Bruins may be missing out

Every year, graduating UCLA seniors go through a rite of passage
known as on-campus recruitment. They eagerly prepare their resumes,
brush up on interviewing techniques, attend various career fairs
and company information sessions, and apply for jobs via BruinView
(the UCLA Career Center’s online job database).

Companies with structured recruitment plans usually recruit in
October, which is why you will find many students on campus wearing
their best “interview clothes” these days.

As a recruiter for Hitachi Consulting, a subsidiary of a Fortune
500 firm, I have come into contact with many Bruins during this
recruitment ritual. Unfortunately, the average UCLA student is
woefully underprepared for the process, despite services provided
by UCLA.

One major difference in the quality of candidates between UCLA
and its crosstown rival is the lack of a superior undergraduate
business education.

Undergraduate students at USC have the opportunity to study
valuable integrated business disciplines, such as finance,
marketing, logistics, organizational behavior, ethics,
entrepreneurship, international trade and strategy.

UCLA offers the more focused business and economics major, which
narrows the learning opportunities of students to rigorous logic
and an integrative perspective of economics and accounting.

That is all well and good, but it is not enough for the needs of
the student population. Simply put, I feel that Bruin graduates
lack applied learning of business in their curriculum.

As a proud Bruin alumnus, I am often regretfully forced to hire
USC Trojans, UCI Anteaters and Cal Poly Pomona Broncos because they
have the needed skill set that Bruins are not exposed to.

Last week, the Undergraduate Students Association Council made
an important decision to support the establishment of a business
management minor at UCLA.

I applaud the students, faculty, and administrators who are
supporting this effort and call upon those who are undecided or
unsupportive of the concept to become advocates in order to make
this happen.

Although the historical roots of the University of California
are in liberal arts and sciences, with the California State
University system focused on vocational training, it is time to
consider the needs of the general student who would like to have
every opportunity possible in order to be competitive in the
full-time job recruitment process.

By establishing a business management minor, future Bruins will
have the opportunity to be more competitive.

Until this happens, companies like mine will continue to hire
more Trojans than Bruins ““ and that’s a shame.

Sargent is a UCLA alumnus from the class of 1996. He is a
USAC Alumni Representative.