Everything You Need to Know About Business Degrees

With so many areas and fields emerging in education nowadays, one sees it as a hassle to decide which career path to opt for. Say for example, earlier, a master of business administration or MBA was considered to be a prestigious achievement for a student. This was because of the limited resources and options but now, an MBA college common with all the categories of specializations to choose from.

There has been a drastic change in how education used to be compared to the current aspects of the same. To some extent, understanding what a particular course can bring academically, there is a need to understand a complete list of aspects associated with it. This article is going to prove beneficial to a great extent to the prospective candidates who feel baffled about their decision whether to opt for BBA or not.

Clear the Confusion

For any student, it is a young age for them and it could be a difficult decision that leaves the person perplexed but this is when sources like this blog, come to the rescue.

In order to understand what the degree offers, let us quickly understand what business administration actually is. A business revolves around not just one but many different departments that are interlinked and co-dependent on one another. This means that a business is bound to collapse if any of the departments fail to perform in accordance with the standards. So when you study business administration, you study all the premises or subjects that govern a business entity.

BBA

Bachelor’s of business administration is a three or four-year graduate-level course were in, as the name suggests, the student undertakes the understanding of a vast variety of modules that explain in detail all the guidelines and principles that are required to run a business. In short, you are literally studying business administration. The Certificate or degree in Business Administration prepares you with foundational skills in the critical functions necessary for success in business: management, marketing, communications, accounting, finance, and strategy. The degree enables the candidate to sharpen his or her skills in analyzing, forecasting, examining, decision-making, synchronizing, and implementation with the help of application-based case studies and hands-on exercises.

It includes both generic business-oriented modules and advanced but focused modules on specific fields of business. It makes you a business generalist. A graduate degree in business management or business administration is a flexible choice designed for the students who have no rigid functional interest or a particularly focused preference or they are currently confused about which field of business they want to specialize in but they are certain about the fact that they want to dive into business and management. This can surely serve as their opportunity to explore all the directions.

Business administration is about business management. A person won’t start his or her career from a management position anyway. They will have to spend a few years on an entry-level role until they are promoted to be a manager. So, this course is a good option especially if you are not yet sure which business career you will choose.

Modules in BBA

A BBA degree is typically designed to give students a broad understanding of all areas of business functioning and how they are interconnected and aligned with one another. The main areas which hold up a business entity are Finance, Marketing, Human Resource, and operations, IT, etc.  Therefore, when you take up BBA as your bachelors, your modules will involve:

Business communications:

Here, you study the basic communication ethics in business. Whether it is oral or written, business communication has to be thoroughly formal yet easy to understand. Just like in cricket, they have a different set of words that are used, in hospitals, there is a different vocabulary used, similarly, there is a completely different vocabulary that is used in business operations and one has to adhere to it for his own benefit.

Financial management:

This is going to cover topics like cash flow statements, inventory management, time and labor cost, operating leverage, cost of capital, capital budgeting, asset-based financing, etc. Here, you are basically managing the procurement, inflow, and outflow of business funds.

Marketing management:

My personal favorite gives you an insight into branding and marketing tools, product placement, marketing research, market segmentation, etc. No matter how well a business is doing in the market, if the branding and promotions are not performed accurately, it is bound to waver.

Human resource management:

This is the blood of any business! All work is under the HR department.  Under this, one studies employee management, employee turnover, training and development, budget control, employee satisfaction, etc. Workplace conflict is nearly inevitable as employees come from different backgrounds and have different personalities, lifestyles, and work ethic. Therefore, an approach to make everyone work in harmony is essential.

Organizational behavior:

Organizational behavior is an interdisciplinary domain of study, which emphasizes individual, group, and organizational behavior and the study of the impact of individuals, groups, organizations, and society in creating, shaping, and controlling the firm.

Business statistics:

This module revolves around gaining an insight into the qualitative methods of data collection or analysis and understanding some of the concepts of survey design. Along with this, it helps to recognize types of survey errors, along with strategies to minimize their occurrence and control them.

Management information systems:

A management information system is like a computer system with hardware or software. This is the backbone of the firm’s operations. This includes an element of IT in respect of business operations. This consists of financial MIS, marketing MIS, and inventory control MIS, etc.

Choose University

Typically, the course is designed to provide students with the knowledge and skills to apply business principles and management practices. The program covers current business practices in modern business organizations with knowledge of finance, marketing, and HR mainly. It would consist of somewhat around 14 semesters with a total of 120 credits in most universities. In the US, it could cost around $52000 more or less. IELTS and TOEFL are accepted with an accepted average score of 7.5 and 100 respectively. After the first two years of generic studies in the area of business administration, universities allow you to choose a major to specialize in the third or fourth year.

This practice is highly beneficial and also feasible to explore one’s interests. It allows a student, after getting the knowledge of all the business departments, to excel and specialize in a particular one in which he or she feels more inclined or drawn towards. Here, the person is likely to usually choose marketing, finance, or HR. Along with this, some colleges require you to also excel in an elective course. This involves a number of elective courses for example legal concepts or international finance.  This adds up to the skills and knowledge outside of the atmosphere that you are dissolved in. Not to forget, sports management is another module offered by some universities. It has a separate degree or sometimes offered as a module in business administration. According to collegefactual.com, the top 5 colleges to get your BBA degree from are as follows:

• University of Pennsylvania
• Babson college
• University of California, Berkeley
• University of Southern California
• Georgetown university

Work Profiles

When a student pursues a bachelor’s in business administration, he or she gathers a generic knowledge of all the different areas of business, the scope of this knowledge is therefore quite vast if we look at it. This not only creates a versatile approach for the future but also opens several gates for jobs and master’s degrees if one wishes to take that up. There are numerous esteemed career profiles that an individual can choose or opt for after the completion of their graduation in BBA.  In order to take a closer look at this, let’s segregate the areas on the basis of opportunities they can offer.

Finance jobs:

having studied the different approaches to procure funds and put them to the best possible uses in order to gain economies of scale and nurture the business to success, a candidate can work in the following sectors:

• Banking
• Corporate finance
• Retail
• Investment banking
• Insurance
• Trading
• Fund management

Business consultant:

It takes a long way for a person to become a business consultant as it includes a client association. The role involves developing ideas, plans, or strategies for them to run their business entities. He or she provides problem-solving guidance and information to the client to master the skills required in running a firm.

Human resource manager:

If one takes up human resource or manpower management, he or she has a very fine scope in the future. In this department, one could start with a Human resource executive and make his way up to a managerial level. The main duties here are job announcements, filtering the applications, and picking out prospective candidates that could be found suitable for the job. It is basically procuring the right kind of people, at the right place, at the right time to obtain desired results and move towards the common organizational goals.

Employee motivation with the help of various activities needs to be done for the subordinates to feel satisfied with the job. Satisfaction increases productivity. Employee remuneration and arranging for providing accurate training and development at the time of joining the firm is also the responsibility of a human resource manager.

Market researcher:

The duties performed here are analyzing what the market wants, who in the market wants it, and how can it be different from the competitors. A market researcher also divides the target market into segments and conducts extensive research to explore opportunities. In short, they gather, sort, and analyze data based on prospective consumers and competitors.

Marketing Manager:

Marketing revolves around placing the product in the market in accordance with the needs and desires of the customers. A marketer engages in processes where he examines the current trends in the industry or the market and analyses the demand for them. After this, he develops strategies for the promotions and branding activities for the product or service by the business entity. They do this in collaboration with the product development, finance, and/or the IT department. Digital marketing is another segment that is gaining mass acceptance in businesses globally.

Digital marketing means conducting all the above-mentioned activities and interacting with the target market to see how they behave in regard to the offerings made to them, over the internet, and with the help of various software setups. In short, under marketing, you can get roles to create a desirable and positive image of the product or service in the eyes of the general public. And also create strategies that will persuade them to buy.

Information systems manager:

Information system managers are procured in a firm to implement the use of IT in respect with the operations. They supervise the working of the IT professionals. Their role encompasses activities like installation of hardware and software and comes up with ways to maintain them.

Preparation

To enter into a BBA degree, you need to usually take SAT in which a score of 670 or higher on the Evidence-Based Reading & Writing (ERW) is essential

An individual can opt for diving into further studies and not taking up work experience right after their graduation is over. Degrees do not validate your chances of knowledge, but it is good to have one. An MBA or a master’s degree has almost become a necessity in today’s business-oriented world. In fact, some companies, only some, might not even consider your application if you don’t possess a master’s degree. BBA being a course with nonspecific knowledge opens up a good amount of future opportunities. For the students in terms of the master’s degrees that one can opt for. You now have access to numerous master’s degrees emphasizing numerous sub-areas of BBA.

MBA

There are a large number of post-graduation degrees that one can pursue and this gives a student an element of flexibility in making his decision about which degree to select. Your command over all the areas of a typical business expands the paths that you can take up for your master’s degree automatically, unlike other graduation degrees where once you commence your course, you get to choose one particular direction, and deviating from it becomes a bit too difficult to some extent. This could vary from course to course. So this serves as a great benefit if you have a BBA degree.

After BBA, the master’s degree will provide you with focused studies on a particular subject. This is where you specialize in a module and take up the area which interests you the most. People also go for dual masters where they learn two areas in detail and this is very explicit. So here you master two concerns. The first thing that comes up is MBA. It is also important to mention that MBA can also be a general MBA again but the subjects will now be more detailed and industry-focused. This is because these types of principles and practices are valuable to all types of industries.

Specialization

The MBA with specialization could go around finance, marketing, human resource, accounting, global management, entrepreneurship, strategic/risk management, economics, e-commerce, or even sports management. For prospective candidates or students who want to amalgamate their passion for sports and their career, or for the present workers in the sports industry who are looking forward to enhancing their skills and/or expertise, a master’s degree in sports management can prove to be the key to achieve this. Sports management is based on the understanding of how to apply finance, marketing, and general business techniques to the sports world.

Sports management is that field which emphasizes the business aspects of sports and many graduates nowadays are eagerly opting for this course. The professionals working in this industry, after obtaining the master’s degree, take care of the behind-the-scenes features, namely, budgeting, facility management, event management, etc.

MBA Degrees

Now, the way you choose to obtain or pursue this degree can be completely your choice. Different types of MBA degrees based on their duration are as follows:

• The traditional degree is a two-year MBA program.
• The accelerated MBA program. This takes just one year to complete.

If due to any reason a student cannot physically attend the degree on the campus. He or she can also opt for an online degree or distant MBA as they say. An online MBA degree works just like any other online program. Where the students can just log in to their devices at their convenience and listen to the recorded class. Everyone receives the information on email, message boards, or online chat rooms. Most all the institutions offering an online MBA, make the students take the exams online through the internet. While some could require him or them to take it either on campus or a proctored site.

If not MBA then what?

Not just MBA but one can also choose from other post-graduation level degrees like MSC which is Master of Science. All these are pillars at the same place but made of different materials. Thus, they look different when from afar. Choosing out of all three options will depend entirely on your personal choice and opinion. Your vocation and desires inspire you and your intellect. It depends upon the area that you wish to plunge into and develop a significant difference. It is also about the lifestyle that you have always dreamt and wished for.

Now master’s of science as the name suggests does not really revolve around only science. It offers a wide variety of business-related courses like MSC finance, MSC economics, MSC management, etc. In fact according to masterstudies.com, The United States of America holds the second rank for the best MSC courses. Master of Science course or degree renders a scientific as well as a professional approach and competency to students. It serves as the house of advanced practical along with theoretical knowledge to candidates in the chosen field.

The next comes master courses, simply Master of Finance, Master of Marketing, Master of Human Resources, etc. All of these are post-graduation level degrees. The only difference in their character is the approach of teaching. A masters’ degree is for people who are recent graduates with minimal experience. An MBA is for those who significantly want to add up to their professional knowledge.

Difference between MSC and MBA

According to managementtoday.co.uk, the difference between an MBA and an MSC, consider both of these lines as plane tickets with the same destination which is a good and successful career. An MSC is an economy class ticket whereas an MBA is a business class ticket. The first and very important distinction that lies between them is the cost. The cost of a post-graduation degree is highly essential. MBA degree gathers a better and authentic global recognition as a qualification compared to MSC.

Conclusion

In the end, it’s your capabilities that make the difference.

There is a myriad of options for a graduate to choose from after his studies. Witnessing people with proper plans and goals might scare you at times. If business and administration interests you, but not sure of it, a BBA degree is the best choice!

This course truly enriches your mind with a different approach towards a business entity. It becomes very easy to choose and excel in one particular area if you have a degree with high proficiency. Do your research and aim to work hard and it will definitely pay off!

 

(sources of research: geteducated.com, coursesafter10th.com, thoughtco.com, shiksha.com, collegechoice.net)