Day in the Life of Matt

9:10 a.m.

Hello! I’m Matt, and I’m a senior MIS (Management Information Systems) major at Northwestern College. A typical day begins with my first class at 9:10 a.m., Finance II with Professor Davis, in Riley Hall. The class has about 30 students in it—many are general business or finance majors. Every class at Northwestern starts off with prayer, generally led by the professor. Today in class we learned about corporate financing and how to compute weighted-average costs of capital for projects. We also reviewed for our final and asked a lot of questions to help prepare for the test.

10:15 a.m.

Finance II ends at 10:15 a.m. and now I’m off to chapel from 10:30 to 11 a.m. Chapel is held every day at Northwestern and is an opportunity to hear great speakers from around the world challenge me spiritually.

Today is especially good because the entire 30 minutes is a praise and worship service. The business department occasionally has its own chapel where guest speakers from various corporations (including KPMG, Wells Fargo, Kemps and Guidant) share about the business world and how they integrate their faith in their jobs. Not only are these valuable opportunities, but there are cookies and juice available, too!

11:00 a.m.

After chapel I have 20 minutes for lunch before my next class, Management of Information Systems (MIS), at 11:20. MIS is also taught by Professor Davis, and it's a small class. Having small classes like this is really great for professor and student interaction, and the typical student-to-professor ratio on campus is 14:1. Smaller classes help me learn a lot more than sitting in a huge lecture hall. In MIS we often run through real-world case scenarios about how large companies have managed their IS departments and projects. These cases teach us a lot about dealing with the real world through real-life scenarios. The class ends at 12:25 and my next class, Business Ethics, is just up the stairs.

12:40 p.m.

Business Ethics starts at 12:40 and is taught by Professor Middleton. We start off with prayer. Middleton is a great teacher for this course, and his 23+ years of experience in management means that he brings a wealth of knowledge about the topic. Generally, the class consists of textbook reading outside class, and in class we concentrate on real, applicable, and often very difficult ethical dilemmas. The course focuses on dealing with these ethical dilemmas in the business world from a biblical mindset. The ethics class incorporates group projects and group work extensively.

1:45 p.m.

After class ends at 1:45, my ethics group has a meeting in the business lounge to discuss a presentation we will be giving in a few weeks. Group work is an important part of the business department and business world. There are many opportunities to get involved with group work throughout our business courses.

After we finish the meeting, I’m off to the computer lab where I will spend the next two hours working on a C# (a programming language) project for my application development class, along with other homework, before going off to Jazz Band. Northwestern College is a great place to get involved with extracurricular activities such as band, football, soccer, volleyball, orchestra, clubs, etc.

6:00 p.m.

The last class of the day is Project Management at 6 p.m. in the MIS computer lab. It is taught by an adjunct professor from BAE Systems, a major defense contractor. It is also the company I will be working for soon—I haven’t even graduated yet, and I already have a full-time job! The tools that Northwestern College provided helped me land this job.

The class, Project Management, is another small class that provides an intimate learning environment. Our professor draws upon expertise gained from his experiences to help us understand the topic. We get the opportunity to manage a real-life project as a group and go through all the stages of a normal project lifecycle. The class is over at 7:40 p.m., and I’ll stick around the labs for another one or two hours to finish up more homework, and then head back to the dorms to hang out with friends and get prepared to tackle the next day! Thanks for joining me!