The Basics of Business Programs

We’re going to talk about the specific areas of study that are included in business and look at where in Europe you can study business, where has the greatest number of programs.

Slide 1:

Lesson 1: The Basics

Welcome to Lesson One. So in this lesson, we're going to cover the basics. We're going to talk about the specific areas of study that are included in business and look at where in Europe you can study business, where has the greatest number of programs. 

Slide 2: What types of business programs are there?

  • Accounting
  • Business Information Systems
  • Finance
  • Arts and Entertainment Management
  • Business Administration, Management, and Operations
  • Innovation and Entrepreneurship
  • Economics
  • Business Analytics
  • International Business
  • Event Management
  • Consulting
  • HR Management
  • Logistics
  • Product and Industrial Design
  • Sales and Marketing
  • Sports Management

So if you've been in our database, you know that we categorize programs into general area of study. And then each general area of study has a number of different associated specific areas of study. So we have 650 business programs in the general area of study. But they include many different types of business programs, which are all listed here. So often when students say that they want to study business, they mean the broad general business, which would be Business Administration, Management, and Operations. Often, it also means International Business. Because that's also the broad level, these are both broad levels. And what we have in the US is sort of what they know. But there are a ton of options in these broad programs. But also, there are a ton of options for students who do know that they have a specific area that excites them, so that you'll still get the broad business knowledge in the first year, but you're also going to graduate with a deep knowledge in one of these areas. 

So in case specializing from day one scares you, I want to show you how many broad business programs are offered. 

Slide 3: Greatest number of choices

  • Business Administration, Management, and Operations (135)
  • Economics (129)
  • International Business (155)
  • Hospitality and Tourism (82)

So these are the specific areas of study under business that have the largest number of programs. So I know that Economics could technically be under social sciences, but I had to make an executive decision about where to put it, and I put it in business. So one thing to note, though technically, a lot of hospitality and tourism programs include a great amount of business type courses, they are under a different search criteria. So these 82 are not under business. You would do a general search for Hospitality and Tourism, and then there are some choices for that as well. 

Slide 4: What countries offer the largest number of business programs?

  1. Netherlands (113)
  2. Germany (62)
  3. Poland (54)
  4. Finland (39)
  5. Spain (35)
  6. France (35)
  7. Italy (35)
  8. Hungary (34)
  9. Switzerland (26)
  10. Denmark (21)

So what countries can you study business in Europe? Because it's such a popular field of study, most countries do offer them. This shows the countries that have the largest number of business programs offered. Now some of it, like the Netherlands, they have the largest number of English-taught programs as a whole. So probably they would be at the top for most fields of study because they have the most number of programs. 

Slide 5: You’re in luck if you want to study in…

  • Monaco 2/2 100%
  • Croatia 5/5 100%
  • Portugal 8/10 80%
  • France 29/58 50%
  • Switzerland 33/66 50%

So what’s also interesting to look at are the countries that have the highest percentage of business programs. So as you can see, even though the Netherlands had 100+ business programs, they're not even on this list in terms of the percentage of their programs that are business related. So I often get students interested in going to France, for instance. But if they're not interested in business, it's going to be hard to find a good program, because 50% of their programs are business. And many of those programs in the other 50% that aren't business are at these more expensive American colleges that are functioning in France. 

Slide 6: Lesson 1 Action Step

Research the different specific areas of study

So I know this was a short lesson, because a lot of the part of this lesson is going to involve some work that you do on your own. So here's the thing, I have a confession to make. Though my stepfather is a professor at the University of Chicago Business School, my dad has been in finance his whole life. I'm an entrepreneur and started a business myself. Despite all those things, I don't know a whole lot about some of these specific areas of study. So if you're taking this course, business as a whole, is something that's generally interesting to you. So I'd hate for you to miss out on the specialization that might interest you just because you don't know about what it is yet. 

So this action step has you research at least five of the specific areas of study under business, or hospitality and tourism. What do courses look like for these programs? What do people end up doing after they graduate from these programs? So this is easily done by starting with the database. Don't worry about whether it's the school you'd want to attend or not. What we want is to find like the good comprehensive websites that are going to show you examples of that type of specific field of study. 

I can tell you that some countries as a whole are better at their websites than the others in terms of offering extensive information. I would start with Northern Europe and the Netherlands. They're generally very comprehensive. So are schools that have Triple Crown accreditation, which you could use as a search criteria. 

So what you want to do is you want to find websites that describe the program in depth, websites that have a list of the courses you're going to take each year in that specific area of study, and preferably have a list of associated careers. Have fun.