Newswise — Cornell College has announced two new programs that will help prepare students for careers after graduation. The college will add academic programs in business and engineering sciences, starting in the 2015-16 academic year.
The new programs were chosen because of the interest prospective students have shown in those areas, because of their good fit with programs the college already offers, and because they provide students opportunities to prepare for careers in vital, growing fields with many employment opportunities. Both programs are focused on preparing students for enriching careers and lives, thanks, in part, to the benefits of a broad-based liberal arts education.
“Our small class sizes, the personal attention from our faculty, and the freedom of schedule that One Course At A Time offers combine to prepare our students in impressive ways for careers or postgraduate education. Together, they will powerfully support our offerings in engineering sciences and business,” said Cornell President Jonathan Brand. “These new programs are part of our strategic plan to innovate within the liberal arts and offer new opportunities that we know interest students, and will fill a need beyond Cornell College.”
The engineering program will prepare students for jobs or graduate study in electrical or mechanical engineering, as well as related fields such as robotics or computer engineering. The curriculum at Cornell College will be based on emerging trends in engineering education, including a report from the National Academy of Engineering, which states that engineers of the future will need a solid grounding in the humanities, social sciences, and economics, in addition to training in science and mathematics.
Lyle Lichty, professor of physics, who, along with Kara Beauchamp, professor of physics, proposed the engineering sciences program, said that a liberal arts education is great preparation for a career in the field.
“The engineering education community has been introducing reforms that provide students with the skills and knowledge that practicing engineers actually use,” he said. “Many of these skills sound very familiar to those of us at a liberal arts college—effective communication, identifying problems, designing solutions and experiments, working in a group, engagement in lifelong learning, and, of course, knowledge of math, science, and engineering. We want our engineering students to be engaged in the process of designing solutions to meet societal needs early in their education. This can provide motivation for studying the math and science that are still important parts of an engineering education. Later in their Cornell careers, students can get a good taste of real-world engineering by using a block to intern at a company or by designing and implementing a solution to an engineering problem in our advanced design course.”
The new business program expands upon the already popular economics and business major. All business majors will complete a common set of core courses in economics, accounting, and statistics. From there students will choose from one of three concentrations—finance, business analytics, or actuarial science—with each of the three preparing graduates to complete industry standard exams and certifications.
Santhi Hejeebu, professor of economics and business, said that the three new concentrations are all in high demand, high compensation areas. “We want to make sure our students are ready to take advantage of the opportunities in these fields,” she said. “One third of our seniors who majored in economics and business last year had job offers six months before graduation. We believe these new programs, which teach important skills while reinforcing core strengths in communication and interpersonal relations, are going to improve that trend. We’re quite optimistic about our students’ prospects.”
The finance concentration will prepare students for careers in the financial sector, as well as for careers in finance and accounting departments of organizations varying widely across the economy. Cornell College graduates are already working in positions across the financial industry, Hejeebu said, and the concentration is going to offer a chance for students to differentiate themselves from graduates of other business programs.
Business analytics blends economics, statistics, and computer science. The field has seen explosive growth at all levels and sizes of business, with a report by the McKinsey Global Institute estimating that there will be 1.5 million open positions for people with business analytics training by 2018. “This is a permanent change to the way business is being done,” Hejeebu said.
The actuarial science concentration prepares students to apply mathematics and statistics to the assessment of risk. Actuarial science is a secure, growing field and the curriculum will align closely with industry needs.
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