Changing the Social Conscience of Business Students [The Huffington Post] Hult Blog

Written by  Dr. Stephen Hodges, President of Hult International Business School, for The Huffington Post.    When you think of business school students, what do you think of? Do you view them as the next generation of managers, armed with a Millennial mindset and a solid grounding in business principles? Or do you see them as socially-minded young people (more so than previous generations) searching for greater meaning in their careers? How about both? As President of Hult international business school, I can say with conviction that many students today seek out a business program that allows them to blend core business skills with doing good. In other words, they want the opportunity to learn about social entrepreneurship firsthand not just read about it in a case study or textbook. Through the Hult Prize, the largest student business competition in the world, we galvanize students from across the globe  to do just that. The goal of the competition is to solve some of the most complex social problems on Earthliterally. But theres more to it than the entrepreneurial scope, the financial jackpot, and the bragging rights that go along with winning something. The competition is imbued with a philosophy that profoundly impacts the students who participate in it, the staff and students who organize it, and the faculty and mentors who provide guidance and mentorship. Without a doubt, the Hult Prize sparks a profound change in the social conscience of the thousands of people who compete each year. In my view, the competition follows three progressive steps that trigger a metamorphosis of sorts in the participants : education, engagement and transformation. Continue reading the article in full here.   Make the most of what your career has to offer with a Masters in International Business from Hult. To learn more, take a look at our blog   Why MBA: Hult International Business School [Business Because], or give your employability a huge boost with an MBA in international business. Download a brochure or get in touch today to find out how Hult can help you to explore everything about the business world, the future, and yourself. Related posts Academics Beyond (narrow) business concepts: â€Å"Soft† skills turn out to be critical skills News Building success: Dual Degree students win at USASBE Community How going beyond business at Hult helped me launch my company Admissions Accepted Students Weekend: A weekend to remember Careers Career mapping: How to become an executive in the next 5 years 0 Thought leadership How to prepare for an uncertain future in a world of AI Instagram Hult Rotation offers you a chance to study in a truly global way. Our rotation program allows you to study and be immersed in some of the finest cities in the world. 📠¸: @jasminmanzano . Hult Rotation offers you a chance to study in a truly global way. Our rotation program allows you to study and be immersed in some of the finest cities in the world. 📠¸: @jasminmanzano . Each year, Hult seeks to enroll a talented and ambitious incoming class from all over the world. We look for diverse students with a wide range of experiences, perspectives, and interests—students who will thrive in our unique educational atmosphere. Are you ready for a truly global experience? 📠¸: @iambrunadiniz . Each year, Hult seeks to enroll a talented and ambitious incoming class from all over the world. We look for diverse students with a wide range of experiences, perspectives, and interests—students who will thrive in our unique educational atmosphere. Are you ready for a truly global experience? 📠¸: @iambrunadiniz . We’re excited to start 2020 on a ranking high! Hult is proud to have been placed #28 in Poets Quants 2020 rankings for Best Undergraduate Business Schools in the US. Taking a huge leap of 32 places from our 2019 position, we’re also very happy to have secured top positions in key categories like: life-changing experience, practicality of the degree, and global immersion. . With five global campuses, a student body of over 130 nationalities, and a learn-by-doing approach—Hult offers a student experience like no other. . We’re excited to start 2020 on a ranking high! Hult is proud to have been placed #28 in Poets Quants 2020 rankings for Best Undergraduate Business Schools in the US. Taking a huge leap of 32 places from our 2019 position, we’re also very happy to have secured top positions in key categories like: life-changing experience, practicality of the degree, and global immersion. . With five global campuses, a student body of over 130 nationalities, and a learn-by-doing approach—Hult offers a student experience like no other. . â€Å"I’m from an engineering background and needed a whole new skill set for the industry I wanted to switch to. I learned a lot about myself and how I deal with being out of my comfort zone. I learned both soft and hard skills, from how to work in very diverse teams to key accounting metrics and strategy. I was surprised by how weak I was at certain tasks in English or how strong I actually was in other areas. Hult gave me opportunities to try new things and meet people from places I never thought I would have friends. . My internship experiences gave me the chance to broaden my view of different cultures and different companies. I had the opportunity to work and live with people whose values differed from people in my home country. I thought that this would be difficult, but it gave me the chance to reflect on my own values and assess if they were a result of my home country environment or if they were intrinsically mine. . Diederick ter Kulve (@diederick.terkulve) Netherlands Masters in International Business . â€Å"I’m from an engineering background and needed a whole new skill set for the industry I wanted to switch to. I learned a lot about myself and how I deal with being out of my comfort zone. I learned both soft and hard skills, from how to work in very diverse teams to key accounting metrics and strategy. I was surprised by how weak I was at certain tasks in English or how strong I actually was in other areas. Hult gave me opportunities to try new things and meet people from places I never thought I would have friends. . My internship experiences gave me the chance to broaden my view of different cultures and different companies. I had the opportunity to work and live with people whose values differed from people in my home country. I thought that this would be difficult, but it gave me the chance to reflect on my own values and assess if they were a result of my home country environment or if they were intrinsically mine. . Diederick ter Kulve (@diederick.terkulve) Netherlands Masters in International Business . Say a big hello to our Bachelor of Business Administration program cover star, Elisa Orus Plana âÅ" ¨ . â€Å"I’m excited for the future—especially that I cant predict whats going to happen. Maybe Ill end up in Mexico working for a trading company or maybe in Africa, developing my own business. Everything is possible, and the options are constantly changing. I love the idea that Im never going to be stuck doing the same job until the end of my life if I dont want it to be like this. . Hult really supports me and my ambitions and truly believes that we deserve to be considered as professionals as well as students. Here, I get to express not just my opinions but all elements of myself. From my creative side with the Fashion Society to my finance and business sides in Trading Club and the Management Consulting Club. We get a different type of learning here. Not just essential knowledge and theory, but practical skills and mindset. The school is always evolving. We’re encouraged to innovate and to always look for new ways of doing traditional things. We learn how to be more confident and become aware of how we can impact our environment. The school aims to help you become a better version of yourself and to stand out from the crowd.â€Å" . Elisa Orus Plana French Bachelor of Business Administration Class of 2021 Say a big hello to our Bachelor of Business Administration program cover star, Elisa Orus Plana âÅ" ¨ . â€Å"I’m excited for the future—especially that I cant predict whats going to happen. Maybe Ill end up in Mexico working for a trading company or maybe in Africa, developing my own business. Everything is possible, and the options are constantly changing. I love the idea that Im never going to be stuck doing the same job until the end of my life if I dont want it to be like this. . Hult really supports me and my ambitions and truly believes that we deserve to be considered as professionals as well as students. Here, I get to express not just my opinions but all elements of myself. From my creative side with the Fashion Society to my finance and business sides in Trading Club and the Management Consulting Club. We get a different type of learning here. Not just essential knowledge and theory, but practical skills and mindset. The school is always evolving. We’re encouraged to innovate and to always look for new ways of doing traditional things. We learn how to be more confident and become aware of how we can impact our environment. The school aims to help you become a better version of yourself and to stand out from the crowd.â€Å" . Elisa Orus Plana French Bachelor of Business Administration Class of 2021"> During the final days of 2019, you probably reflected on what you’ve accomplished this year—and even this decade—and what you’d like to achieve in 2020. Let us know in the comments below. During the final days of 2019, you probably reflected on what you’ve accomplished this year—and even this decade—and what you’d like to achieve in 2020. Let us know in the comments below. â€Å"The first time we did group work on the program, I went head-to-head with a colleague. It taught me a lot about how I see people, how people see me, and how conflict can be resolved in a kind and productive way. The best feedback you get, when delivered constructively, is the most critical because it really feeds into how you lead. I’ve completely reversed my leadership style—the result is so much richer and more powerful when you lead from behind and lead with strength. . Studying in tandem with working, whilst challenging, gave me the perfect platform to directly apply learning concepts into my business environment, the competitive landscape, and the real-estate industry as a whole. When I started the program, I was very happy in my corporate role. But my courage and aspirations grew to the point that I took on a whole new direction. Having my career coach, Joanna, as a sounding board allowed me to really be strategic and get to know myself. She coached me thro ugh all the interviews, the research, and the questions. It went in parallel with what I was doing academically and after six months everything just clicked. . I went into the EMBA knowing I had nothing to lose and I’ve come out with everything. Great strength, global friends, amazing learning, mentors from professors, a job I love, and the knowledge that I can set my mind to achieve anything and with the right support and resources I’ll get there.† . Kashani Wijetunga British, New Zealand Sri Lankan Associate Director Senior Strategy Consultant CBRE EMBA Class of 2019 . â€Å"The first time we did group work on the program, I went head-to-head with a colleague. It taught me a lot about how I see people, how people see me, and how conflict can be resolved in a kind and productive way. The best feedback you get, when delivered constructively, is the most critical because it really feeds into how you lead. I’ve completely reversed my leadership style—the result is so much richer and more powerful when you lead from behind and lead with strength. . Studying in tandem with working, whilst challenging, gave me the perfect platform to directly apply learning concepts into my business environment, the competitive landscape, and the real-estate industry as a whole. When I started the program, I was very happy in my corporate role. But my courage and aspirations grew to the point that I took on a whole new direction. Having my career coach, Joanna, as a sounding board allowed me to really be strategic and get to know myself. She coached me thro ugh all the interviews, the research, and the questions. It went in parallel with what I was doing academically and after six months everything just clicked. . I went into the EMBA knowing I had nothing to lose and I’ve come out with everything. Great strength, global friends, amazing learning, mentors from professors, a job I love, and the knowledge that I can set my mind to achieve anything and with the right support and resources I’ll get there.† . Kashani Wijetunga British, New Zealand Sri Lankan Associate Director Senior Strategy Consultant CBRE EMBA Class of 2019 . â€Å"It was now or never. I knew that I’d have likely stayed in my neighborhood for years to come if I didn’t take this opportunity. I’d not lived or studied outside of the U.S. before. So I left my job as a global strategist at an advertising agency and moved halfway around the world. I’ve come back a more culturally aware, well-versed person. I’ve realized that everything is a learning experience and an opportunity for growth. Ill definitely carry this mindset with me into the future. Technology and social media allow us to be different people in several places at once. Im excited to see how I can establish myself in whatever city Ill be lucky enough to call home and still maintain deep connections with people all over the world. I’m inspired by my classmates every day. Hearing some of their life stories and how getting this degree fits into their greater mission has been very humbling. My biggest challenge has been finding the ‘right’ path for me. There have been rooms Ive felt like I shouldnt be in, but now Im proud to feel as though I truly belong, wherever I am.† . Dwayne Logan, Jnr. American MBA Class of 2019 . â€Å"It was now or never. I knew that I’d have likely stayed in my neighborhood for years to come if I didn’t take this opportunity. I’d not lived or studied outside of the U.S. before. So I left my job as a global strategist at an advertising agency and moved halfway around the world. I’ve come back a more culturally aware, well-versed person. I’ve realized that everything is a learning experience and an opportunity for growth. Ill definitely carry this mindset with me into the future. Technology and social media allow us to be different people in several places at once. Im excited to see how I can establish myself in whatever city Ill be lucky enough to call home and still maintain deep connections with people all over the world. I’m inspired by my classmates every day. Hearing some of their life stories and how getting this degree fits into their greater mission has been very humbling. My biggest challenge has been finding the ‘right’ path for me. There have been rooms Ive felt like I shouldnt be in, but now Im proud to feel as though I truly belong, wherever I am.† . Dwayne Logan, Jnr. American MBA Class of 2019 . Happy New Year, Hultians! . Happy New Year, Hultians! .

To raise your ACT Reading score, answer fewer questions

Broadly speaking, time-based ACT Reading problems tend to fall into two categories. The first category involves students who cannot even come close to finishing ACT Reading in time. At 35 minutes, they might still be only halfway through the third passage, and often their scores are stuck somewhere in the low 20s. Even if theyre solid readers, they need to radically change their approach in order to see significant improvement. The second category typically involves students who are scoring in the mid-high 20s. Their overall comprehension is strong, and they could likely answer nearly all of the questions right given just 10 more minutes, but they cant quite seem to get there in the allotted time. If you fall into the second category, this post is for you. Let me start by saying that when it comes to ACT Reading, the perfect is often the enemy of the good. What do I mean by this? Well, let me put it this way: one of the biggest traps students fall into is to assume that if theyre aiming for a high score, they need to try to answer every question. The more questions right, the higher the score. Every question right = perfect score. Thats an entirely reasonable assumption, but things dont always work that way in practice. In reality, trying to answer every question can hurt more than it helps especially if the curve is significant, and even more so if youre already scoring well. This is actually true for a lot of tests, but because the time constraint is so extreme on the ACT, its the best illustration of that principle Ive encountered. After tutoring ACT Reading for a certain number of years, I had a bit of a duh moment. Id always assumed that students were running out of time because they were spending too much time reading the passages, or because they were working through the questions just a little too slowly. Basically, I took it for granted that even though a student might routinely need less time on, say, Social Science passages, and more time on Prose Fiction, the timing issue could be dealt with at a macro level that is, the timing primarily needed to be adjusted on a per-passage basis. What I eventually figured out, though, was that students who were scoring well but not in the stratosphere were usually getting tripped up by a small number of individual questions that could appear on any passage type even ones they normally did very well on. They werent slow readers, but those few questions were costing them inordinate amounts of time, causing them to fall behind on the entire rest of the section and then get other, easier questions wrong because they were so rushed. It therefore stood to reason that if those few, problematic questions could be avoided, those students would get more of the other questions right, and their scores would rise. But in order for that to happen, they had to 1) be able to recognize which questions they were most likely to lose time on; and 2) be willing to not even try to answer those three or four questions. When it first occurred to me to suggest this strategy, I expected some pushback. After all, people aiming for a high score dont normally want to answer fewer questions. Luckily, the first few students I mentioned it to had been prepping long enough to have a pretty good sense of what would give them trouble. They were also desperate enough to be done with standardized testing that they were willing to deliberately sacrifice a few questions without protest. They knew that if they kept doing what they were doing, their scores would stay the same. To my slight surprise, and to their considerable surprise, they were able to move from the 28-29 range to the 31-32 range. Problem solved. But sometimes, of course, it isnt possible to know that a question will be so time consuming until youre halfway through. And if you havent spent that much time prepping, its also possible that you dont have a good sense of which questions are most likely to give you trouble. Both of those are fair points. In regards to the first one, yes, sometimes you will get tripped up there is no way to know for sure, in advance, just how long it will take you to answer a particular question. That said, there are some general guidelines you can use to identify potentially time-consuming questions: 1. Big-Picture Questions If you havent really gotten the gist of a passage and immediately find yourself confronted with a question that asks about the passage as a whole, its probably not the best place to start. And if youre ever tempted to answer a question by rereading the passage from the beginning, thats a great sign you shouldnt be answering the question at all. 2. Gut Reaction If you read a question and your first thought is HUH!!! What is that even asking? just skip it. You dont have time to sit and sort it out. Because this is the ACT, that probably wont happen often; if it does, pay attention. Likewise, if you read a question and have absolutely no inkling about what the answer could be OR where it might be located, thats also a sign it could cost you a lot of time. Leave it for last, and if you dont have time, move on to the next passage. 3. I, II, and III Often, theres no quick way to answer multiple-response/roman numeral questions. Note that these questions themselves are not necessarily difficult, but answering them can in some cases require so much hunting through the passage that theyre just not worth it. 4. Inferences Remember that while the answers to many, if not most, ACT Reading questions are stated more or less directly in the passage, that is not the case for inference questions. If you have trouble making the leap from the literal wording of the passage to the rephrased version in the answer choice, you can be prepared to drop one or two of these questions if necessary.