Get Down to Business at Hartwick
As an academic major, business at Hartwick College dates back to 1928, when the college permanently moved to Oyaron Hill. Since then, much has changed in the curriculum, which initially included coursework in Advertising and Salesmanship, and the History of Commerce and Business Science.
Today, new business tracks provide a curated educational experience that connects students’ professional aspirations and personal passions to an academic course of study both within and beyond the Department of Business Administration and Accounting.
Structured around two pathways, students complement core and elective business classes in marketing, organizational behavior, information systems, finance, accounting, and economics with communications and ethics classes and with either a minor in another discipline at the College or with advanced study in quantitative analysis within the department. Students leave Hartwick with a well-defined 21st century toolkit that prepares them for purposeful, impactful careers and an openness to lifelong learning.
Professor of Economics and Department Chair Dr. Carlena Cochi Ficano believes that “a liberal arts institution is the best place to start a career in business because it ensures both breadth and depth of study. Businesses with whom we interact regularly seek employees who are not only savvy in the ways of finance, accounting, and marketing, but are also well versed in the textual and visual analysis and critical communication skills developed through advanced study in English, Art, and Philosophy and who are familiar with the systems design and research methodologies that form the basis of Computer Science and the life sciences.”
Hartwick has long been an innovator in business education, adopting simulation-based classwork in the early 1980s, long before it became a standard in the field, and housing for more than 30 years the Hartwick Humanities in Management Institute under the Direction of Dr. John Clemens. This new curriculum represents the most recent innovation in a long history of groundbreaking.
Today at Hartwick, students encounter business through business simulations that have them compete against other teams at Hartwick and across the globe to maximize the potential of their company. They encounter business as interns at for-profit and non-profit businesses in Hartwick’s backyard and in cities as diverse as New York, San Francisco, Barcelona and Edinburgh. They encounter business as student consultants to real world clients seeking assistance with social media marketing or through interaction in the global marketplace during January term trips and international internships at start-up incubators.
With a strong network of committed alumni, including alumnus Simon Baker who regularly hosts five student summer interns at a range of West Coast start-up businesses as part of the prestigious Baker-Simpson fellowship program, and a diverse group of energetic faculty who combine academic credentials with direct experience, Business at Hartwick is worth more than a second look.