Teaching the Philosophy of Business

Dennis Treanor, MSBA '18, is an Education Studies major from The Catholic University of America. Dennis joined because of his love of learning and desire to find his career path:

Being an Education Studies, major at Catholic University, gave me the freedom to take classes in different subjects, more than a regular teaching major would. I was able to explore business, psychology, sociology, and many more. Diversifying my curriculum allowed me to apply certain ideas from these courses and adapt them to my “teaching philosophy.” This philosophy is my personal beliefs about teaching, learning, and the motivation of students. We are all students of some type, whether that is teaching someone to write a paragraph or teaching someone how to analyze a task analysis process.

As we continue to grow as students, we grow as teachers because it is our duty to pass down what we have learned to younger generations to help them come up with their own new ideas and thoughts. Learning is a concept that is constantly in motion because we are living in a world that is changing every day. That is why it is so important to teach others about finding their own teaching philosophy and what they believe is important to them when it comes to learning. This will lead to people motivating others to learn.

My favorite teacher always had this quote in his classroom, “The teacher is the one who gets the most out of the lessons, and the true teacher is the learner.”

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Business Needs Professional Problem Solvers

Wilfred Thomas, MSBA '18, is a Liberal Arts major from The Thomas More College of Liberal Arts. Fred is a problem solver who wants to apply his skills in business:

What are you going to do with a liberal arts degree? This is the question I heard constantly post-undergrad. After a couple years out of school and working full-time, I realized my focus on philosophy was time well spent. The liberal arts provide a well-rounded education but most importantly taught me how to think. To study philosophy is to ask in-depth questions, critically think, and ultimately problem solve. Business is essentially problem-solving and so the two go hand-in-hand.

This year popular and outspoken billionaire, Mark Cuban, spoke highly of liberal arts degrees. In a recent interview about the labor market he said that there will be a greater demand “for liberal arts majors...because when the data is all being spit out for you, options are being spit out for you, you need a different perspective in order to have a different view of the data." Specifically, the study of philosophy in the Liberal arts involves the study of human nature. This requires deep reflection and invites students to think critically. This practice in critical thought has helped me become a more effective problem solver and allows me to think outside the box, freely, and without restraints. Liberal arts students are “free thinkers” and “are the students who have the active minds, who are asking the big questions.” An employee's ability to think well is vital to a thriving business. Technical skill is emboldened by critical thought and together helps make a more well-rounded business professional.

These critical thinking skills are used often. In tutoring kids, I find ways to make the academic materials come to life when the traditional methods fail, it could be something as simple as bringing in props that aid the student that make the difference. Even in grad school, I look for a broad range of solutions to problems that arise, this is done when figuring out ways to solve the "bottleneck", the hold up in a process, in the several case studies for my operation managements course. Both being able to tailor teaching methods to your audience and being able to make operations in a business run at its optimum level are invaluable. So now when someone asks a liberal arts student what he or she is going to do with his or her degree? They should answer “problem solve."

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