It was at the University, when I applied and entered in 1981 to study Administration, the place where I learned to become aware of the reality of the society in which we live.
I entered a new world, there was so much to learn… and do. At that time the University was coming out of a long break, it had been paralyzed.
The Academic Program of Administration (later Faculty of Administrative Sciences), began its activities with an outdated study curriculum.
Thus, professors and student delegates got to work to formulate a new one, for us students belonging to the 1981-1985 class.
Various political groups presented their proposals, but they did not reach an agreement, they were times of great debate. One of the ways out to avoid entrapment was to collect and debate the Administration curricula of the various universities, both public and private, in addition to inviting various academics to speak on the subject.
Finally, in 1983, the new study curriculum was approved, which was novel in that it contained the latest in Administration.
Of course, this fact marked me greatly, since then I have been interested in being aware of the curricula and Study Plans of the various universities to make comparisons, observe the innovations or simply to browse.
Administrator profile
What should be the professional profile of the administrator in these times of the so-called new economy and globalization?
Is a Latin American management professional profile possible or do we not believe it is necessary? Do we avoid problems and just transcribe it from an American college? A long time has passed since my time as a university student, the profile of that time has undergone changes according to the context in which we live.
The teaching, professional, research work and obtaining new knowledge allows me to dare to propose the following profile:
1. The Bachelor of Administration must be a university professional prepared in a comprehensive manner with a solid humanistic, scientific and technological training, with a multidisciplinary vision of the administrative process, that is, skilled in the field of Planning, Organization, Management and Control, a specialist in coordinating human and material efforts to achieve institutional, business and national objectives.
2. Must possess an analytical, reflective, critical, creative, guiding mentality and a promoter capacity that allows them to have active and leading participation in economic and social development, that is capable of interpreting the historical, economic, social and political structures of the country to rationally capture its reality, adopting a scientific position in the face of these various problems, providing alternative solutions and actively participating in the development of said alternatives.
3. The Management professional must be able to promote and develop various types of organization, from micro to large companies, public or private, manage them efficiently in unstable and turbulent environments, therefore, they are an agent of change and innovation by having acquired skills to perceive and diagnose situations.
Curriculum
After characterizing the administrator's profile, it is necessary to program the subjects that are going to shape the type of professional that is sought, but it is not a question of presenting a mere list of courses without scientific criteria, there must be a logical sequence, it could not be Microeconomics course without setting the Macroeconomics course as a requirement, or putting the Accounting I course in the first cycle and then the Accounting II course in the third cycle, as there would be a gap, nor could I schedule nine courses in a semester, that it would be anti-pedagogical.
You also have to consider the credits or values that each course has, that is, how many hours of theories and how many hours of practice.
I omit to send you a Study Plan of ten semesters (or cycles), for three reasons:
- First, I cannot claim representativeness of any academic entity. Second, formulating a Study Plan should not be done by a single person but by a whole team. Third, very few would agree with me with the list of proposed courses.
However, I put to your consideration the main courses of a Study Plan that are taken in five areas:
to. General culture courses: Mathematics, Language, Art, English, Philosophy, History, Methodology of Scientific Research, include the so-called
humanities courses.
b. Basic professional training courses:
Accounting, Economics, Psychology, Sociology, Law, Statistics, Computer Science, Operations Research.
Of course, each of these disciplines consist of various courses, for example Law is in charge of Introduction to Law, Constitutional Law, Labor Law, Commercial Law, Company Law.
c. Specialized professional training courses:
Introduction to Administration, Planning, Organization, Direction and Management, Personnel Administration, Production Administration, Financial Administration, Strategic Administration, Marketing, Logistics, Documentation and Archives, Public Relations, Projects, Professional Ethics, courses of the profession.
d. Elective courses: Tourism Administration, Public Administration, Regional Administration, Foreign Trade, Educational Administration, Economic Geography, Geopolitics, Business English, the so-called optional courses.
and. Pre-Professional Internships: which can be carried out in the last three cycles.
- The first Pre-Professional Internship could be carried out as a research workshop for various companies and the latest Administration techniques.The second will consist of visiting various companies to learn about their administrative and productive processes, individual and group reporting, as well as a presentation of a group-level thesis project.The third is to carry out internships in companies for a period of one month with presentation of reports, in addition to presenting an individual thesis project.
Final words
Since I was young, I have always believed that the business administrator is like a doctor because the company is like a patient who suffers from time to time from various diseases, so it is necessary to know their various organs, for that reason it must be studied and analyzed constantly.
Finally, both the Administrator's profile and the Curriculum are subject to change as Administration as a science is constantly evolving.
Academic institutions must have a permanent commission to update the curriculum to adapt it to the new times.
