The Experience of Teaching Business Students

This has been a day of firsts for me. We finally got our new site up and running with the same great content and much more to come. But today was also the first day I taught a college level course. The course is called Business Communications, which is a core course that all business students in the college must take. I am really excited about this new experience, but realized the time I’m teaching is probably the worst time I could have possibly been given. Monday’s from 7 to 9:45pm is the class time. And guess who is enrolled in the class, students that have been at work all day from 9am to 6pm.

As you can imagine, trying to engage students that have worked all day and now have to sit through a 3 hour class is a bit of a challenge. Luckily I had a few tricks up my sleeve and included a few activities that weren’t on the lesson plan.

Showing business students who the wealthiest people on earth are (Bill Gates and Warren Buffet) can work wonders in sparking their interest. Identifying who they are, what they did, when they did it, where it took place, why they made the choices they did, and most importantly how they did it really did the job of capturing them.

The text for the class is pretty interesting. It’s entitled Business Communications by Mary Guffey. It’s actually a really interesting book covering anything from writing an email in the business world to resume and cover letter specifics. One area I covered in class was Guffey’s 3×3 Writing Process.

Guffey’s 3×3 Writing Process

1. Pre-writing (Analyzing, Anticipating and Adapting)
2. Writing (Research, Organize, Compose)
3. Revising (Revise, Proofread, Evaluate)

I think this captures the essence of the writing process in any professional capacity. These simple steps can be applicable to pretty much any industry or organization. The idea behind it is that you assess the audience or who the message will be going to and you decide if it will be appropriate and appealing. With the proper research to make informed statements, these components help guide you to be a better writer. Ultimately, when writing you have to ask yourself, will the message achieve its purpose?

Since I have class every Monday, I will probably give you a recap of how class went and maybe a quick note on something I taught. Hopefully someone finds it useful

Thanks again for visiting the new Career Ramblings site and look forward to your participation as we look to make this an engaging experience.