Big Switch 4: International business streamlines core courses, adds electives

Coming soon to clevelandstater.com

In the past year, almost every department in Cleveland State University has had to revise its curriculum from the ground up. In a series this semester, the Stater will look at some of the changes.

This issue, we talked to Professor Ashutosh Dixit, the director of the International Business program at Cleveland State. Dixit said that the changes to the program haven’t been too drastic, but the department has tried to streamline the core of it.

“Now the core is much more straightforward,” Dixit said. “That’s a strength. By reducing the courses in the core, there are a lot more options in the electives now.”

The International Business program has changed its foreign language requirement (8 credits) to a prerequisite. Students can fulfill the prerequisite with high school classes or college classes.

In the old plan, students were required to take two courses from the Modern Languages department. The requirement is still the same, but students who finished the work in high school won’t have to take those classes here.

“[Students] will still need to have at least two courses in a foreign language,” Dixit said. “So it’s not going away, it’s just that there’ll be a little more flexibility for the students.”

Dixit said that the core of the program is much more straightforward. In addition to the core for Business students, International Business students will take INB 301 International Business, and INB 495 Consulting (INB 495 used to be INB/MKT 495, but now it’s only an International Business course).

Students will also have to take an international business experience course—this is either an internship with an international company or a study abroad course.

“There’s a course that we have in England, and then there are the short trips, the International Study Tours,” Dixit said. “These are going to France, Abu Dhabi, China, South Korea, Belgium and the Netherlands. So they’re going to several countries.”

Dixit said that after the conversion, students in International Business will take eight different electives (up from four in the past).

Students can choose from a list of international courses offered by other business departments from Marketing to Operations Management. Dixit said that the International Business program is very interdisciplinary, and that the list of electives will grow with time.

“We’ll think in terms of how to strengthen the program in the future,” Dixit said. “Right now, it’s a very good program, and we’ll keep on working on it.”

He said that knowing about international business will become more important for students in the future.

“The whole society is changing to become a more global society, and there is nothing that’s not global now,” Dixit said. “This is something that our students will have to face in the future.”

Cleveland State urges students caught in the middle of the big switch to check the Grad Express Degree Audit on CampusNet, and see an academic advisor before registering for next semester.