The business policy class of Lowell Jacobsen, Rhodes professor of international business, is considered by many students as one of the hardest classes to take within that department at Baker University.
However, the students in Jacobsen’s business policy class accomplished an impressive feat by placing in top 9 percent of the nation on the ETS exam last week.
Related Story
More than 580 institutions and 81,000 students across the country participated in the standardized test.
“It’s certainly important for us to be able to compare ourselves with others across the country and this is one way for us to do that,” Jacobsen said. “But I also tell my students that it’s just one day, one exam and I wouldn’t put too much in it.”
Senior Justin Lane said every class he has taken at Baker helped prepare him for the test.
“Literally everything you can think of is on there,” Lane said. “There’s statistic questions, accounting questions, basic business terms you need to remember and a lot more.”
The exam tests the students on nine different areas: accounting, economics, management, quantitative business analysis, finance, marketing, legal and social environment, information systems and international issues.
“It is very helpful for us as a department to see the breakdown of the scores in the different areas,” Jacobsen said. “We do follow those from a trend standpoint and it does help us figure out what to do with our syllabi in terms of beefing up certain areas.”
Senior Eric Hendricks, another business major, scored in the 97th percentile in this semester’s exam.
“It’s something I’m pretty proud of, but I’ve got to give credit to the business department,” Hendricks said. “I think it’s the best department on campus and the fact that this class had the best grade shows the good job they’ve done the last few years.”
Both Lane and Hendricks said this accomplishment was something they might use in future job interviews.
“It will be something I’ll bring up if an employer asks about my accomplishments in college because not only did I do well, but my class did well,” Hendricks said. “A lot of the time, people think that small colleges don’t prepare student as well, but when I show them this it will give a lot more credit to Baker and myself.”
