Thesis Statement
Despite its complexity and the efforts that it demands from a student in terms of the domains that have to be mastered, the skills that have to be learned and the information that needs to be acquired, being a business administrator is one of the most interesting jobs that the present-day education has to offer in the field of economics and management.
Acquiring the knowledge that a business administrator must possess will help learn to not only manage a team of employees, but also monitor numerous business processes, use strategic planning efficiently and be a successful leader, especially when it comes to making a career in business development, be it managing a restaurant chain or a pharmaceutical company.
My Experience and Its Relation to the Business Administration Domain
Being an average employee is much harder than it may seem; being a leader is even harder since the pressure of the responsibility is much heavier. However, being employed as a business administrator must be the most complicated and at the same time, the most exciting stage of one’s career.
Unlike a company leader, a business administrator is hardly noticeable –, clients may even be completely unaware of their existence – yet a truly irreplaceable element of any firm. Scheduling, arranging, checking, and carrying out several other and more specific tasks, a business administrator is an element that no corporate mechanism can work without.
I have had quite an impressive experience in management in general and business administration in particular. To start with, I have been assisting my father, who owns a small pharmacy company, in running the firm and have learned quite several crucial details concerning the major financial administration issues, information management and data analysis, operating processes, sustainability concerns and the means to address them, etc.
The emphasis, however, was still on the financial aspect and the related transactions. However, apart from the niceties of financial management, I have also learned quite a lot about sustainability, which is also often attributed to the range of responsibilities of a business administrator.
As it turned out, the process of chemical waste disposal was much more complicated than the disposal of industrial or domestic waste; as a result, it took me quite a while to define the safest and the cheapest methods of transporting the waste to the landfill sites. Thus, as a business administrator, I had to handle the issues related to the company’s internal and external processes, particularly, logistics, some of the financial transactions and the environmental issues associated with pharmacy.
My second experience, though not as exotic as the first one, was also of great use for me as future business management and administration expert. I have also assisted my father in developing his restaurant business and administering a chain of restaurants. The given experience appeared even more useful than the one concerning operating the pharmacy.
Though the latter also demanded impressive skills, particularly in communication with the business partners, dealing with the transportation issues and other logistics related concerns, working on the improvement of the organization processes, etc., it was the restaurant business that made me realize how important business administration is.
The promotion process alone was a real eye-opener on the specifics of a company’s functioning; it never occurred to me that, when arranging business processes, one must take every single stakeholder into account, including not only possible partners but also customers and staff.
Also, as soon as we started hiring people as the restaurant personnel, it occurred to me that a business administrator must also know the specifics of human resource management; more to the point, it is crucial for a business administrator to have leadership qualities and be able to coordinate the work of all employees.
Seeing how the profession that I have chosen involves contacting with people daily, it can be assumed that working as a restaurant administrator and, thus, being constantly involved into the communication process, either with clients or with the staff, was of huge significance for me.
Requirements, Salary, and Other Characteristics: Job Analysis
Like any other job, working as a business administrator requires specific qualities, skills, and knowledge. Admittedly well paid, the job of my choice is still very exhaustive; more importantly, the competitive rates are very high in the given field. According to the recent analysis results, business, and management, in general, are listed among the top five popular interest areas (Strong Interest Inventory: Profile with College Profile 3).
Speaking of the salary, which a person specializing in the given field can expect their company to pay them for, the current data looks rather promising. To be more exact, according to the information published in the recent report, the medium annual salary for a specialist in business administration makes $120,510.
The position of a sales manager brings $105,600, a finance manager is paid $109,740 a year, the annual wages of a human resource manager make around $99,720, an administrator in hospitality management earns $88,580 annually, and a marketing manager is paid $119,480 on average (Business Administration Salary: What You’ll Earn para. 2).
As it has been stressed above, the services of a business administrator can be needed in a variety of areas, the requirements for the candidate changing correspondingly. However, there are certain general rules, which can be applied to any domain, whether it is human resource management, company leadership, financial transactions, or any other aspect of company management.
As a rule, a business administrator is required to have a Bachelor or Master Degree and the certificate showing that the candidate has attended training courses, where the latest information concerning the duties of a business administrator has been provided (Business Administration Salary: What You’ll Earn para. 3).
When it comes to analyzing the job itself, one must mention that, despite the vagueness surrounding the very term “business administrator,” the given position is ranked among the most popular ones in the United States.
As Hammer’s report shows, the position of my choice belongs to the Business and Finance Family (Hammer 8), which means that it is the sixth most popular area of students’ and entrepreneurs’ interest. Apart from obvious benefits, the given career choice, however, has minor downsides, such as the demand for specialists with at least two years of experience (Instructor – Business Administration – U.S. National Averages para. 1).
From the Saddleback College to the CSU Fullerton: The Future Journey
The choice of the field in which the author of this essay is going to achieve excellence shrinks the number of the available occupations considerably. Even though the job of a business administrator embraces several areas starting from entrepreneurship up to the employment in a hospitality industry, it still presupposes that the number of jobs to choose from will be reduced considerably. Thus, the amount of schools, which can be chosen to get the education required for these jobs, has also been reduced.
After the number of the existing options had been restricted to California schools, I decided to choose the California State University because of the highly professional staff and the fact that the University provides its students with the latest and the most important information concerning the subject matter.
Also, it is crucial to keep in mind that a successful student will have to undergo sufficient training before entering university. Therefore, it is reasonable to consider such courses as CSU Transferrable Courses, CSU GE-Breadth Certification Courses, CSU US History, Constitution and American Ideas Courses, IGETC for UC and CSU, UC Transferable Courses and UC Transfer and Admission Eligibility Courses (ASSIST para. 4).
Values Table: What Tops the List of a Business Administrator’s Priorities
The domain that has been chosen for my future evolution as a professional is admittedly broad. Indeed, the skills of a business administrator are required in practically any field, which means that a plethora of choices will be open for me as soon as I graduate with a degree in Business Administration. However, of all options available, the following ones seem the most enticing:
Picking one of the jobs suggested above is not an easy task – each of them seems to offer rather rosy prospects. However, I would, probably, consider the position of a general and operational manager. Since the given career option presupposes that the person taking it should be able to handle various tasks and use their assets and skills to the maximum, it will contribute to my evolution of a specialist.
Also, the given job will not bind me to any particular routine and, therefore, will allow for developing each of my qualities and training all my skills in an appropriate manner. By analyzing and scheduling various elements of an organization’s daily routine, I will be able to understand the very nature of a company’s operations. More to the point, the given job will help me develop communication skills, which are crucial for any leader. It is noteworthy, though, that the given job does not presuppose much autonomy.
However, for a person working for a company, the amount of autonomy is rather little, to begin with. Every single decision made by business administrators, no matter what issue they are responsible for, must be in chord with the rest of the company’s decisions; otherwise, a firm will be dysfunctional. Speaking of personal preferences, the fact that general operations managers have enough variety in their daily routine seems the most encouraging factor for me at the moment.
Works Cited
ASSIST. Saddleback College Courses Applicable for Transfer. Web.
Business Administration Salary: What You’ll Earn. Web.
Hammer, Allen L. Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Career Report 2014. Web.
Instructor – Business Administration – U.S. National Averages 2014. Web.
Strong Interest Inventory: Profile with College Profile. 2014. Web.