Certificate meshes business with liberal

During the past 13 years, the Liberal Arts and Management Program at IU has supplied bright, interested students with the chance to add a creative spin to a traditional business education. At a time when many corporations profess to having become more humanized and seek employees with a wide range of skills and experience, the kind of comprehensive training provided by LAMP promises to be a vital tool for graduates entering the 21st century job market.\nLAMP is an interdisciplinary certificate program offered through the College of Arts and Sciences and the Kelley School of Business. Students who join the program are typically interested in pursuing careers in business, law, medicine or education. To become certified they fulfill course requirements in addition to those for their declared major.\nThe coursework includes 34 to 35 credit hours in accounting, computer science, business law, economics, management and mathematics. Though this might seem like a heavy load, LAMP's Assistant Director Jane Eig said these classes are meant to fit into a typical student's freshman and sophomore years.\n"The curriculum is designed not to overburden students," Eig said. "Some of these courses overlap with those a student would have to take for his or her major, and some can be taken as electives. Of course, it takes more class time than the normal BA or BS degree, and students usually have to do some juggling with their schedules, but it's intended that the program be done in the usual four years of study."\nStudents are generally accepted to the program between February and April of their freshman year, but some apply as sophomores or transfer students between Sept. 1 and Oct. 1 of their second year. While they don't have to be COAS students at the time they are accepted, to continue in LAMP, students must declare a major in a COAS department during their sophomore year.\nEig said the program is geared for ambitious applicants, who are admitted on the basis of a minimum 3.0 grade point average and demonstrated academic promise, leadership potential and extracurricular interests. But she also said being accepted is not as daunting as many think.\n"It's been a misconception that LAMP is a very small program, and so it's very difficult to get into," she said. "But we've made it our mission over the past two years to increase the size of the program, and last year we admitted between 80 and 100 new students. We're also increasing the number of opportunities students have to complete the coursework, so that instead of certain courses being offered only once a year, they're now offered two or three times a year. All facets of the program are being expanded."\nBesides the basic coursework, students further prepare for careers through a number of job-oriented seminars and extracurricular activities. Workshops are regularly available on important issues like choosing a career, writing effective resumes and interviewing. Students are also encouraged to seek experience abroad.\n"We very strongly encourage them to study overseas, and we have several scholarships available for that purpose," Eig said. "We also have recruiters come in fairly often to speak to the students about specific career issues. There are a lot of internship opportunities to be had by this kind of interaction, and we do give credit for internships. The student would have to do some academic work related to their internship when they come back, but it's one of the best real-world experiences they can have and fulfill credit requirements at the same time." \nMore than half of LAMP's graduates have spent all or part of their junior year studying abroad. Bloomington Chancellor Kenneth Gros Louis said he believes this is only one advantage the program equips its students with to help them compete for top jobs.\n"Typically, employers have been quite taken by the fact that LAMP graduates have excellent business skills, but also the liberal arts background that allows them to communicate effectively and offer creative solutions to corporate problems," he said. \nGros Louis also praised the links the program forges between employers and potential employees.\n"LAMP has in the past received funding from several corporations, so these companies have a sort of vested interest in our students," Gros Louis said. "This is where strong career connections are made and students can seek a variety of opportunities, including internships."\nThough much attention is paid to making sure their graduates have solid training with technical tools such as computing and accounting skills, Eig maintains that the spirit of the program is focused on the long view.\n"One of the main purposes of the program is to prepare students for their job search. It gives them a chance to see which options are available as far as a career path is concerned, and to think about what the next step should be in terms of personal development and the decisions that will shape their professional lives," she said. \n"Graduates of LAMP who don't immediately go into the workforce in business, education, law or medicine go on to higher education."\nThe program has spawned many success stories, and alumni are quick to give credit to LAMP.\n"Having a liberal arts background helps me understand the psychology and sociology of how people adjust to change, and how people learn," says Kristie Provost, who graduated in 1997 with a degree in Spanish. "These are things you don't get out of a business degree"