I recently went to Africa to satisfy a dream of seeing wildlife in their natural habitat. There are no words to adequately describe the awe I felt being among virtually every specie of African animal and observing them at every stage of the life cycle. Lions feeding on a hippo that had been killed in a territorial battle with another hippo. Cubs and babies of every sort riding on their parents and playing the games of all childhood. Huge herds of elephants crossing rivers and cape buffalo crossing savannas. Hippos looking like cartoon characters as they wade in their pools. Zebras, giraffes, elephants and other grazers and browsers mowing their way through the wilderness. Leopards and painted wolves stalking their prey. The terrain was rugged and civilization was hundreds of miles away. We were in the land where survival of the fittest is the only way of life.
The African wilderness affirmed my belief in the value of an education at Lubin.
As I watch my kids navigate through college and beyond, and reflect upon my own path, I empathize with high school and college students facing the pressure of an increasingly competitive and demanding job market. There is no doubt that superior quantitative, analytical and communication skills are necessary to be in the game for the career paths with the most opportunity. Math, the natural sciences and engineering are among the disciplines that feed all segments of industry because of the rigor of their curricula and the transferrable skills successful students in those disciplines develop.
As the Dean of the Lubin School of Business, it is my observation that the rigor of business curricula likewise prepares students with the skills necessary to be effective in any kind of enterprise, project or organization. Whether a student wants to be a professional, an executive, an entrepreneur or work in nonprofits or government, knowing how to develop a plan, build a budget, identify the necessary human resources, frame the market opportunity, communicate to all constituencies, and manage it all efficiently and effectively is critical for success. It is often said accounting is the language of business and, it is clearly true that understanding financial statements is a fundamental necessity for upward mobility. Finance is not just about public securities and investment portfolios; understanding capital structure and project financing is necessary in order to attract the funding necessary to accomplish any entity’s goals. And, it’s not enough to do something well if no one knows about it so marketing is also essential for the effective pursuit of economic, political, or values-driven goals. Managing all aspects of an enterprise, organization or project is complex and demanding and there is both art and science to doing it well. The law and regulation surrounds it all so recognizing those issues and addressing them competently is yet another dimension of being effective in your chosen field.
Accounting, Finance, Marketing, Management and Legal Studies… those are the departments at the Lubin School of Business. Every student here has the chance to develop the critical knowledge and skills to effectively pursue his or her career aspirations. And beyond those fundamentals, we offer majors and concentrations in a wide variety of specialties including Advertising and Promotion, Hospitality and Tourism, Entrepreneurship, Arts and Entertainment, Investment Management, Human Resource Management and many more.
A conscientious and thoughtful path through Lubin will result in job-readiness second to none. The foundational courses, the advanced topics and the specialty areas provide an intellectual gymnasium for students to develop their minds into a state of preparedness and capability that will enable them to compete successfully in a world of predators, alpha-males, snakes and highly developed and ambitious herds.
The world is a competitive place and, in the modern economy, survival of the fittest means strong analytical, quantitative and communication skills. Lubin’s mission has never been more relevant and our highly-ranked outcomes demonstrate that our graduates are successfully finding their way in a daunting environment of uncertainty, competition and danger.