的re’s a new energy in Kepner Hall this fall – an energy faculty and staff in the 肯尼斯•W. 蒙福特商学院 attribute to an influx of freshmen in the building.

That’s because for the first time in many years, the 蒙福特商学院 is offering a first-year seminar in an effort to boost student success. 

“We want to get those students into the building, and we want them to know that this 是他们的家. 这里是凯普纳大厅. This is where the business school is. 你可以 到这里来. 使用我们的电脑室. 和老师谈谈. 加入学生社团。” 院长保罗·博布罗斯基说.

的 院长领导委员会 had long discussed the idea of creating a first-year seminar with Bobrowski and former 商学院院长，博士. Don Gudmundson, and with campus wide discussions taking place about strategies to improve student success, this fall seemed to be the perfect opportunity to finally launch that course.    

“We’ve seen a lot of students come in and they want to be a business major, but they 我真的不知道什么是商业. 的y want to be an accounting major, but they don’t know what an accountant does, and they don’t realize the broad array of opportunities that there are in accounting or finance or marketing,” Gudmundson says.

Students hit the ground running with a strength finder assessment to learn more about themselves and their areas of greatest interest. Since the start of the semester they’ve also been teamed up and introduced to some of the most important basics of business. 

“We wanted to give them information on the curriculum, the emphasis areas, but we also wanted to give them a look at the practical side of it,” Gudmundson says. 

That’s why a series of distinguished alumni like Greg Anton ’87 and Peter Speiser ’91 were also recruited to speak to and inspire the class.

“Dream big – everything is possible,” Anton told the class during a visit on October 2. “Write down your dreams or type them on your computer. 然后，最重要的是， 与他人分享你的梦想. 他们会追究你的责任. 你会稳住自己 负责任的.”

Both Anton and Speiser serve as members of the Dean’s 领导 Council and are optimistic about the long-term impact of this class. 的y hope this early exposure to the variety of people and opportunities in the business world will help their fellow Bears find 在皇冠app官方版下载和其他地方取得成功.

“One of the things that I like talking to the kids about is really the whole idea that our paths take all kinds of different winding roads,” Speiser says. “我的路径 was more along the lines of just blindly bumping into stuff and saying, ‘nope not 那个，不，不是那个，不是那个.’ Having some ability to actually talk to people who have had a career path that has been pretty straight-line, or maybe more diverse would’ve been so helpful to me as a student.”   

“I think the best thing about the class itself is that they’re getting exposure to people who are UNC alumni, who have been in their exact same position and navigated their business life to achieve some level of success. 我认为在某种程度上 exposure to that is really valuable for them,” Anton says.

Prior to this course, most business students didn’t have much reason to step foot in the building, let alone interact with successful business alumni, until at least 第二年. 

Now equipped with context, experience and valuable contacts, college leaders hope this course will help students persist and reach that ultimate goal of graduation 准时，甚至提前.

“What we wanted to do was to try and give the students more information earlier in their education, so they don’t have to make as many changes later on. 这样他们就会 be able to get through their program quicker and more smoothly rather than being a second semester junior who gets into some of the upper level courses and realizes that’s not what they want to do,” Gudmundson says.

“Ultimately that’s why they’re here. 的 reality is nearly half of these students 可能无法毕业. But they could be the class that turns that around and support one another in graduating together,” Anton says.