Want to join the business world after shedding your uniform? For many, the first sensible step will be to earn a bachelor's degree in business.
And that's where it gets complicated. Some schools offer a degree by that name — Bachelor of Business — but far more colleges offer an academic introduction to the business world under other, diverse names.
With your history of overseas deployments, you might want to pursue a Bachelor of Science in business administration focused on international business. Or if you've been the unit number-cruncher, perhaps a Bachelor of Science in finance makes sense.
Indeed, the choices in business bachelor's degrees are boundless. You can get a Bachelor of Science in the business of music and entertainment, a Bachelor of Arts in accounting, a Bachelor of Science in business administration or a bachelor's in agricultural business.
Washington State University's Carson College of Business offers a degree in wine business management. Grapes are booming there.
Aaron Fischer opted for something a little more prosaic. This year, he expects to complete his bachelor's degree in management information systems. The former Army sergeant and tank crewman left the service in 2012 to seek out work in what he believes is a burgeoning civilian field: the compilation and management of business data.
"A lot of companies are collecting a lot of data and a lot of information," he said. "There is a real need to have subject-matter experts who are able to get answers out of that data or see problems in the data."
The issue of expertise goes to the heart of the business bachelor's degree discussion. Beyond the basics of bookkeeping and marketing, Fischer's coursework includes work with information systems, supply-chain management and a range of other narrowly defined topics.
"You still get a taste of management and finance and accounting, you do get to dabble, but with this I will also have a more specific skill set, a very practical system," he said. "I will have hard assets to market."
At Spring Arbor University, Veteran Resource Representative Dawn Welch describes another avenue for seeking a business degree while still getting specific credentials on your transcript. Her school offers degrees in organizational management and in business administration — perhaps the broadest of the business bachelor's degree options — but adds concentrations in areas such as health care, hospitality and criminal justice.
"Organizational management and business administration are broadly recognized across many disciplines," said Welch, who participates in the Michigan Veteran Education Initiative. "It is really the standard. But then if you want to get into one of these more specific areas, the concentration gives a real leg up over other people who might be applying for the same position."
For former Air Force Staff Sgt. Tabitha Sewer, the broad degree made the most sense. She had launched several side businesses while in uniform, trying to turn scrapbooking, custom picture frames and other hobbies into commercial enterprises. None of them took off.
When she left the service in 2012, she enrolled in ECPI University to pursue a degree in business administration.
"I went into the program thinking it would be the most versatile, that it could take me anywhere," she said. "I could be an administrator for a company, I could write contracts for the government or I could start my own business."
She hit it out of the park. Her fashion design business now has 8,000 Instagram followers and about 24,000 YouTube subscribers. She has launched her own boutique.
By picking a broad business degree, Sewer was able to get a firmer hold on some of the fundamentals.
"In one class, we had to write a business plan from scratch, something like 30 pages long," she said. "Within that plan, I learned about target markets, I learned about numbers and overhead costs. All those little things together really opened my eyes. I had no idea what these things were when I was doing my businesses before."
Kathleen VanScoyoc, program director of business at ECPI's Newport News, Virginia, campus, said the more general degree often is the way to go for former service members looking to climb the corporate ladder.
"You would want a degree that gives you the most breadth — that's what employers are looking for when you say you have a business degree," she said. "Then when you find what you enjoy doing, you can always do on-the-job training and learn what's specific for your job."
Some will pursue the more general degree precisely because it gives them choices.
Five-year Navy veteran Tyson Randolph is finishing up a bachelor's degree in business leadership and management at Ottawa University in Kansas. He's trying to keep his options open as he decides between a career in education or human resources.
In either case, he expects a business degree will provide a good foundation.
"Everything you do, there is some part of it that is business," Randolph said. "Even as a teacher, I'd want to tell them how to relate what I teach them to everyday life. So mathematics is not just math, it is statistics, it is economics. Everything you do has a business aspect to it."
Organizational behavior, why people act the way they do, how to get them motivated — these topics apply across the board, he said.
Whether a business degree is specific to wine country, driven by the music industry or geared toward more general teachings, Randolph's experience shows that there is always more to learn.
