Getting Down to Business with Gabelli

While this blog has recently focused a lot on the incredible resources and opportunities Fordham's NYC location offers students pursuing careers in business, this entry will give you an inside look at what it's like to be a Gabelli student inside the classroom.

While core curriculum is often a dreaded topic and subject of debate across America, Fordham has reinvented the core for business students into what Gabelli calls the Integrated Business Core. Completed mostly in your sophomore year, the integrated business core turns seven of your foundation business classes into fourteen split-semester classes that you take in a cohort each semester. While that sounds like a lot, let me simplify it for you. Instead of taking Intro to Management first semester and Intro to Strategy second semester, Gabelli splits up the classes into segmented classes Management 1 and Management 2, and Strategy 1 and Strategy 2. This way it allows you to integrate what you're learning in management with what you're learning in strategy, because in the real world all functions of business co-exist at once, so why shouldn't it be taught that way? And while on paper this sounds academically strenuous, the bulk of these classes only meet once a week as opposed to two or three times a week like a traditional class.

I also just mentioned how everything is taken in a cohort. For those of you that don't know, the cohort is your group of classes that you have in common with about 25 other students. So yes, just like in grade school, you'll have every class with the same 25 students in each and every class. While this sounds a bit boring and overwhelming, many of my friends, and myself included, love it.  The community feeling you get from taking a cohorted schedule doesn't compare to anything else you'll ever experience in college. 

My dysfunctional IP Team trying to take a photo (I'm in the vest)

Lastly, the biggest component of the cohort and the integrated core is the integrated project, or IP. The integrated project first semester sophomore year teaches you to work as a team, which is a prevalent setting in the business world. At the start of the semester, before classes even begin, there's a huge kick-off where everyone in your cohort is assigned and Integrated Project team and a Fortune-500 company. This sets the tone for the following semester, as your IP team will have to work together by integrating everything learned in your business classes to identify and create a solution for a problem or opportunity within the company you're researching. To make this more exciting, it's all a competition and the top teams at the end of the semester compete against each other in the "Core Bowl", and the winners take home $1,000 as a reward for conquering the integrated core. The IP and the cohort really emphasize teamwork and looking at a problem from every perspective of business, all part of what makes Gabelli graduates stand out from the rest of the crowd!

The Benefits of Liberal Arts: Language Edition

Granada and the Sierra Nevadas

Without Fordham’s liberal arts core, I never would have dared to study abroad in Granada. Sure, I always wanted to go abroad, but Fordham’s emphasis on cura personalis and core curriculum made me realize that I could survive (and possibly thrive!) in a non-English-speaking country.

The core curriculum is a hallmark of Fordham’s liberal arts education. It requires all students to take courses in certain areas to expand their horizons, challenge them, and prepare them for life after Fordham. From speaking with high school juniors and seniors who are thinking about Fordham, I know this can seem intimidating. Heck, it was intimidating for me, too. But not only has my liberal arts education opened my eyes to interests that I never knew I had, a liberal arts education is also one of the most popular with employers.

At the Puente de San Martin in Toledo, just a bus ride away!

If I had not needed to fulfill my language requirement, it is entirely possible that I would never have considered studying Spanish after high school. I certainly wouldn’t be a Spanish major living in the most beautiful city in southern Spain. You may dislike foreign languages. You may be absolutely certain that you do not ever want to major in a foreign language. But how much do you know about urbanism or ethics? Have you ever thought of studying either of those subjects? They are two optional courses in the core curriculum, and you’ll never discover why that park is where it is or answer those burning ethical conundrums unless you try them out. And at some point or another, you are going to need those answers. At Fordham, you’ll find them, te prometo. ¡Hasta luego! 

The Core: Expanding Your Horizons

To prospective students, Fordham’s extensive core may seem intimidating. Compared to other schools, the amount of required courses we have to take in the humanities and sciences looks a little daunting on paper. 

Coming to Fordham, I was a little nervous about this. Little did I know at the time, but Fordham’s core would really help me not only grow as a student and learn things that I never thought I would have the opportunity to learn, but grow as a person as well. The core offers so many varying and unique courses that at other schools you wouldn’t even have the chance to take, let alone have it count towards your GPA. I have taken a variety of really cool classes such as Press, Politics, & Public Policy, Invitation to Theatre, Catholic Social Teaching, and a lot of other really thought provoking courses. Next semester, I’ll be taking Jazz, a History in Sound, which I’m really excited about. 

One of my core classes got to visit the NY Times office building!

If you come into Fordham knowing exactly what it is that you want to do, that’s great. Fordham’s core curriculum will serve and help you in ways that will aid your major; it’s just hard to see the bigger picture at first. The skills that the core gives you, such as learning how to think, write, and read critically on a number of different subjects, will help you no matter what field you go in to. If you come to Fordham not knowing what you want to major in, the core really helps as well. It will open so many doors to so many different options and choices, and all of my friends that came to school not knowing what they wanted, learned a lot not only about what major they would eventually decide on, but learned a lot about themselves as well.  

Don’t be scared of the core! The classes that you will take here are so amazing and inspiring no matter what the subject is, and I promise that you will find at least two different subjects that you will become interested in that you had no idea you ever would be. The core here at Fordham truly gives you a well-rounded education that you can’t receive anywhere else.