Students Who Are “Inspired”

When the fall term began back in August, I started to think about how we at California State University San Marcos at Temecula (CSUSM-T) inspire our students to succeed in their studies, and be all they can be. The Oxford dictionary defines inspiration as the ability to fill someone with the urge or ability to do something special or creative.

How is it, that a group of recent graduates from CSUSM-T were inspired to set up a routine brainstorming session to discuss business start-up ideas?  Amanda Maggio, a 2015 graduate of the Business Administration (BSBA) degree program and our new student services assistant explained that five graduates from the BSBA program get together every few weeks to discuss ideas for possible business ventures, hoping that the next great business idea will be borne from these gatherings. They work on concepts between meetings and make their meetings very intentional.

“We are confident that the skills and concepts we learned at CSUSM-T prepared us for both business ownership and employment,” she says. The group recently held a focus group to test out one of their best ideas and the team believes the concept has real potential.

According to the Small Business Administration (SBA), the characteristics and skills successful entrepreneurs need to have include  understanding and comfort with taking risks, ability to the think on your feet, ability to make decisions alone not knowing whether they are right or not, persuasiveness, creativity and the ability to negotiate. These skills are all incorporated into CSUSM-T’s BSBA program.

So, how does CSUSM-T inspire our students to succeed? Though I am not entirely sure of the answer, I do know that when our student cohorts’ work in teams to address issues and problem- solve together, they instill in themselves the confidence to succeed regardless of their goals.

And I am proud that Amanda’s group is doing just that.

Suzanne Lingold, Associate Dean, at Cal State San Marcos at Temecula