Wharton and NYU Stern Launch Joint Initiative on Benefits of Undergraduate Business Education

Nov. 3, 2005 — The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and New York University Stern School of Business announced a joint initiative, “Discover Business Now,” aimed to educate high school sophomores and juniors about what it means to study business at the undergraduate level and how doing so broadens their career opportunities.

The schools are introducing their initiative through two fall events, the first of which was held Nov. 1, 2005 in Short Hills, N.J. The next “Discover Business Now” event is exclusively for women students and will be held Nov. 6 at the Philadelphia Downtown Courtyard Marriott in Philadelphia, Pa.

With fall being the high season for college campus tours, Wharton and NYU Stern are taking the lead to inform high-school students and their parents about the benefits of undergraduate business education during the college decision-making process. Through this initiative, the schools will seek to dispel the myth that undergraduate business education is a vocational program that limits career opportunities. They will also convey how an undergraduate business program differs from a liberal arts program with an economics major. Through “Discover Business Now” the schools aim to help parents and students make the most informed decision about this important lifelong educational investment.

“We are very excited to give students an opportunity to better understand what they can learn from an undergraduate business education,” said Barbara Kahn, vice dean of Wharton’s Undergraduate Division. “Participants will be able to interact with the deans, current students and alumni to explore how studying business has allowed them to pursue intellectual, personal and career related interests.”

Sally Blount-Lyon, vice dean and dean of the Undergraduate College, NYU Stern School of Business, stated, “What’s exciting about undergraduate business education is that it offers the best of both worlds—a solid liberal arts grounding infused with a broad, global business focus that opens, not closes, career doors. Now more than ever, business knows no borders. It impacts every aspect of modern life, from politics and international relations to trade, religion and culture.”

For more information, please visit “Discover Business Now”.

About the Wharton School
The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania is recognized around the world for its academic strengths across every major discipline and at every level of business education. Founded in 1881 as the first collegiate business school in the nation, Wharton has approximately 4,600 undergraduate, MBA, Executive MBA, and doctoral students, more than 8,000 participants in its executive education programs annually, and an alumni network of more than 80,000 worldwide.

About NYU Stern
New York University Stern School of Business, located in the heart of Greenwich Village, is one of the nation’s premier management education schools and research centers. NYU Stern offers a broad portfolio of academic programs at the graduate and undergraduate levels, all of them informed and enriched by the dynamism, energy and deep resources of the world’s business capital.