When he wasn’t making silkscreens of tomato cans and Marilyn Monroe, the late pop artist Andy Warhol was dropping pithy bon mots like “making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art.” Let’s assume Warhol is right and business IS an art: do you know what to do if someone hands you the blank canvas of a sale, a client, a business to start or career to forward? Rio Salado College’s General Business degree program can give you the brushes and colors you need to paint your masterpiece as a true business artist.
Whether you’re an aspiring entrepreneur or a worker bee looking to upgrade from drone to queen, a General Business degree or certificate of completion can help level up your skill-set and offer you a deeper understanding of how business works.
What You’ll Learn
The General Business Program offers a sweeping, bird’s eye view of business, analyzing the theories and principles of the subject while also providing a grounding in practical knowledge and skills that you can apply to a wide variety of industries. The program will help you cultivate critical thinking and communication skills, which are both crucial to hone if you want to succeed in business.
“If you’re interested in business but not yet sure which specialization to pursue, the General Business program offers a broad overview of key areas to help you discover what interests you the most,” said Gina Pinch, Rio Salado College faculty chair for Business, Management, and Public Administration.
As a business degree seeker, you’ll learn about business ethics, the applications of technology for business tasks, the fundamentals of management and leadership, how organizational structures and logistics work, and comprehend the impact business can have on individuals and society as a whole. A business degree can help you be a better thinker, writer, communicator, team member, and leader.
While business as a field of theory and set of applied practices can be a wide umbrella encompassing many subjects, that “big tent” of knowledge benefits you by giving you a foundation in skills that can be relevant to many industries. No matter what field you choose, there’s usually some role that requires a background in business best practices. Even in the sciences someone has to work on securing funding while the people in white coats do their thing.
What Can I Do With a General Business Degree?
A business degree is the Swiss army knife of degrees. It may not be appropriate or applicable for every field, but it can be useful in a surprisingly wide range of situations. The combination of hard and soft skills that can be acquired through our business degree program can prepare you to take on many roles, which include:
- Entrepreneur
- Market researcher
- Financial manager
- Business analyst
- Broker
- Project manager
- Sales
- Guest services
- Public relations
- Management consultant
This is just a small sample of the kinds of roles a business degree could qualify you for. If a job involves managing or working in a team and has some kind of business component (be it sales, logistics, marketing, or acquisitions), a business degree could open that door for you. It’s also a very useful degree to have if you plan to strike out on your own as an entrepreneur as it will give you a firm backing in business fundamentals that you’ll need for an independent business.
What Does a Future in General Business Look Like?
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, many of the careers that a business degree could lead you to have bright future prospects. Careers like human resource specialists, financial managers, general and operations managers, and business analysts are looking at 4 percent to 6 percent projected job growth from now until 2034. What that percent means is that there will be potentially thousands of new job openings each year in these fields.
While the gradual adoption of AI technology will most likely reshape the labor market in ways we can’t anticipate, a business degree provides invaluable soft skills like teamwork, leadership, empathy, and communication that can’t be automated. There will always be a need for people in the room to make decisions and work well with others, and someone with a Rio Salado General Business degree will have the skills and knowledge needed to fill that role.
You’ll Earn More Money
Workers with college degrees and certifications earn more on average than workers without those credentials, according to findings from the BLS. Even if you’re an entrepreneur who’s “being your own boss,” there may come a time when you need to take a second job or recareer into a different line of work— you may not benefit from the pay bump right now, but future you will be grateful to have that value-enhancing degree on your resume.
If you’re planning on earning a four-year degree at a state university, getting your associate degree in business at Rio is a great way to fulfill your general education requirements with our transferable class credits while saving money. The added benefit of completing an associate while working toward a bachelor’s is that the associate will give you actionable skills and competencies that you can leverage in your career right now while you work toward earning that next credential. You can also get a head-start on leveling up that resume by taking a certificate program: the 21 credits required for a CCL in Business could be earned in less than a year if you’re taking classes full-time.
Learn More
Interested in learning more about our general business program? Check out our program page and complete the request for information at the bottom of the page.
Article by Austin Brietta