Need business knowledge? Try boot camp

This year, it's younger sister Lauren's turn. She will be an SMU senior in the fall pursuing a double major in Spanish and communications.

"I would rather they had majored in business, but math was not their strong point," Huddleston said. "A liberal arts background makes them well-rounded, but a lot more doors seem to open for kids who major in business."

Huddleston said the course — "Business for Dummies" as she called it — taught her older daughter how to read a balance sheet and ask better questions during job interviews. Ashley spent the year after graduation teaching English in Spain but returned to San Diego in May and is looking for work.

Frank Lloyd, SMU's associate dean of executive education, said professors are asked not to "dumb down" the courses and keep the pace lively for the program, which runs from June 5 to July 1.

"We try to treat them as if they are working professionals," he said. "These are achievement-oriented individuals."

Most of the institutes do not give grades and there are no final exams, but they typically wrap up with students working together in small groups to write a business plan or tackle some other assignment.

At Stanford, one of last year's groups proposed ways to better market the summer program. Videos and talking points added professional polish to the job.

"They had some excellent ideas that we actually used this year," said Gale Bitter, associate dean for executive education at the Stanford business school. The program expanded this year from 50 to 135 students from 23 countries.

At SMU, McDonald, the film major, credited the course with helping him land his first job at the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency.

He left nine months later to start Pointed Films Inc. in Dallas. He makes corporate videos and hopes someday to produce television documentaries.

"I filed my own incorporation papers, I do my own taxes, I do my own payroll," McDonald said. "I never thought I could do that."

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