Who should apply? The Business Track is open to students in the College of Business. The track will be especially helpful to students seeking to enhance their research skills and pursue a career in consulting. Also, this track will help students who plan to apply to a graduate program, in particular to a quality MBA program. All students in the track must have a cumulative GPA of 3.0 or higher. How do I enroll? To enroll in the Business Honors Track, contact the Director, Ge Zhang, at (973) 720-2411, zhangg2@wpunj.edu, or contact Jan Pinkston at 973-720-3776, pinkstonj@wpunj.edu. You must also complete the track application and submit it to the Honors College. What courses will I take? The track includes 5 courses, 3 of which are taken as business core requirements. In those 3 courses, FIN 3200, MGT 3550, and MGT 4600, students in the honors track will need to complete an honors project. The two other courses, Thesis I and Thesis II, honors students will need to take in addition to their major requirements. The three business core courses can be taken in any order preferred by the student as long as the director is notified in which semester s/he takes them. Thesis I and Thesis II need to be taken in the sequence where Thesis II is take in the last Spring semester before graduation and Thesis I is taken in the Fall semester of that academic year. CORPORATE FINANCE (FIN 3200) – an honors project component is added to this business core required (see below additional requirements) Course Description: A study of the basic principles and practices of the financial management of private business corporations. The course provides an operational framework for financial analysis, planning, and forecasting, along with profit analysis and financial control for today's business world. Prerequisites: ACCT 2110 AND ECON 2020 Additional Learning Outcomes for Honors Students:1. Construct and maintain a stock portfolio according to desired investment criteria.2. Write an analysis report for one public company. VALUES, ETHICS, AND SUSTAINABILITY (MGT 3550) – an honors project component is added to this business core required (see below additional requirements) Course Description: This course is designed to increase awareness of values, ethics, beliefs and attitudes, and how they relate to issues of sustainability. It will pay special attention to the manner in which corporations can become agents of injustice and inequality in society, and conversely, how they can be transformed by individual actors and by institutional reforms. This course will also analyze sustainability at the institutional level, focusing on socially and structurally embedded nature of corporate actions. This is a writing-intensive course.Prerequisites: MGT 2000 OR MKT 2100 Additional Learning Outcomes for Honors Students:1. Write a case study describing a sustainable-focused organizational initiative OR2. Write a report analyzing a company’s CSR policy BUSINESS STRATEGY AND POLICY (MGT 4600) – an honors project component is added to this business core required (see below additional requirements) Course Description: This three-credit course represents a case study approach to business decision-making that integrates functional and organizational disciplines. It examines a series of complex industrial situations in-depth to determine, in each instance, the strategy and policies a firm should follow for its long-run survival. Some sections of this course are writing intensive.Prerequisite: ACCT 2120 AND ECON 2100 AND MGT 2000 AND MKT 2100 AND FIN 3200 Additional Requirement for Honors Students in: FIN 3200, MGT 3550, MGT 4600 Objective: The additional assignment will provide an opportunity for honors students to enrich their academic experience by applying theories learned in the course to a specific issue or topic. The assignment will allow in-depth study of theoretical concepts and more advanced analysis of the chosen topic. Furthermore, the assignment will prepare students for more extensive writing required in subsequent courses in the honors business track (e.g., thesis and practicum related courses). Requirement: The students will agree on a research topic with their instructor and will be required to submit the following to the professor and the program director: a. At the beginning of the semester: one page outline of the assignment including the topic under investigation, the frameworks/concepts/methodologies that will be used, and the questions that will be addressed, b. Mid-semester draft: a draft of the assignment will be provided to give the professor a chance to review and give constructive feedback to the student. The student will use this feedback to revise the assignment for the final submission. c. At the end of the semester: a research paper which will adhere to the following structure and format: 1. Cover page with the following information: - Student name and date, Instructor’s Name, and Project Title 2. Analysis section (5 pages) with the following information: - Importance of the topic and relevant literature- Analysis and discussion/conclusion 3. Cited sources/references (APA style)4. The paper format will be as follows: - Arial font, 10 points, single-spaced (NOT double-spaced)- 0.5 inch top and bottom margins, 1.0 inch left and right margins- References appear on a separate page Thesis I – a course taken only by honors students and is above the requirements of the business major and has to be taken consecutively with Thesis II (one semester prior to taking Thesis II course) Course Description: This is a cross-disciplinary course that represents the first part of a 6-credit Honors Thesis, which must be conducted over two semesters and undertaken in the junior or senior year. It will be a core component of the Honors Thesis option. Course Objectives: The course comprises of two parts: (a) a pedagogy relating to research methods in business and (b) development and presentation of a research proposal. Thesis II – a course taken only by honors students and is above the requirements of the business major and has to be taken consecutively with Thesis I (one semester after taking Thesis I course) Course Description: This is a cross-disciplinary course that represents the second part of a 6-credit Honors Thesis, which must be conducted over two semesters and undertaken in the junior or senior year. It will be a core component of the Thesis Honors option. Course Objectives: The course involves the actual conduct of research by a student, following up from a proposal made by the student in Honors Thesis I. Students fine-tune and pretest their data collection instruments, collect relevant data, analyze it using qualitative/quantitative techniques, and write up the results in a paper that uses theory from business and other relevant disciplines.
