Blueprint

Our award-winning education-to-career curriculum model supports our students' professional development — every student graduates with the knowledge, skills and network needed to excel in the workplace.

Two students sitting at a table
Preparing for your future

The Blueprint Model

Blueprint is our education-to-career model, a 12-course series on professional and leadership development and financial literacy. It’s the foundation of every business major, and the series embeds career advising, student-employer interaction and work-based learning into the student experience.

Your path to a meaningful career.

Students are introduced to an overview of business disciplines (e.g., accounting, marketing, management) and participate in career planning activities such as company visits and workshops with industry representatives. Last year 650 business professionals shared their knowledge and experiences with our students.

A focus on transferable skills.

All 12 courses have a strong focus on work-based learning that helps develop transferable skills. We're building skills such as adaptability, teamwork and communication — qualities that employers seek in any industry.

For example, students launch revenue-generating microenterprises in a first-year course. All third-year students participate in a case competition hosted by industry partners. Fourth-year students engage in company-sponsored academies that focus on practical skill development in labor-market driven areas.

More than work skills, these are life skills.

With a strong emphasis on financial literacy, students learn about financial goal setting, budgeting, credit management, loan repayment, taxes, savings/investing, major purchases, salary/benefit negotiation and more.

Award-winning

Our breakthrough curricular model earned national recognition and funding from Strada Education Network.

From an employer

Soft skills are much harder skills to teach than the technical aspects of running a business. OSU students have extremely good communication and soft skills. It makes the OSU business students stand out.

Eric Nelson ‘84, president and CEO of Mutual of Enumclaw
Cutting edge

Redefining business education

Studies show that the demands for new workforce preparation are changing at a rate most four-year colleges cannot match. Simultaneously, retention and graduation rates are lagging. Students who do graduate increasingly finish college with debt, and the average student loan balance now exceeds $34,000. Only a third of college students today believe they will graduate prepared to be successful in the workplace, and just half believe their major will lead to a good job.

Our goal is that every OSU College of Business graduate is ready to make an immediate, meaningful impact. Our Blueprint model:

  1. Improves alignment between how we prepare our students for the workforce and what the workforce needs.
  2. Increases access, retention and graduation rates among all students regardless of their race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, etc.
  3. Supports students as they transition into careers.
Students in a first-year Blueprint class

12 

12 courses over four years focus on personal, professional and leadership development.

100%

100% of OSU College of Business students participate in Blueprint. You'll graduate with the knowledge, skills and network you need to excel in the workplace.

450 

More than 450 employers recruit at the College of Business each year.

Sample courses

  • Running a microbusiness
  • Inclusion in the workplace
  • Budgeting, mapping to graduation and paying for college
  • Business communication and interviewing
  • Personal financial literacy
  • Design thinking
  • Professional financial literacy: job offers, salary negotiations and benefits
From a student

Not only did we get to create our own product, but we learned how to interview, how to create resumes, how to network at events and so many other important steps to succeeding in the business world.

Emma Zomerman

In partnership with:

 

Strada logo
Young Entrepreneurs Weekly logo
University Innovation Alliance logo
AACSC