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Associate and Bachelor Degrees in Business Administration

Do you wind up the leader of almost every group project you get involved in? Do other people frequently ask you for financial advice? Do you watch “The Apprentice” and similar TV shows and say to yourself, “I could do better than all these people”? You might never get to be the president of a multi-billion-dollar company, but businesses all over the world need people with managerial and financial skills. They can promote non-managerial employees into management or positions of financial responsibility. If you get training in business administration, you’ll have skills that firms everywhere are looking for.

Whether you’re finishing high school and want an important, rewarding career, or you’ve been working for a few years and want to improve your prospects, a business degree can be the avenue to fulfilling your dreams.

What are starting salaries like for people with a BA in Business Administration?

Starting Median Salary: $43,000
Mid-career Median Salary: $72,100
Source: Payscale

Curriculum

To earn a bachelor’s degree in business administration, students generally need to complete a “business core,” a term given to the group of classes every business student is required to complete. A degree is then rounded out through general education requirements (such as history, science, and English) and business electives. Most bachelor’s degree programs take four years to complete, though there are accelerated program options at many colleges and universities.

Associate’s degrees in business administration are also offered. Generally, an associate’s degree program lasts two years and is comprised of the business core and electives but does not include general education requirements.

Here are some of the subjects you might learn if you choose to study business:

• You will be called on to write memos and reports, give presentations, and much more, so business communication & correspondence polishes your verbal and written skills to a professional level.

• Economics is the science of money and the distribution of resources; microeconomics examines it on the personal and small-business scale, while macroeconomics examines it on a big-business and government-policy scale.

• Finance teaches you how the banking, capital, and debt markets work; how to use them to raise money for your firm; and how to wisely use that money through budgeting and cash-flow and risk analysis.

• Study accounting to understand how to track and report your company’s financial activity, and how to use those reports as a basis for business decisions.

• Leadership and organizational behavior show you how individuals and groups function in an organization, how to set goals for an organization, and how to lead and motivate the organization’s people and groups toward those goals.

• Especially in today’s business climate, ethics & corporate responsibility are tremendously important. You and your firm need to make decisions that are morally right, not just for yourselves but for your shareholders, employees, community, environment, and society.

• Marketing is the study of making customers aware of your product, making the product optimally available to them, and motivating them to buy it.

• Negotiation will prepare you to get what you want when bargaining with employees, vendors, customers, and others.

• Developing and manufacturing products is the province of operations management; learn technology management to integrate new devices and processes, especially relating to information technology, into your business.

• In entrepreneurship, you’ll learn how to identify potential business opportunities, get the backing you’ll need to start them up, and develop them into viable organizations.

• Strategy shows you how to evaluate the information you have about your firm and its resources, the marketplace, the industry, and society in order to make better decisions about what your firm should be doing in the future.

Internships

Most college and university business programs will include an internship or practicum at an external company where you can put your education into practice. Some programs absolutely require it; a good internship can perfectly position you for a job at the same company or an even better one when you finish school.

Salary Info For Associate’s vs Bachelors Degree Holders

Meanwhile, if you pursue a higher degree – a Bachelor’s – then you will be more competitive for higher level jobs and therefore will earn more money.

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