The semester of RBE was filled with many successes as well as hardships, which altogether gave me experience and knowledge of what to expect in the real world. One of the main lessons I learned during the course of this semester was to never give up. There were many occasions throughout the year that I wanted the class to just be over with, but I kept telling myself that giving up is never going to put me in the position to be successful. Perseverance was key to get through the year.
Starting a business is not a piece of cake. It takes much thinking and planning out because one small mistake could end up costing the team money. We had to invest our own money when starting Frat Hats and this was a little scary for me because I didn’t know if I would get my money back. Cooperation and teamwork is key when starting your own business. You have to be confident about your decisions and have backup plans. More than likely you will face miscalculations and overcoming those is what makes a business team successful.
Teamwork plays such an important role throughout the year. This is what makes the Real Business Experience real. Relying on your teammates to get their stuff done on time and communicating efficiently is the name of the game. These attributes are critical If you want your business to be successful. Communicating with each other and letting people know if you cant make a meeting is what makes a team a team.
Overall, I had a great experience with RBE. The class really opened up my eyes about what business are actually like and what all you have to deal with. Overcoming change is so important and this class taught me how to have a backup plan and getting to the next level.
-Parker Sheppard
“I’m the only person I know that’s lost a quarter of a billion dollars a year…. It’s very character-building.” -Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs is not the only person who learns from losses. The Real Business Experience has taught me what Steve Jobs preaches: failure can be character-building. Launching and running a business is one of the most life changing experiences I have ever encountered.
Every day for the life of the business there was a task to be completed, each as unique and just as important as the last. I learned that not every outcome from these tasks will prove to be successful. This is where I learned the most important lesson of the whole experience: adapt to change. This lesson was preached to our class by our career mentors since the beginning of the semester. It is one of the most important lessons I have ever learned. Not only did adapting to change allow me to keep my business alive, it also allowed me to discover my true potential as a business person. Like Jobs said, getting yourself out of bad situations can be “very character-building.”
Throughout the semester of the Real Business Experience I learned proper methods to adapting to change. I also learned much about myself as a person. My team for my business was made up of four other unique business students besides myself. Getting along with them was difficult at times, but I was required to learn how to compromise with them in the end. Through this I learned that I was good at making sure meetings operated according to an organized schedule. I felt our meetings were not productive, so I suggested that we make an agenda before me met every day. This way we had optimal production and got along better than before.
I am excited for the current freshmen to take this course next year. Each student will be ready for the Real Business Experience as long as they are organized. Lack of organization can kill a business. The most successful RBE businesses were the ones that were the most organized.
If Steve Jobs was able to see the Real Business Experience today he would tell every student how to always look a every moment as something to make you grow. RBE has changed me, and I know more about what it takes than other business students elsewhere.
-Mark Hirschenberger
One of the best things about being a business student at Butler University is that the college’s mantra is Real Life, Real Business. I feel like the RBE experience is the perfect example of what life as a real business professional will be like. Most of what I learned this semester was outside of the classroom, either independently or with my group members. I feel like this was more legitimate than what any text book could teach me, and going through this experience in a group has made it that much more enriching.
With my group, I learned to be disappointed. Things do not always go according to plan. The cost of our product was more than we estimated, and it was much more difficult to sell our product than we originally thought. The issues that we had with money, or rather issues without having enough money, were a constant stress on me. Although, experiencing these issues now in an artificial environment have better prepared me for what encountering hardships and obstacles will be like when I enter the business world. I think that as Butler students very few of us know what it’s like to be disappointed in an endeavor. Butler is a highly academic school, and most students are used to achieving almost everything that we put our minds to. This experience was very good for me, because I got to experience what it’s like to not do the best or be the most successful. In our business we encountered quite a few obstacles, but together and individually we were able to come up with ideas and solutions that made us successful. This experience was not easy, and because of that I was able to figure out how to be a better problem solver and how to be an effective leader/manager in my group.
For future students, I would recommend being ready for anything. Whether it’s success, failure, or any other type of obstacle; be prepared for at least one thing to not go your way, and be ready to solve the problem either on your own or with your group. Not everything is spelled out for you, and you need to take the initiative in order to be successful. Because being able to overcome obstacles or even failing, that’s real life real business.
-Brooke Robinson
The greatest benefit that I think I received from the RBE experience was in the field of presenting and speaking and doing so in a professional manner. This is a skill that will benefit not only in business but in any field as well. Presenting and communicating is essential in any job in any field. This skill developed over the course of the semester through all of the presentations that we had to make as a group. My presenting style was refined by instructors, teammates and my peers. Each of these groups of people provided feedback as to what was successful and what was not successful. Lessons I learned about startign a business are that when people advise you to start out small, they mean start out really, really small. As small as we thought we were starting, just targeting four houses, we ended up with an excess of inventory and just made enough money to pay back the loan. I think that it is really important for every one in the group to really enjoy their group members. This makes working with people a lot more enjoyable and when you are enjoying what you are doing it makes putting in more work a much easier task to accomplish. The last advice I would give to future students is that you are going to get out what you put in. If you really put in a lot of effort, you will greatly benefit from the experience. However, it is possible to do almost nothing, but in that case the whole experience will just be a waste of time.
Brian Weitz