Department of General Business

Department of General Business

Location: 237 Galloway Business Bldg

Chair: Dr. Marleen Swerdlow

Administrative Assistant: Michaela Walker
Phone: (409) 880-7804

General Business Majors

The academic major in General Business provides students an opportunity to study the fundamentals of a business enterprise and at the same time diversify into a secondary field of concentration. Two of the fields of concentration available to a student are outside of the College of Business.  The program allows students to take courses in General Business only or to concentrate their course work in one of the following areas:  Advertising Communications, Construction Management, Entrepreneurship, or Industrial Engineering.

Business Concentration

The Business Concentration enables an individual to receive a thorough education in business without a major in any one business discipline. This focus gives enough flexibility so that an individual can explore career paths in accounting, real estate, insurance, personnel management, marketing, and finance. This concentration is designed for an individual who is interested in majoring in business but who is undecided about an area of specialization.

Advertising Communication Concentration

The Advertising Communication Concentration is an interdisciplinary program between the College of Business, the Department of Art and Design, and the Department of Communication and Media. This field of study combines a solid knowledge of business with the creation and placement of information designed to produce sales; it is a substitute for the human salesperson. This career, blending commercial business and show business, attracts interesting people with a desire to be creative. Advertising Communication encompasses many areas including marketing, copywriting, art and layout, research, television production, photography, graphics, packaging, printing, and retail promotion.

Construction Management Concentration

The Construction Management Concentration combines a solid knowledge of business with the technical expertise in construction management.  This combined education provides graduates with the knowledge of how to plan, design, and construct a project from beginning to end while controlling time, cost, and quality. They work through the process of turning a blueprint into reality. Graduates from this concentration can be employed as construction sales representatives, safety managers, superintendents, construction managers, purchasing representatives, or business owners.

Entrepreneurship Concentration

The Entrepreneurship Concentration prepares students who are interested in one day starting and running their own businesses. A solid understanding of budgeting and understanding financial statements is obtained from accounting and finance courses. Knowledge of how to hire, train, motivate and retain employees is gained from the human resource management course. Finally, the three entrepreneurship courses help students crystallize how to identify opportunities in the marketplace and put together a plan to exploit those opportunities through a new business.

Industrial Engineering Concentration

The Industrial Engineering Concentration is an interdisciplinary program between the College of Business and the Department of Industrial Engineering. This concentration combines a solid knowledge of business with the technical expertise of engineering. This combined education enables a graduate to make decisions concerning products to manufacture or services to provide, the layout of the production facilities, materials used in manufacturing a product, production procedure, quality control, and inventory control as well as methods of motivating and rewarding employees. Because their skills and knowledge can be used to improve operating efficiency in almost any type of company, graduates from this concentration can be employed by insurance companies, banks, construction firms, public utilities, hospitals, retail organizations, manufacturing companies, and other large business firms, as well as by government agencies.

Minors

Business

Non-business majors may minor in Business. See the Department Chair or Academic Advisor for more information. 

Business Law

Business and non-business majors may minor in Business Law.  See the Department Chair or Academic Advisor for more information.

Programs