Curriculum
Three signature components of the Kelley curriculum will give you the knowledge and the experience to thrive in any industry.
As part of our revolutionary approach to teaching business, you won’t need to finalize your major until you make it through your third year in the program.
Up until that time, your Kelley Compass classes, the Integrative Core (I-Core), and the Global Foundations Core (G-Core) will keep you busy developing a comprehensive knowledge base in each essential division of business. These courses will also help shape your personal brand: what values, beliefs, and passions will inspire future employers, associates, and customers to believe in your vision? What unique strengths will you leverage in teamwork scenarios? How do you become a leader people want to follow?
These classes will help you identify and nurture your most authentic business self while giving you attractive real-world experience.
After moving through this three-year experience, you’ll feel confident that the major you choose will take you wherever you want to go.
These three courses might be considered the DNA of the Kelley curriculum.
You’ll take one class per year during your first three years: Kelley Compass I, II, and III. What you learn from each will drive your major decision-making during your time in the program.
In Kelley Compass I, you’ll reflect on your values and your priorities. You’ll discover what’s possible for you in business, as well as what you really want out of business. You will:
- Attend major-focused presentations outside of class
- Identify concepts of success
- Interview business professionals
- Evaluate which Kelley student organizations will be right for you
- Learn to set personal and professional goals
- Practice networking and other professional interactions
- Begin developing your resume and professional portfolio
- Develop customized time-management strategies
- Make an initial four-year educational plan
- Research Kelley’s business majors and IU minors
Kelley Compass II will immerse you into the world of teamwork and team development. You will learn to:
- Work with people from diverse backgrounds in local and virtual teams
- Manage first impressions
- Create effective teams
- Manage conflicting ethics in teams
- Analyze personal cultural competency and identify similarities and differences in cultural communication
- Write introductory emails, covers letters, and resumes
- Expand your professional portfolio and interview skills
- Research companies and industries
Finally, Kelley Compass III offers a practical approach to leadership and decision making. You will
- Develop specific skills for team management
- Learn to make action plans that accommodate and address multiple perspectives
- Discover how to assess results and appropriate changes
- Fine-tune your resume to fit an increased awareness of personal goals
- Improve interview strategies to secure positions with companies who have beliefs and goals similar to yours
During your second year, your Global Foundations Core (G-Core) classes will give you strategies to analyze and interpret the economic, social, political, legal, cultural, and technological influences that drive the global economy.
You’ll also learn how to evaluate a region or nation for business investment or expansion. You’ll determine the factors—such as infrastructure, climate, region, and politics—that may or may not support certain types of business.
You have the option of taking one G-Core course that ends with embedded overseas travel opportunities to illustrate what you learned in the first part of the class.
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The Integrative Core (I-Core) is a block of four classes that will bridge together everything you’ve learned inside and outside the classroom during your first two years at Kelley. Specifically, this block of four classes looks at the important relationships among finance, marketing, operations, and leadership.
In addition to your I-Core block courses, you’ll simultaneously enroll in your final talent management class, Kelley Compass III: The Business Professional.
Throughout the semester, you will go through several real-time experiences that challenge you to solve cross-functional business problems while developing your professional and leadership skills. The final I-Core case—what we like to call the Kelley "rite of passage"—is an extensive and intense team project in which students demonstrate all they have learned. Students are required to pass each I-Core course and Compass III with a minimum grade of C.
Before you take the I-Core, you must first complete your I-Core prerequisites with a minimum grade of C.
Read more about your Kelley classes in Degree
Requirements >>
