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.
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.
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.
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.
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
![](https://www.butler.edu/lacy-business/wp-content/uploads/sites/17/2024/04/20230428_Eric_Bedrosian_003.jpg)