Behind the Scenes with the Bachelor of Business Administration

Attracting students from a range of backgrounds, Empire State University’s Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) helps students certify the knowledge they’ve gained through work experience, gain foundational skills that are applicable industry-wide, and specialize in their areas of interest to pursue their dream careers. Whether learners are looking for an entry point into further education, entrepreneurship, corporate careers, or to transition into higher-paying roles with a business degree, the BBA’s faculty provide the necessary knowledge and counsel each student on their unique journey.

Dongho Kim, department chair for business, international business, and marketing, Sue Epstein, department chair for management and human resource management, and Nazik Roufaiel, department chair for accounting, economic finance, management information systems (MIS), and academic coordinator for accounting, represent the program. Kim joined the university in 2010 and Epstein in 2011. Roufaiel initially came on board as a part-time consultant in 2000, transitioning into a full-time tenure-track associate professor and area coordinator in accounting and finance in 2006.

What do you teach?
Kim: I normally teach Business Statistics, Introduction to Business, Business Ethics, and International Business.

Epstein: I primarily teach Leadership—both a 15-week and an 8-week version of that course. I’ve also taught Women in Management.

Roufaiel: I regularly teach courses in accounting, finance, and design. Recently, my primary focus has been on the courses Federal Income Tax I: Individual Income Tax, Federal Income Tax II: Business Income Tax, and Principles of Fraud Examination & Financial Forensics. In addition to my teaching, I am actively engaged as a practitioner in accounting and taxation consulting.

How is the Bachelor of Business Administration designed for students who are already working in business-related industries?

Kim: That was the purpose of developing this degree program. We developed the Bachelor of Business Administration degree for students coming from business industries. They have a lot of knowledge in business, but they haven’t transferred that knowledge into academic areas.

The Bachelor of Science requires 60 credit hours for liberal arts and sciences. However, the BBA only requires 30 credit hours in that area. People coming in from business industries apply individualized credit for prior learning (iCPL) and get many of the non-liberal arts and sciences credit hours through their work experience.

Epstein: Throughout our courses, students have a lot of opportunities to use their real-world experiences and apply theory in the course assignments and discussions. That’s a way in which the program and our courses are really designed for that kind of student. In the BBA, there are lots of opportunities for our students to get a real breadth of industry-related knowledge either through iCPL or by taking the courses and seeing in real time the range of information that they can use in the world—which they may not have had before.

Taking a class is an opportunity for them to learn something and put it into practice in their workplace. There’s a great range of information that students get across business topics.

Roufaiel: Regarding international students, of which we have a good volume that join online from different countries, they focus more on specialized content. Having a BBA with less focus on liberal arts—half the usual credit hours—allows this kind of student to transfer more credit into our program, which expands content, including all managerial functions of business. The program is focused on the professional careers of its students.

The program covers a wide range of disciplines. How do you help students build bridges between different areas?

Kim: The BBA degree incorporates business management, economics, accounting, and finance courses. It covers every single aspect of business, including marketing and human resource management. This is a true business degree, which covers all areas of the discipline.

Epstein: Kim set me up perfectly to add that there is a course delivered through the human resource management department, which is the capstone in the program that students take in their final semester. That’s when they bring together all that knowledge and they have a chance to fully see how it fits together and is complementary.

Roufaiel: The degree covers all functions of business. It has a variety of courses related to marketing, management, human resources, accounting, economics, business law, and covers quantitative analysis through business analytics and statistics. At the upper levels, students will be able to combine all these disciplines that any basic business administrator will need to use.

What does “meeting students where they are” look like for you in the day-to-day?

Roufaiel: SUNY Empire is student-oriented, it really focuses on what they are interested in and what they need, not just now but in the future—how students are prepared to carry out their goals and objectives.

Close communication with their faculty and mentor brings them closer to their target. For example, if a student says they’re an adult with overwhelming responsibility, I say, “Guess what? I’m an adult, a mother, I’m married, I have family obligations, and I am also a practitioner. Let’s talk about time management and what to do.” Because the majority of us pass through all that, we feel for our students and we believe in them and the sacrifices they are making.

Epstein: When we think of ourselves as faculty members, we’re teaching and mentoring. Similar to what Nazik said, it’s about making students feel comfortable where they are, feel accepted, feel like we see the value in their past experiences—whether professional or educational—and that we also believe in their future.

That might mean discussing the transfer credit they’re bringing in, sharing different paths that they can move forward with or what degrees they can pursue. It might mean, in a classroom setting, understanding where they are with learning the material and showing them ways to enhance their learning, or better showcase it.

Kim: The College of Business reflects the mission of SUNY Empire; we’re being flexible with all our degrees. If there’s a student with no college credits, we have a degree program for them. Or, a student with non-business credits—we have a degree for them. We have everything we need to be flexible and accommodate anybody, at any level, and any place, today, tomorrow, and in the future. We continue to improve our degree programs and offerings.

What is the most rewarding part of your work?

Epstein: When students feel that they have been successful. Whether they feel that way because they’ve completed a semester and their GPA is great, or they’re completing a degree they didn’t think they were going to have the opportunity to do, or they’re in a course and see how theory impacts their professional and personal development. You see that they change, and it’s a feeling of success for them, which I think is great.

Roufaiel: When they come to me and say “I made it. I never thought I was going to make it. I’m the first one in my family to have a college degree,” or “Guess what? I am continuing with a graduate program,” which has happened a lot recently.

Their feeling of achievement and success—that is our satisfaction regardless of the amount of time we spend with our students to support them in reaching their goals. That’s the ultimate success.

Kim: For me, it’s the students who had doubts pursuing higher education and then continuing. When I see them continuing, it makes me so happy.

What are some real-world outcomes a student could pursue with this degree?

Roufaiel: The business administration program prepares students for a career in all managerial and business functions—whatever a student’s particular interests are can lead to a more specialized focus, but they can be a generalist as well.

Epstein: Because the curriculum is so broad, it gives students a lot of different entry points into the business world because they have familiarity with a lot of topics. There are lots of places within an organization where they will have enough information to enter conversations or apply for certain jobs.

Once there, because they had that breadth of information, it gives them the ability to make connections between the work being done in department A and department B. They’ll understand that broader, bigger picture.

Kim: The program equips students with all the foundational knowledge in business, which means they can jump right into the industry or pursue an MBA degree.

What would you want prospective students to know about what this program can do for them?

Kim: They can apply the knowledge and business skills gained here to their career or educational objectives going forward.

Epstein: Adding to that, if they’re a transfer student, the degree program is transfer-friendly—especially if they’re coming in with an associate degree in business, because of the range of offerings. Some of the courses are likely to have been completed at their prior institution.

Roufaiel: It prepares them to be a business manager, to be a marketing executive, human resource specialist, financial analyst, sales manager, or entrepreneur. They will know all the functions that are needed to carry out their entrepreneurship. They can go on to graduate school and hone leadership skills. They can develop their own business, or choose which career or industry they would like to pursue work in.