When the humanities and business worlds collide, business courses take on a deeper meaning—one rooted in global communication.
A successful business pitch requires an airtight business plan, financial projections, and—most importantly—an understanding of your audience’s culture and background, especially when it comes to international business. In collaboration with the Marriott School of Business, professors from the College of Humanities help business students enhance their secondary language so they can work with people around the globe. Yvon LeBras (French Language and Culture), a humanities and business French professor, explains that students in his business course learn the basics of business while discovering how culture factors into international commerce.
Bringing Humanities to Business
Language courses taught by professors in the College of Humanities have been offered in the Marriott School for over 25 years. Though these classes don’t run through the College of Humanities, they were created with the intent of building on traditional, preexisting language courses. LeBras explains that in business language courses, “we teach a lot of vocabulary and focus on teaching the business culture and business language itself.”
Providing students with background on another country’s business culture—including knowledge about respectful ways to interact with coworkers and clients and how to adhere to cultural customs in meetings—will equip them for success in any positions they might hold abroad and also increase their ability to effectively communicate. “Our goal is to prepare the students for when they are doing an internship or applying for their first job abroad,” LeBras says. “We teach them how to look for a job in the US and also abroad, [and] we spend some time working on résumés.”
Besides studying vocabulary and culture, students in LeBras’s class complete a semester-long project where they compare and contrast a French business of their choice with a similar American one. By analyzing each company’s business strategy and organization, students can see a myriad of cultural differences—from the number of part-time and full-time employees to the presentation of merchandise.
The Real World of Business
In LeBras’s opinion, this curriculum prepares students to pursue a plethora of careers, including business, teaching, HR, and finance. “We teach in the class how to work within a business, different departments and parts of the business, and how to communicate using the right terminology both inside and outside the business,” LeBras notes.
The emphasis on cultural communication in business scenarios prepares students to work outside of the US as an intern or as a graduated professional because, according to LeBras, successful business endeavors across cultures come from understanding and respecting other traditions. “The business culture, and also the perception of the world, is different from one language to another,” LeBras explains. “For example, you don’t interact the same way in a typical American business and the French business. . . . There are different norms; you don’t talk to your boss in France the same way you talk to your boss in the US.”
Today, business language courses taught by faculty in the College of Humanities can help undergrads learn how to approach business in eleven languages, including Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Turkish. And, beyond language, they can leave with a deeper understanding and appreciation for the other cultures around them.
See what business language courses are available here.