Innovation and adaptability are two things that business leaders can play with to consistently create relevant products and services. These, plus an understanding of the global market, trends and when to challenge the status quo, can make way for great business ideas.
These are what the Ateneo de Manila University (ADMU) John Gokongwei School of Management (JGSOM) teaches its students through its interdisciplinary, people-centered, and analytic approach to teaching. Named after iconic businessman John L. Gokongwei, Jr., JGSOM provides its students the foundation that they need to be future business leaders “who can respond to the needs of tomorrow’s world” through a curriculum that balances coursework and experiential education that can provide both practical knowledge and an edge to create something different in the market.
JGSOM boasts of degree programs that combine a broad management curriculum and minors that specialize in certain areas of business so that students can be well-rounded and get specialized views of business. Students can pick any minors to match with their majors to develop a specialization.
The business school offers Majors such as BS Communications Technology Management, BS Information Technology Entrepreneurship, BS Legal Management, BS Management, BS Management Engineering, and BS Management of Applied Chemistry.
It also offers Minors in Decision Science, Finance, Information Technology, International Business, Marketing, Strategic Human Resource Management, Enterprise Development, and Project Management which could be earned by taking up any six-degree programs.
Outside the classroom, students are given the opportunity to explore or test out entrepreneurial ideas through JGSOM Student Enterprise Center, a place on the campus where students can set-up and operate their food stalls to see and gain actual business experience.
The school also challenges its students to test its business ideas from start to finish through the SOM Business Accelerator (SOMBA) program that begins in the summer of their last year in college. The students form into teams and develop their ideas for business and test them in the market. These businesses are then registered. It is from this that students continue their tests outside of the school as a continuing business.
ADMU also has the biggest student mobility program with 80 plus foreign universities. Through a program called the Junior Term Abroad, JGSOM is able to send its students to other countries to take a semester in Australia, Europe, France, Germany, China, Japan and parts of Northern America.
Apart from developing future business leaders and entrepreneurs, the business school is guided by the values of the Jesuit teaching, which gives the students a backbone of social awareness, relevant to creating good businesses.
The JGSOM was recognized by the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) as a Center of Excellence in both Business Administration and Entrepreneurship. — Sigourney V. Tulfo
