This is the year to get involved!  Before you get too overloaded with upper-division courses, you should be making friends, finding new interests, and establishing ties with the people who will become your lifelong companions.  Making new friends and learning to get along with a diverse group of people is an important part of your college experience. In fact, this is such an important part of your college experience, that your future employer will look for college activities on your resume.  Yes, you're having a great time, but you are also learning important communication and leadership skills. 

This doesn't mean you should join only "business" clubs.  Any sports, social or volunteer group will offer important opportunities.  On the other hand, this is the year to get involved in the student organization sponsored by your own major department.  Don't wait until your junior year!  By the time you are ready to get involved and take advantage of what the organization can offer you, you'll be a graduating senior.  Don't wind up in your last semester wishing that you'd made those employer contacts, developed those leadership skills, or accomplished something you could put on your resume. 

Here are the communication skills you should be developing as you get involved in college activities:

Team Communication

If you haven't already been part of group activities or projects in high school, it is very important that you get accustomed to working with others to accomplish a goal.  You'll be doing group assignments and projects in most of your upper division business courses, and businesses organize their work in team-based ways.  As you get involved with organizations and projects on campus, you'll learn to use such basic team tools as

• goal setting and planning

• meeting agendas, minutes 

• conflict resolution methods

Interpersonal Communication

Getting along with "difficult" people is a key skill in the business world, and you'll even find that classmates can be difficult when you are working on major projects in your upper-division business courses.  As you get involved in groups around campus, pay attention to the how different people act, what happens when they are worried or stressed, and develop skills in working through those hard times.  By the time you get into your business courses, you should be able to

• express your objection to someone's inappropriate behavior

• understand how people with different personalities, cultural backgrounds or languages might perceive things

• apologize to others and accept apologies without carrying a grudge

Leadership Communication: 

As you begin to discuss more complex issues in your upper division classes, you'll discover that business courses are not places to sit quietly, take notes, and then regurgitate what you've learned on a test.  Your business professors and your future employers expect you to be able to have an opinion on how to solve a problem, to be able to explain why you think a certain method is the best one, and to defend your interests when resources are limited or values are in conflict.  The ability to discuss, debate and defend your ideas is crucial, and you should try to find opportunities to practice some important leadership skills:

• facilitation of discussions or meetings

• issue resolution

• analysis of evidence