It can be easy for college students to use texting lingo in conversations, but that isn’t the best way to talk in business situations. Nor can it be how students write emails to colleagues or potential clients.

This is something that local colleges and universities have noticed can happen and they have built courses into their business education curriculum to contend with this issue.

Dr. A.J. Grube, who has served as the Dean of the College of Business at Western Carolina University for the past five years, has praised her colleagues for their development of a needed new course that will arrive in August and tackles specific topics to prepare students for the business world in subtle ways. This will be a required course for students in the business school, she said.

“What we saw with students was a big gap in communication, and we were getting papers that were written like texts,” Grube said. “They need to learn how to write professionally and to communicate professionally, whether that is oral communication or written communication, and they just were lacking in that. Our faculty developed what we call our Business Ready Class and that is what it's for. It's just professional skills, soft skills, and communication.”

Students majoring in business at the University of North Carolina Asheville are learning similar skills, said Dr. Leah Mathews, who is the chair of the Department of Economics and Department of Business.

At the school in Asheville there is an entire Professional Development Program (PDP) requirement for all majors. In this program students work on resumes, LinkedIn profiles, mentoring, meet with career coaches from the amazing Career Center, and so on. 

“We inculcate this from their first course, Intro to Business, since these are essential life, as well as career, skills,” Mathews said.

Along with that required program, the Economics and Business departments host career panels to give students a chance to talk with folks in the industry to support their career ideation and build networking skills. UNCA's Career Center also hosts Executives in Residence to bring CEOs and other senior business professionals to campus; they meet with classes and have 1:1's with students, which further supports their professional development.

These skills, which may seem second hand to so many business professionals in the area, aren’t the only new topics that are being taught to business students.

As the use of Artificial Intelligence continues to be prevalent in business, students are being introduced to it in classes. Professors are even taking classes on how to utilize the technology in lessons.

“I wouldn't say we have AI classes. We have AI content in most of the courses,” Grube said. “If you do it in a class, then you have to wait until you get to the class and then you learn about AI or the good uses of AI. I think it's important to teach students how to use AI productively and effectively, rather than just taking the approach of saying, 'AI is bad, don't ever use it.'”

UNC Asheville, on the other hand, has an “AI For Business” class.

Grube, who has taught at WCU for 27 years, has seen changes to the curriculum throughout her career. Gone are typewriters and desktop computers. Now there are courses on cyber security.

“We still have to teach students about logistics and supply chain,” Grube said. “We've seen the effects of that and what happens when that goes wrong.  That's part of the training, and I don't think that's necessarily so much different.”

Businesses have changed and, therefore, business education has changed. 

“Math really hasn't changed that much. It's still the basic functions, but accounting has drastically changed,” Grube continued. “I think the most important thing for a College of Business is to stay in touch with small business owners, because the small business owners, that's where it's at. The large companies, like Bank of America, have Bank of America resources. Baxley's Chocolates in downtown Sylva does not have Bank of America resources, but they still have an online presence, and they sell chocolates online, therefore they have to have some type of cyber protection.”

Mathews agrees that students learning about business have to learn the basics, which haven’t changed that much.

“Some of the fundamentals really haven't shifted that much in terms of, like the basic theories, however, in terms of the topical areas and thinking about some of the courses and the applications that we are having students introduced to and really focus on, many of the things have shifted, certainly on the finance side,” Mathews said. “One of the things that we're going to be adding in this year is a class in risk management, which is, again, kind of like an old school, traditional, really important foundational topic, but it's one that if students haven't really been thinking about the process of changing business systems and environmental ecosystems it's something that everybody needs to kind of get their head around.”

Curriculums have been modified to include instruction on topical issues. Students at UNCA now have the opportunity to take classes that focus on business intelligence and analytics or digital and social media marketing.

And, yes, those classes might see an uptick in the excitement level of students.

“You still need fundamentals, right?” Mathews said. “That's never going to go away, because any of these fun, interactive and exciting and timely things really need to have a context with them and grounding. There’s definitely a lot of student interest in it.”