Zane Showker Hall is filled with hundreds of intelligent students, all up to date on cutting edge business trends. The second you walk in you are welcomed by giant stock market data screens updating the students on the stock market by the second. Students are seen crowded in the Pod struggling to find group study space to finish up their CoB 300 Benchmark. You can see the sleep deprived junior rocking her pajamas to class and the future wolf on Wall Street dressed in an all black suit with a matching brief case.
Students at James Madison's College of Business are unlike any other, and have skills that are valuable to modern day companies. CoB 300 incorporates interdependency between disciplines and real-life situations. It is an integrated program covering finance, management, marketing and operations. This combination helps students understand the interrelations of the business systems, which puts them at an advantage over students from other schools.
BusinessWeek has consistently ranked us in the top 20 among public institutions, and the top 40 among all business schools. In 2014, a JMU team was named global co-winner in the Google Online Marketing Challenge. Additionally, three other teams from JMU placed in the Google Online Marketing Challenge social impact category. Collectively, they won $20,000 for three different nonprofits.
CoB students are among the hardest working on campus. On top of maintaining a 2.7 GPA in their business core classes, many can be seen taking on minors and also double majoring. Producing CEO G.J. Hart of California Pizza Kitchen, and the inspiring TOMS Bethany Joy Clark, Showker is the clearly the place to be to meet future leaders of the business world.
What makes us so great? Well, that is a secret only hours in Showker can answer. Here are the myths of Showker Hall vs. what actually happens.
What our professors think we do.
Our professors know we are in college and understand the occasional night out affecting our performance during our 8 a.m. Friday exam. However, what they do not realize is the number of potential nights out sacrificed for a good night in for CoB studying.
What our parents think we do.
Mom and dad think we are angels. We are in college to study and nothing else. Always happy, well-nourished, and never sleep deprived. If only they knew.
What we think we do.
Let's face it. We are business majors. We spend our time learning about trends that will optimize profit and minimize cost; the least we want with our careers is to be able to make some cash.
What society thinks we do.
50 Shades of Grey and Wolf of Wall Street are the most recent business related movies. As much as we wish to have a guy as smokin' as Christian Grey in our lives, or to be as viscously successful as Belfort, JMU's Madison Collaborate keeps our morals way too in check to ever be like them.
What nonbusiness majors think we do.
Our peers are Netflix addicts. After watching all nine seasons of The Office (twice), they have been brainwashed into thinking all business majors are just another character in the show. Although that would be hilarious, it is not true.
What I feel like I do
Coffee is what keeps us running on little sleep. It keeps our eyes open during 8 a.m. classes and helps us from day dreaming during 291. We go through pod-coffee punch cards like it is our job, and we continue to drink coffee until our dining dollars and flex run out.
What we actually do.
Despite the amount of group work done in Showker, the space needed to complete these projects is incredibly tight. Students are often seen cramping six students in rooms meant for four. However, we make it work because we would not change being a CoB student for the world.
