Business Management

Earn a degree in Business Management at Paul Smith’s College to further your path toward the perfect job or career.

Immersive learning is emphasized in all of our programs. Our culinary students bake bread & pastries for the on-campus retail bakery and forestry students explore the College-owned lands, cut timber and sell it. This same spirit is obvious in PSC’s Business Management students.

Students in the Business Management program can choose one of four concentrations:

Sports & Event Management
Hit the ground running! Immerse yourself in the business or sports management, communications, and marketing—all while working with world class professionals in the winter sports capital of North America. Just a few of the opportunities that set Paul Smith’s College apart:

  • Nearby Lake Placid, N.Y., home of two Winter Olympic Games, is a living case study. Here, students can experience events such as the World Cup championships, World University Games, IRONMAN® Triathlon, and the Lake Placid Horse Show first-hand.
  • Assist in the development of marketing and public relations campaigns for major international sports events taking place in the college’s backyard.
  • Students can earn credit while gaining real-world experience with national partners through online study and paid work opportunities during the college’s Semester in Residency.
  • Employers say PSC students know how to do things because of the program’s experiential learning components and how to get things done because of a strong business core.

Esports Management
Equip yourself with the skills, knowledge, and connections to be part of this exciting growth industry. Esports Management is ideal for aspiring Esports strategists, organizers, managers and entrepreneurs:

  • Work alongside sports industry professionals to manage the annual ECAC and Empire State Winter Games Esports tournament, a world-class event hosted on the PSC campus in our state-of-the-art Stewart’s Shops Dake Family Esports Lab.
  • The Esports industry is booming. With 453.8 million viewers in 2019, this rapidly expanding sector is poised to become a $1.8 billion market by 2022.

Management
The management industry has a broad horizon, providing students the opportunity to pursue interests both in and out of the classroom as they prepare for careers in management.

  • Apply Business Skills from Day One using realistic business simulations like RedGlobal Group that allow students to see the impact of their decisions in courses like Intro to Entrepreneurship, Strategic Planning and the Senior Capstone Project.
  • Earn  Academic Credit While Earning Industry Experience during a Semester in Residency through online study and paid work experience with nationwide partners like, World of Beer Corporate OfficesDisney WorldRitz CarltonThe Point Resort & others.
  • Compete in Regional Business Plan Contests where our students regularly come home with seed money to invest in their ideas or help pay for school, like Josh Clemmens ’17, Little ADK, a children’s educational souvenir/toy helping kids learn about the Adirondacks.
  • Engage in Paid Work Experience in nearby Lake Placid, New York, a world-class resort destination with many opportunities to learn from entrepreneurial business owners while going to school.

Entrepreneurship
Explore your vision and dramatically improve your odds of success with Entrepreneurship. The program is about a creative spirit and allows students to pursue their ambitions within a structured business discipline where they learn how to start, operate, and grow professionally, independently or within a team.

  • Join Paul Smith’s DECA, an international club for leaders in hospitality, marketing, management, and finance.
  • Client partnerships with entrepreneurs give students the opportunity to develop a relationship with a business, identify a “contractual deliverable,” execute the tasks and deliver back to the client.
  • Entrepreneurship symposiums and mixers, where students learn from new and seasoned business owners about the risks and successes in creating and running a business.
  • Earn a minor to complement your bachelor’s degree. Entrepreneurs come from many sectors of industry, and Paul Smith’s offers varied minors to suit different interests.
Key Facts
  • B.S. degree
  • 120 credit hours (minimum)
Career Options
  • Small Business Owner
  • Business Consultant
  • Research & Development
  • Sales & Advertising
  • Nonprofit Fundraiser
  • Corporate Partnerships Manager
  • Sports Information Director
  • Talent Acquisition
  • Franchise owner
  • Sports Publicist
  • Retail Management
  • Sports Marketing Specialist
  • Marketing Manager
  • Public Relations
Courses & Objectives

At the end of the program students will be able to:

  • Integrate their liberal arts education with business education to foster lifelong learning skills.
  • Develop analytic, reflective thinking, critical thinking and problem-solving skills.
  • Demonstrate ethical decision-making and reasoning abilities.
  • Demonstrate the processes of entrepreneurship, strategic management, accountability and project planning.
  • Expand oral, written and listening communication skills.
  • Articulate and defend a personal business philosophy within a global context.
  • Synthesize content knowledge from functional areas of business, including Marketing, Accounting, Management,Economics, Operations, Planning, and Finance.
  • Use and explain information technologies as they influence the structure and processes of organizations and economies, and as they influence the roles and techniques of management.
  • Develop skills in team management, conflict resolution and consensus building.
  • Develop a stewardship orientation in business decision-making.

Sample courses:

  • Principles of Management
  • Introduction To Entrepreneurship
  • Principles of Sports Management
  • Organizational Behavior
  • Quantitative Problem Solving
  • Business Systems
  • Principles Of Marketing
  • Analytical Reasoning & Scientific Inquiry
  • Written Communication
  • Financial Accounting
  • Principles of Economics
  • Managerial Accounting
  • Statistics
  • Social Research
  • Finance
  • Business Ethics & Decision Making

More program information and a full course list can be found in the College Catalog. For program planning sheets, click here.

PSC earns U.S. News’ No. 3 Most Innovative

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