News, articles, and interesting stuff from the College of Business
Made @ OSU: Our Microbusinesses
An exceptional hands-on learning experience – the BA 160 courses for first-year students result in the launch over 80 microbusinesses, ranging from custom t-shirts to charm bracelets. These businesses produce tens of thousands of dollars in profits, which are turned over to our student emergency scholarship fund.
Our first-year students have been hard at work creating products and services for their BA 161 and BA 162 courses. These courses and the encompassing microbusiness project are one of our hallmark opportunities for our students in their first year. There is so much energy and excitement these teams put into their products and services as they launch what is for many of them, their first business.
Our students will sell their products at events throughout spring term; for example, Made @ OSU held on OSU Family Weekend, or during the dean’s council meeting, also spring term.
Annually, there are over 80 microbusinesses that range from t-shirts to succulents to charm bracelets or hand sanitizer!
The best part of these projects (in addition to students learning hands-on what it feels like to run a small business), their profits often exceed $40,000, and go straight into the fund for student emergency scholarships, a resource for unexpected situations our students can encounter. This also teaches our students one of the College of Businesses core pillars – “give back.”
BA 160 Student Store – Shop Now!
Many of the BA 160 microbusinesses will close down their online shops by the end of the spring term. BUT – a few might be still be selling. And you can certainly visit, and see the range of businesses and services our first-year students plan and launch over the winter and spring terms. Have a visit to the storefront and look around; it’s pretty incredible. Or, keep the College of Business microbusiness sales events on your radar for your future Family Weekend visits.