#47: A Guide to Majoring in the Professions (Business, Law, Medicine, etc.)

In this episode, I continue my series on various college majors students may choose. To discuss business, and the professions more generally, I’ve invited Dr. John Terrill to join me. John has a unique background to help us consider majoring in the professions. He has a degree in business from Indiana University, an MBA. from the Kellogg School of Management (Northwestern University), master’s degrees in theology and religion from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D.  in industrial and organizational psychology from Seattle Pacific University.

After working in banking and with a business consulting firm, John ministered to students at Harvard Business School with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. He then served as InterVarsity’s National Director of InterVarsity’s MBA ministry, and then as Director of InterVarsity’s Professional School Ministries. He is currently the Executive Director of Upper House, the Christian Study Center at the University of Wisconsin.

In this podcast we discuss:

• How John got interested in a career in business
• How he now applies leadership and management principles in the non-profit sector
• How positive and negative experiences in various organizations have shaped his understanding of business
• The inadequacies of seeing the purpose of business as only to maximize shareholder value
• A better understanding of the purpose of business–fostering human flourishing
• Developing a proper theology of vocation for all professions–why all work matters to God
• A wrong theology of vocation: “Finding God’s one specific job for me!”
• How a proper understanding frees us to flourish in our careers and serve others well
• The reality of a “calling” to the professions, and why this is not emphasized in our churches
• The professions as professional “guilds”
•  How our work can be a positive influence on culture by helping build healthy companies
•  How professional schools in universities are similar and different from other schools or departments
• Temptations of interviewing for jobs with business school recruiters
• The value of classes outside your professional school
• The type of person who generally flourishes in a professional school
• Other tips to help students do well in professional school programs
• Some ways to live out Kingdom values while in a professional school program
• Challenges for the Christian studying in professional schools
• The importance of finding a mentor
• How to find fellowship with other believers in the professions on campus
• Joining a professional society as a student
• Some mainstream ideas in business that are congruent with a Christian worldview and some that are not
• God’s faithfulness in the process of earning a degree in the professions

Resources mentioned during our conversation:

• Lausanne Movement’s Workplace Ministry Issue Network
• Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community
• Yuval Levin, American Enterprise Institute
• Curtis Chang
• Consortium of Christian Study Centers
• Everycampus.com
• Christian Legal Society
• Christian Medical and Dental Association
• Professional Christian Veterinary Fellowship
• The Theology of Work Project
• jterrill@slbrownfoundation.org
• Upper House, the Christian Study Center at U. Wisconsin-Madison