Learn More