Business starts when classes begin.

Students in the Lacy School of Business (LSB) don’t wait for a career to start. They graduate with four years of experience.

LSB’s experiential model is based on a collaborative partnership between students, faculty, and businesses. The curriculum is steeped in business relevance, and you are guided through an innovative and engaging process that combines theory with real business practice.

Through programs like the First-Year Business Experience and the Sophomore Real Business Experience, you’ll start and run your own businesses (for profit!), while also completing at least two internships during your college career.

And at the same time, you’ll be paired with a personal career mentor—former executives who worked at companies such as Cummins, Anthem, Roche and IBM.

This holistic, experiential-focused education pairs curriculum with the real world, fully immersing you in the complex world of business.

Experiential Learning Opportunities

Imagine creating a business plan, pitching your ideas to executives, and winning a cash prize to launch and run your own successful business. Now imagine doing that your sophomore of college. The Real Business Experience class is for all students in the Lacy School of Business, and just one of the many experiential opportunities available for LSB students.

First-Year Business Experience

Students learn foundational business principles and analyze publicly traded companies inside collaborative team environments. Then the fun begins as students work with their teams in a competitive design sprint aimed at solving a sustainable issue within their researched businesses.

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Real Business Experience

The Real Business Experience is an incubator class that is focused on learning by doing. Students develop entrepreneurial thinking as they practice solving customer problems utilizing the business model canvas, ideating, innovating, creating, and running an actual business. Every team donates 10% of their profits to a local charity and then the team members share the rest of the profits.

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MJ Student-Run Insurance Group

Hands-on experience in the Captive Insurance Company means taking on real risks and real underwriting, while also gaining insight into starting and running a business. From creating and updating insurance financial reports to underwriting fine arts, our first phase of coverage offerings will provide an extensive baseline from which students can learn.

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The Student-Managed Investment Fund

Finance students work in teams with a professional money manager/advisor and manage $3 million in actual endowment funds. Since the fund’s inception, students have beaten their benchmarks each year.

5,000+
Companies eager to hire students for internships and jobs
98%
Graduate placement rate
$3 million
Endowment funds managed by students

Current Student Story

“My favorite class so far has been the First-Year Business Experience. In this class, we’re given a team and an industry and are challenged to develop a product or service that the industry needs. We wrote a research report and presented our findings to a panel of judges during the Top Dawg competition, where we competed against all sections of to win the first place award; an automatic A on the final exam!”

-Eric Bedrosian ’26
Marketing and Finance double major
Westfield, Indiana