What to Expect

International business students study commerce, accounting and marketing on a global scale. Many students have the opportunity to do some of their degree in another country.

Laurent Lebouder graduated from San Diego State's Project North America program. During the program, he spent one semester at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada, then five months at the Universidad de Guadalajara in Mexico.

"I was somewhat anxious and excited about having to take classes entirely taught in Spanish," he says. "I learned a lot about Mexico and its culture while riding the bus. It is like a moving theater, with action all around. Street vendors get on to sell candies, leather goods or books. It is also a place for musicians to play a song and get a few pesos."

A big surprise for Lebouder was the attitude of his classmates. "I met many exchange students who complained about just everything -- the food, the pollution, the bus, the university and the culture in general. Surprisingly, most of these were international business students!

"If these students were not open-minded and not ready to embrace cultural differences, why, then, did they bother to be in an international program?"

Lebouder says the program prepared him for real-life business dealings. "More often than not, we have to work with constraints, and it is the ability to adapt to those constraints that make the difference between a successful person and one who is not," he says.

How to Prepare

Ingo Eckoldt majored in finance and minored in international business. He advises students to be prepared for a heavy workload. "High school students who got great marks...without lifting a book will experience a huge change," he says.

"I personally put in about 25 to 30 hours a week preparing for class, doing assignments and meeting groups for case presentations as well as hold a position on the council, in my fraternity and work part time. Time management is a must."

Joe Yodzis earned a master's degree in international management from the University of Maryland and took a graduate certificate in international business at Harvard Business School. He says high school students should study English composition, social studies (particularly geography) and math.