Electives provide a narrow focus that deepens the area of study. For example, a marketing elective might be entirely devoted to pricing. Students sometimes question the need for such a comprehensive core program. But the functional areas of a real business are not parallel lines. All departments of a business affect each other every day.
Some schools allow first-years to take core courses side by side with electives.
Others have come up with an entirely new way of covering the basics, integrating the core courses into one cross-functional learning experience, which may also include sessions on 1990's topics such as globalization and managing diversity. Usually, they employ some combination of the two. Case study, the most popular approach, is when students are presented with real or hypothetical business scenarios and asked to analyze them. Students often find case studie s exciting because they can engage in spirited discussions about possible solutions to given business problems. Which isn't necessarily a big deal, since many professors make their class notes available on disc or in the library.