Ep. 124 - Exploring Blended Programs in Accountancy, Finance, and Human Resources

Discover how CSUSB students can level up their future with blended programs in the Jack H. Brown College of Business and Public Administration. In this episode, Matt Markin sits down with Dr. Craig Seal to break down how these programs let students earn undergraduate and graduate credit at the same time, save money, and get a head start on careers in accountancy, finance, and human resources. They also dig into internships, career pathways, and how students can decide whether a blended program is the right move. It’s a smart shortcut with serious benefits, and this episode shows you how to make the most of it. 

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Transcript

Matt Markin  
Hello and welcome back to the CSUSB Advising Podcast. This is Matt Markin, and on today's episode, we're going to be learning about blended programs that you might be interested in within the Jack H. Brown College of Business and Public Administration. And to help us unpack that, we have returning guest Dr. Craig Seal, Professor and Graduate Programs Director. Dr. Seal, welcome back. 

Dr. Craig Seal  
Thank you, Matt. Happy to be back.

Matt Markin  
And for students who have never heard of a blended program. How do you explain that in simple terms?

Dr. Craig Seal  
Yeah, so we've had these for a little while, but we've sort of formalized the process and opened it up so students across the university are likely to see more of these opportunities. And in our college, the jack H Brown College of Business and Public Administration, we're actually going to have three different blended programs starting in the fall. So what is a blended program? The idea here is it's an opportunity for an undergraduate student to not only take graduate level courses, but have them count both for their undergrad and their grad, meaning they're double counting those courses, and then if they continue on into the grad program, that's 1,2,3,4 courses that they do not need to take. And also, graduate programs tend to be a little more expensive, so they're not only getting the double credit, but they're paying the reduced fees as an undergraduate student to get that credit. They also get to transition into the grad program, and they also don't have to pay the application fee as well.

Matt Markin  
Quite a few benefits. I like that. So you mentioned that there's gonna be three programs within your academic college. Can you give us an overview of those?

Dr. Craig Seal  
Yes, so we've already had accountancy and so students who are the accounting track, concentration and administration, had the option, depending on GPA, and have to apply and get accepted to transition into our Masters of Science of accountancy program. So that's been on the books for a number of years, great program, particularly students who might be interested in sitting for like the CPA. But we're now launching two new ones to add to that portfolio. So we will be starting finance, so students who have a finance concentration can potentially apply and get accepted into our masters of finance, and we have our new HR, so students who are the human resource management concentration can now, starting fall, potentially apply in, get accepted and move into the Masters of Science in HR, which we just launched a couple of years ago.

Matt Markin  
Now, you mentioned a lot of benefits of, you know, explaining about a blended program. And so when I hear the financial portion of it, I'm like, Oh, why didn't I do that? How can you work with a student to kind of figure out, Is this the right choice, that a student should do a blended program versus going through, let's say, the traditional path?

Dr. Craig Seal  
Yeah, so part of it depends on their not only their major or concentration, but also where they want to go. Matt, I mean, because that makes a real big difference for something like accountancy, where students are interested, say, in a CPA you want to continue to press forward, because you don't want to leave higher ed, spend a couple of years and then have to come back and re remember everything that you learned before in order to sit say for a certification exam. And so in that case, going right through is a huge benefit for other programs, like, say, business administration, like an MBA, which we don't have yet, but if we did, generally, there's sort of this idea of, well, maybe you should go work for a couple of years, get that experience, maybe have your employer cover the cost. And so for some majors, it makes sense to maybe wait. For other majors, it really makes sense to just power through when you can and take advantage of this double dip opportunity for the blended programs.

Matt Markin  
Would you say that doing one of these blended programs could help a student transition from college into their career more smoothly or or does traditional path do the same thing?

Dr. Craig Seal  
Yeah, so yes and no. Again, for some disciplines like accountancy, it makes perfect sense. This is actually going to set you up for your career. For others, like in my area, which is human resources, it can if students take advantage of other opportunities, like internships, which can count as a course, by the way, so if they're leveraging some of their experiences, leveraging internships, our program in particular, leads to much like CPA, the ability to sit for a competency exam in HR, then yes, it can. But the degree by itself, generally isn't sufficient unless the students taking advantage. Advantage of other opportunities afforded to them.

Matt Markin  
Well, I do want to ask you more about internships. Since you mentioned it. When should a student in your mind? When should a student really start thinking about, should I do an internship or not? Is it going to be, you know, can they fit it in their schedule, that kind of thing.

Dr. Craig Seal  
So let me, let me separate internships for a moment. Students can do internships at any time throughout their program, and I encourage as many internships as possible. The flip is internships for credit, and those are more restricted, and in that case, generally in our discipline, they are best done junior and senior year, because at that point you've taken some courses in your discipline, which means you are more apt to be able to contribute to the internship to the employer and to get more out of it. So really junior senior year, with junior year, thinking about it and planning, and hopefully by senior year, locking in at least one. And that one again, for most concentrations, not all of them, but for most majors, it will count as one of your disciplinary concentration courses. And a lot of times this leads to your job. I have a ton of students who, through their internships, were able to transition those into full time employment later.

Matt Markin  
You know you had mentioned, let's say CPA, for example, as a possible career. Can you talk about, with each of these blended programs, what might be some career options for students?

Dr. Craig Seal  
Yeah, so clearly, accounting, you know, the Certified Public Accountancy is that is the path if you want to go down that road for Finance, Financial Analyst would be an opportunity to be able to move into it. And my discipline, more HR, you would kind of be getting out and jumping into maybe an HR generalist position, and hopefully along the way, picking up that HR internship that will help kind of allow that, but really it's sort of a gateway into an HR generalist position, which can then lead down into later position, and where the master's degree really pays off for most students Is later in their career, because you get into that first line, maybe supervisory, and all of a sudden you're thinking director or executive, and that's where not having the graduate degree can start to become a little bit of a buffer or a boundary. And so getting that early, especially being able to double count it, reduce the time, reduce the cost and have that in your belt by the time you reach those more mid to senior level positions can pay off for you.

Matt Markin  
So we might have students that are current students, and they list, maybe they listen to this and they're like, oh, one of these blender programs sounds interesting. Or you might have a prospective student that is thinking about applying the Cal State San Bernardino and says, Oh, this blender program sounds interesting. How does a student actually apply for one of these?

Dr. Craig Seal  
So a couple requirements, you have to have at least completed 60 units and not more than 120 or be in your last term. So you have to apply before your final term, but after 60 units, you have to have maintained at least a 2.5 GPA up to that point. And basically you just apply to the program. So you don't have to go for students coming, say, leaving and coming back. They go through web admin, which is a great system, and you have to go through the whole application, pay the fees. This is a simple form that you send to the program coordinator. And so for HR, for example, you would just send it to me, we evaluate the form, and then we do advising, and then we work out what your schedule is going to be. The key is to do it before you get too far into your junior and senior year, because you want to be able to take those classes that are double counted and those are not always offered. And so the advising to kind of help figure out what your schedule is going to be. So you get the most benefit out of the program.

Matt Markin  
And you know, you had mentioned internships. What kind of resources does your academic college offer students?

Dr. Craig Seal  
So for our blended program, you get one on one advising. Actually, I'm the advisor for the program, similar for accounting and finance, you get more one on one, intrusive advising with the faculty coordinator that you would say, if you're not in one of those programs. So that support is there, and our program with HR really going to be linking up with our internship coordinator to see if we can fit that into a student schedule based on their work experience and where they're at, and then all the resources we have in our college. We have our writing office, we have our speaking center, we have a career counselor in addition to an internship coordinator. And each of our programs have alignment with student clubs and organization. So for HR, we have the Society for Human Resource Management. That's the student club. We have both graduate and undergraduate. In fact, we are competing in San Diego next month at the case competition, and each of the different programs has an aligned professional association and a student club to provide additional resources. Wonderful.

Matt Markin  
Now let's say a student is on the fence of, Should I do a blended program or not? Of. Um, it sounds great. I don't know what I should do. What advice do you have for them?

Dr. Craig Seal  
So one, just reach out to the program coordinator. And so for accounting and finance, that's Dr Tay won Yang for HR, it would be me have that conversation. The other thing is, it's actually a two step process. The first step is the initial application, getting admitted to the blended program, but that doesn't lock you in, because we have a secondary application later when they're ready to transition, that they have to opt in again. So there's sort of these two points where a student can go, Yeah, I wanted to, but now I don't think I'm going to. That's fine, no harm, no foul. You can just graduate with your undergraduate and maybe think about coming back later so it doesn't force you into anything. All it does is open up opportunities for you.

Matt Markin  
And as we wrap up any last words you want to say about the blender programs for students to hear just again,

Dr. Craig Seal  
it's such an amazing opportunity to get those units. It's the only way you can double count. And for a grad program, you're talking about three to four classes, an entire term or more, in which you can get out and have that degree and be able to launch your career. So if you have any interest at all, have the conversation happy to talk about it and see if it's a good fit for you.

Matt Markin  
All right, perfect. Dr, seal, thank you so much for being on the podcast again.

Dr. Craig Seal  
Thank you, Matt. My pleasure.