Business: Practical Application Vs. Ethics

Business: Practical application vs. ethics

Pete Holiday said "Capitalism needs to function like a game of tug-of-war. Two opposing sides need to continually struggle for dominance, but at no time can either side be permitted to walk away with the rope." It seems that college is just training for a businessperson to deal with that tug of war. Michael Inciardi, a York College Senior, thought that one of the most important skills he acquired from college was "Competing seemingly enormous tasks in time that was not enough to do them." I see college it self as an experience in budgeting your time and allocating for the seemingly enormous tasks when there does not appear to be enough time. Through my interviews and readings, it seems that doing a job quicker is as important then doing it well. Identifying these times is one of the skills a good businessman has.

I often ask myself, "Is adequate work enough? Can I get by simply by doing it faster then the next guy?" This is not the feeling of Colin Hadley, a graduate student at the University of Maryland, He believes doing a person's best with restrictions is very important " Whenever we have a long project ... Spend hours doing extra research and lots of late nights ... It's usually done just before the deadline but it's a culmination of a lot of extra work that wasn't asked for that I just decided was needed." This leads me to conclude that speed is not the most important aspect thoroughness is just as important.

I have also thought about how school is a micro chasm for the real world but is accurate for the real world? Richard Rubenstein, Senior VP at Oppenheimer thought so. Mr. Rubenstein stated in an interview on March 28th " The competitive school I attended [Lehigh University] allowed me to be a better business person". He also said that, "Most schools have a comparable business program and most represent a well rounded business person in the real world. When I do my hiring the school is becoming less important than the internships and extracarriculars"

I was also concerned; did these people enjoy their classes? Or did they choose their courses to fill a requirement? It seems everyone had either a class or professor they enjoyed or that opened them to enlightenment. Mr. Inciardi said "Dr. Forgen's class was the main reason I switched my major to business. He started showing how simple the market was, but as he continued it became more complex and more convoluted. It intrigued me how something simple had so many layers." Mr. Hadley thought, " Dr. Lee's sociology class [The College of Staten Island] was one of the most intriguing ideas to me and really stimulated me." Mr. Rubenstein said, " In retrospect, art appreciation and music appreciation made me a better and more rounded individual. At the time I thought they were a waste of time, those classes, but now I know they taught me as much as any economics lecture." I realized college is not only learning about your major, but learning about life as well. Electives are not a waste of time they are instead a time to explore, a time to explore things that before you considered minor and non-critical. In the end these courses teach you more about yourself and society as whole then any of the courses could.

When I entered college I felt I knew what I wanted to study. I enjoyed economics in High school and thought, "Well since I enjoy it I might as well study it." I later learnt that there is little work for an economics, major and I wasn't enjoying it as much as I previously thought I would. I soon settled on an education in the field of business. Am I the only indecisive person? Have others also thought one thing and ended up doing another? Mr. Inciardi started as a computer science major and later transferred into business. Mr. Hadley had a similar epiphany when he reached college. Mr. Rubenstein, on the other hand, said, " I was always interested in business and the stock market, I knew that's what I wanted to learn about and what I wanted to do."

Sir John Harvey said, "It horrifies me that ethics is only an optional extra