Applied Professional Studies (GRAD)

MAPS: Introduction to Applied Professional Studies explores and expands upon the student's goals and intentions in relation to their career objective and its impact on the workforce. MAPS: Introduction to Applied Professional Studies strives to build a solid foundation in which students engage in self-assessment, meaningful exploration of values, reflection on career trajectory, analysis of workforce trends, and the impact of their professional development on the workforce.

Effective leadership begins with understanding your capacity to influence others and galvanize them around positive change. This course examines your current leadership behaviors and addresses the relationship of those behaviors to leadership development opportunities including influencing team dynamics, building productive relationships and managing change as a professional and a leader.

This course focuses on practical project management principles and techniques, demonstrating their effectiveness in the workplace. Key topics include frameworks and methodologies, planning and monitoring projects, risk management, stakeholder management, managing your team, and time and cost management. This course will include group work.

This course will teach the basics of Financial Accounting, including the Balance Sheet, the Income Statement, and the Statement of Cash Flows and Budgeting. The final presentation will incorporate financial skills and knowledge that can be used to support a future project proposal to business managers in an organization.

Business Communication is a 7-week course and development series designed to provide Carolina graduate students strategies and tactics for: (1) clearly, concisely, and convincingly communicating their ideas in business settings; and (2) operating with a client (eg, internal, external) focus. Students will explore some of the fundamentals of business writing, including practices for writing common business documents.

Do you have an idea for a startup company? Would you like to explore the feasibility of launching a business? Start the Startup (STS) gives graduate students the opportunity to test and validate a new business idea using the Lean Startup methodology. Don't have an idea but want to learn the process? You can join a team going through the course. Teams will receive coaching as well as a final recommendation from an expert panel.

Building effective job search strategies, materials, and a strong online presence is essential for career success inside and outside the academy. Work with professionals with expertise in all areas of the job search process to develop your brand including a LinkedIn profile, resume/CV, cover letters and identify your job values and job skills and develop a Professional Development Plan. Interactive sessions will provide the setting to develop/refine your materials and your career approach.

This seminar series will introduce students to many of the topics essential to the workplace including the structure and culture of a variety of organizations, interpersonal skills in the workplace, and more. Broadly, the series will reinforce concepts taught in the GRAD business fundamentals/professional skills classes by placing them in the context of career paths that are of interest to students.

In this experiential course, students will explore the activities and tools needed to make actual investment decisions for emerging companies. The course is offered in collaboration with Carolina Research Ventures (CRV), which supports companies engaged in commercializing technologies and other assets emanating from the University and UNC Health. Students will learn principles of rigorous and reproducible due diligence and market research; learn key components to the conduct of thorough due diligence on early-stage companies.

Provides a skill-driven curriculum for trainees interested in the fundamentals of launching and financing startups, including university spinouts. Led by a different subject matter expert each week, course topics will include fundraising strategies for your startup, preparing for due diligence and how to effectively pitch to your investors. Insights and skills gained from this course will enable students to work effectively with startup companies and entrepreneurs.

The course covers the fundamental skills required in consulting: defining the problem, gathering relevant information, analyzing data, synthesizing findings, drawing conclusions, developing recommendations, and communicating those recommendations.

This course provides an overview of the fundamental first steps of technology commercialization, with a specific emphasis on university technology commercialization (aka technology transfer). The course will cover the following topics: Market Assessment, Intellectual Property, Technology Development, Licensing, Commercial Development, and University Startups. Permission from the instructor required.

Universities are rich sources of ideas and innovation. As such, they provide the springboard for launching high growth startups. These startups emanate from a variety of university sources, ranging from students with disruptive business models to faculty and graduate students with innovative research discoveries. This course explores the latter: university startups developed as part of the university research engine. The course builds on the concepts of GRAD 755-Fundamentals of Technology Commercialization.

The Digital Revolution is transforming the way we live and work - from technology-driven to human-centered; from point solutions to end-to-end; and from fragmented to integrated. The course is designed to provide an overview and introduction to transformational principles for individuals, organizations, and industry ecosystems. Students will explore new models of engagement, persona discovery, value mapping, and systems thinking to anchor them to the critical attributes of the digital revolution.