Acclimate, regroup, and reflect at base camp before you climb to the summit: a reflective exercise for students as they prep for a tough upper-division mountain of a course

Keywords: reflective exercise, prerequisite courses, business curriculum

Abstract: Anecdotal experiences of faculty members suggest that: a) business students’ end-of-semester “knowledge core dumps” are common and real, and that b) upper-division business course prerequisite requirements often rely on students’ Swiss-cheese-like knowledge and/or rusty skills foundation from prior lower-division business courses. Yet, many faculty members and students alike will assume at the beginning of the semester that every student has a fair chance at earning the “A” in that upper-division business course. This experiential reflective exercise walks students through a brief mountaineering analogy to set or reset expectations for achievement in a challenging upper-division business course.