TZL 1364 (web)

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O P I N I O N

Those who can should teach!

“Being allowed to teach what I’ve learned over my long career about entrepreneurship and business to my students has been one of my greatest honors and privileges.”

I am almost done with my 16th year of teaching at The Sam M. Walton College of Business at The University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. And while currently – thanks to COVID-19 – we are struggling (with some successes!) to give our students all they are paying for, being allowed to teach what I’ve learned over my long career about entrepreneurship and business to my students has been one of my greatest honors and privileges.

Mark Zweig

Many of those working in architecture and engineering firms have the opportunity to teach. The typical principal, according to Zweig Group research, travelled only two days a month prior to COVID-19. I would guess that is even less now. I haven’t been on a plane once since February. But my point is that if you did want to teach, odds are that you could fit it into your schedule. I teach my classes at 6 p.m. on Monday and Tuesday nights. If you have an advanced or terminal degree and have a chance to teach at the university level, I highly encourage you to try it. There are so many benefits of doing so. Here are some of them: 1)It makes you relearn the basics of your discipline. I can’t tell you enough how going back

to some of the basics I learned in college and grad school has been good for me. Everything has so much more relevance than it did way back when I was in school – and let me add that I had much more work experience by that point than most people my age, having worked since I was 12 or 13 for multiple businesses and in my own small businesses. Organization theory, finance, accounting, marketing, and more – there’s so much relevance and value in re-exploring these subjects that you would have to get a lot out of it you can apply to your own business. Teaching makes you go back to the fundamentals of whatever your discipline is. 2)It forces you to stay current. Students expect you to know what is going on in your field so you

See MARK ZWEIG, page 10

THE ZWEIG LETTER OCTOBER 19, 2020, ISSUE 1364

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