The University will be closed December 19, 2024 to January 5, 2025. If you need assistance during that time, please call 1-855-OWU-1842 and leave a detailed voicemail along with your contact information. One of our colleagues will respond to your call as soon as possible.
If you would like to make a 2024 gift, please make your gift before midnight on December 31.
Preparing for the future of business — that's the focus of OWU's Business Administration major. You learn to plan, organize, direct, and control the functions and processes of business in a dynamic and global economy. The program is rare in a national liberal arts setting, giving you a high-quality business education along with a liberal arts foundation, preparing you for meaningful work and life.
Business education at OWU is significantly different than at a big university. You learn to think differently, so you can stand out from the crowd. You'll benefit from rigorous business classes, real-world experience, and close ties with your professors. You'll graduate with solid business knowledge and a liberal arts education that helps you develop the skills that employers crave: critical thinking, decision making, communication, creativity, teamwork, and global perspective. These are also vital skills for budding entrepreneurs.
Additionally, business students receive help obtaining meaningful internships and externships (short-term shadowing opportunities). Theory-to-Practice is real at OWU.
The Business Administration major offers two distinct concentrations:
In both areas, you'll gain knowledge and skills in management theory, human resources management and behavior, accounting and other quantitative methods, logistics, organization and production, marketing, and strategic decision-making. The program builds upon knowledge of the functional, environmental, behavioral, and legal aspects of business as well as providing analytical and conceptual tools for analyzing complicated problems in real-world settings.
OWU also offers a minor in Business.
Some students majoring in Business Administration also complete a second major or a minor in another field to expand their opportunities or pursue a special interest, like theatre or coaching. Some of the most popular second majors for Business Administration students are: Sports and Exercise Management, Psychology, and Data Analytics.
OWU's Business Administration major is built on the kind of broad, liberal arts education that helps you develop the critical thinking, analytical skills crucial for success in the future of business and entrepreneurship.
Many OWU Business majors pursue a second major – from the arts and humanities to the sciences. And many work one-on-one with a faculty mentor to explore research projects on business innovations.
The OWU Connection provides many options for you gain a global perspective. With Travel-Learning Courses, Connection Grants, and study abroad, you can spend a week or two, a semester, or even a year immersing yourself in another landscape and culture.
Students in business-related majors have explored the financial world of Wall Street, and local markets in France, and accounting practices in Australia.
At OWU, real experience is guaranteed. OWU students have interned in equity analysis in New York; marketing with the San Francisco 49ers; export/import, accounting, and mergers and acquisitions in Columbus; and the music business in Los Angeles. Every year students intern overseas.
The Blaine E. Grimes Summer Grant Program for juniors and seniors provides grants for business-related internships around the world.
"Working this summer in New York City for alumnus Tom Goodman '76, made me realize how much of a community Ohio Wesleyan really is. I gained professional experience in my field by working with amazing clients throughout the United States, and by the end of the summer this internship helped me realize what I really want to do for my future career." Allisa Schuller '19
Brianna La Croix '18 interned at ABC Studios in Burbank, California. Before she even graduated, ABC hired her as a Social Media Marketing & Production Assistant.
One of OWU's most coveted competitive awards, the Corns Business and Entrepreneurial Scholars Program provides $5,000 per year for your junior and senior years based on your academic performance, leadership, and proven potential for achievement in business and entrepreneurship. The Norman Leonard Endowed Student Research Grant supports student-faculty collaborative research projects.
As an incoming first-year student with an interest in economics, you may apply to become an Economics Management Fellow. You'll benefit from special classes and seminars, a generous book allowance, networking with speakers and visitors, an expense-paid travel-learning experience in New York City, and up-close personal attention from the entire economics faculty.
Forbes magazine ranks Ohio Wesleyan the No. 1 entrepreneurial college in Ohio - and No. 17 nationally. The Carol Latham Entrepreneurial Scholars Program helps students in any major develop their entrepreneurial venture. The Delaware Entrepreneurial Center at Ohio Wesleyan provides internship, educational, and business incubator opportunities for students - and it hosts the entrepreneurship competition with the largest prize package in Ohio, nearly $500,000!
OMG, the OWU Marketing Group, is a self-led group of students interested in applied marketing. The OMG evaluates, selects, and tackles marketing projects as a marketing agency. Branding, creative, and promotion work helps them prepare for marketing careers.
At OWU, Madison founded a 501 c3 nonprofit to aid veterans in OWU's Entrepreneurial Center. Since she is a communications and marketing specialist with the City of New Albany, Ohio.
Ohio Wesleyan, City of Delaware Help Students Explore Real Estate Finance, Development
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Ohio Wesleyan Senior's Pelotonia Internship Supports Fundraising for Cancer Research
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Bigelow-Reed House students visit the Columbus Zoo to learn about the business of non-profits.
Every spring the Department inducts our top business students into Sigma Beta Delta, the international honor society for business, management, and administration.
Professor Barbara MacLeod works with a class.
The Delaware Entrepreneurial Center will open on the OWU campus in the fall of 2018, offering education and internship opportunities for students and guidance and space for entrepreneurs in the community.
"Shark Tank" star Daymond John speaks at Gray Chapel in 2017.
Matt Vollrath's marketing class often works in small groups.
OWU's annual Student Symposium showcases student research projects from across the campus, from business and economics to the humanities to science.
Economics major Liz Knowlton '19 was one of many OWU students who met with Daymond John during his visit to campus.
Katherine Romeo '18 makes a presentation for the Ohio Wesleyan Marketing Group.
Economics Management Fellows from the Class of 2021 visit the New York Stock Exchange as part of a May 2018 trip to the Big Apple that also includes learning from more than 20 alumni.
Production management in the Entrepreneurship class is hands-on.
In 2018, Heartland Bank President and CEO G. Scott McComb spoke at OWU about morality in business.
This OWU residence combines learning and living opportunities for students interested in the business world. The house motto is “Where Passion Meets Opportunity.”
