Students who enroll in business schools often do so to prepare for a rewarding life and productive career. A new undergraduate course is being offered at The University of Texas at Dallas’ Naveen Jindal School of Management to help them build the communication and professional skills essential for success.
Beginning this fall, all incoming freshmen and transfer students are required to take the course — Professional Development (BA 1105 and BA 3105) — during their first semester. The class focuses on developing key soft skills to complement the Jindal School’s strong analytical and technical curriculum. It also helps students get on track to discover careers and find an internship to fulfill their graduation requirement. All undergraduate students must complete an internship to graduate.
Jason Cirilo, an assistant professor of practice at the Jindal School and director of Professional Development for Undergraduate Programs who leads the development of the course, said the course aims to create a strong foundation for Jindal School students by enhancing core career‑readiness skills, introducing resources to help them succeed personally and academically.
“We focus on building confidence in storytelling, communication, presentation skills, critical thinking and using generative AI for inspiration and organization when researching companies and careers, as well as preparing for internships,” he said. “We teach students that everyone offers valuable skills and should be excited to talk about and develop those skills during their time in JSOM. These skills, along with many others they will gain before graduation, will support a smooth transition into the corporate world.”
Course topics include résumé development, communicating while building a professional network, building confidence for job interviews and more. It concludes with a group presentation that allows students to take on various roles in a company and present highlights to the classroom as if they were giving an info session for the students.
“I would also like to emphasize that every session is set up to teach students the basics of the weekly topic, and then we use CoPilot to demonstrate how to use the tool to give them inspiration and guidance to take the weekly topic even further,” Cirilo said.
Employer feedback indicates that graduates can gain an advantage in a competitive job market by having stronger interpersonal and presentation skills compared to other candidates. Employers look for AI skills as well. By embedding formal professional development early in the curriculum, the Jindal School ensures its students develop the professional polish needed as they begin their internships and careers.
Cirilo, former associate director of professional development in the Jindal School’s Career Management Center, said the course complements the center’s offerings by helping students understand the importance of professional development from the start.
“Students must build confidence in telling their story to others, so we always encourage them to talk through exercises with a partner when developing their résumé, LinkedIn profile and other professional branding elements,” he said. “We also encourage them to stand up and meet someone new. A big goal is that every student gets to tell their story to every other student so there are no strangers in the classroom.”
During the course, students use self-reflections, group conversations and Microsoft CoPilot to learn best practices for career research, résumé writing, cover letters, LinkedIn networking, job interviews, elevator pitches and company research.
“During each session, our instructors emphasize the importance of the JSOM Career Management Center and how it will build upon the basic lessons in the classroom, applying strategies to help students connect with employers for internships and full-time job opportunities,” Cirilo said. “We have also integrated the JSOM Business Communication Center for additional writing support, helping students create strong résumé bullet points, LinkedIn summaries and headlines, business presentations and elevator pitches.”
The course includes distinctive “First Year Experience” presentations, developed by JSOM Undergraduate Student Services.
Cirilo said the resources available to students who take the course assist them in understanding the support teams accessible during their path to graduation.
Sophie Nguyen, an Accounting freshman, said that although she was new to professional communications, the course has improved her confidence tremendously
“I have learned specific ways of going through interviews for future internships like the STAR method (a structured technique used to answer behavioral interview questions by describing the Situation, Task, Action, and Result of a specific work experience), developing my online status through LinkedIn, and as well as communicating in a professional setting,” she said.
The course also has helped give her more of a willingness to tackle interviews and get ready for them in a more productive manner.
“From learning the most common interview questions to solving my way through a tricky question, I believe the Professional Development course has had a tremendous involvement in my improvement,” she said. “I had an opportunity the other week to take on a interview for this internship I had applied for. As I was practicing for the interview, I had looked back at the material I learned in Professional Development and utilized strategies in order to practice for said interview. I kept repeating the STAR method as I practiced and I think it really helped during my interview.”
Jennifer Tran, a Finance junior who transferred to UT Dallas from Austin Community College, completed the course. She said the one takeaway she considers most useful to her was the opportunity to do mock elevator-pitch practices.
“They helped me gain insight on how I may improve my pitch with the comfortability of practicing with peers going through the same process,” she said.
The course also provided her with a roadmap to follow regarding specific assistance she may need for preparation.
“For résumé help, I learned that I may visit the career center for more in-depth assistance,” she said.
Although Tran sees the need for a longer ramp-up period to practice improving professional communication than can be offered in a one-semester course she said she has learned to use the STAR method to improve her storytelling during mock interviews and presentations.
The course is part of the Jindal School’s ongoing efforts to support students academically, professionally and personally from their first semester through graduation.
