Course Review: BUS 222

[MISin08]

A Review of Excelsior BUS 222 Business Communication Fall 2 2025

Bottom Line Up Front: Would I take the course again -- no, due to the group assignments, especially for the final (paper plus presentation) comprising 30% of the overall grade. I think I enrolled under a catalog that still accepts the equivalent SDC course, which I took early in 2025, but had not yet transferred in, and I needed to take something this term to stay enrolled. This is also the first course for which I have paid full tuition out of pocket in 30+ years and I hope it is the last time, at least as an undergrad. I've taken multiple courses from EU and this is the first I wasn't happy 'enough' with.
 
Good

• Not your routine Business Communication course
  
• Ties back to the Cornerstone regarding self mastery, so it is relevant, not just filler
  
• I learned a lot
  

 
Bad

• A lot of work for 3 sophomore level credits (though I admit I made more of it that I had to)
  
• Discussions are tedious; in the 8-week term it's tough to really develop dialog, so the discussions become performative. No "introduce yourself" discussion, which I missed.
  

 
Ugly

• Did I mention the group assignments?
  

 
Instructor: A. Au. I'll give her a B and say she did okay given the course materials. 
 
The textbook: Kiss, Bow, Shake Hands, Toni Morrison & Wayne Conaway. 
This is a well-regarded book for professionals seeking to do business in international contexts. Each country profile covers some brief country details, history, fun facts, followed by a comfortable cultural orientation section detailing how the given country's people think, feel and make decisions. Grounded in theory written in commonsense language. Hierarchical/not, cognitive style, top-down/ consensus, etc. It's not "academic" and anytime you want to go into any depth you'll need additional sources. I was nearly halfway through the course before I realized this is a feature, not a bug. This may be my greatest criticism -- the course tries to be experiential discovery-based and it misses the mark a bit. 
 
By "Not your routine Business Communication course" -- which usually covers fundamentals like "what is communication and why is it important in business?" and how to write a concise email -- I mean this is more like "cross-cultural communication in global business" with a manager/project manager focus. Since the average EU student is well over 24, this is appropriate.  
 
Typical Module:
Read 1 or more countries from the text
View 1 or 2 YouTube videos related to a theme such as openness and observation (Pellegrino Riccardi), or Geert Hofstede, the excellent Erin Meyer.
Read a web page or 2 supplemental
Write a discussion topic and at least 2 substantive replies to others on different days per module. Syllabus says fully APA but I got full point for merely listing references.
Write an assignment of 4 or more pages in APA, with 4 or more outside sources plus course materials. About 1250 words. 
 
The assignment prompts are tricky. In most, there's a "small" topic then a "big" topic after the "also". For example, "Discuss the business etiquette and practices of (the two countries in the week's reading). Also discuss the difference between ethnocentrism and ethnorelativism."
 
Getting 4 pages out of just the textbook concepts -- boring; ethnocentrism/relativism -- easy and fun but making the paper about both in a sensible way -- challenging. In one of the more fun and engaging papers I was able to put myself in the place of a new grad considering a job interview in South Korea and thereby comparing it to the US and two European countries via the fictional experiences of a younger person.
 
Other Work
The mid-course group assignment is a powerpoint based on a scenario where you're advising a US company about its upcoming business meeting with potential merger partners from Saudi Arabia. Staying within length limits the response to regurgitating the bare bones and not a real simulation. The textbook dating from 2006 is no longer accurate about conditions in Saudi Arabia.  It was in this same module that the materials revealed we're supposed to be treating the course as experiential learning, so needless to say I was perplexed. I got a good grade for my reflective journal discussing my recovery from this perplexity, so I guess that was a win. 
 
The final group assignment is a paper and powerpoint based on 3 countries the group selects, with reflections and discussion to show we understand and apply the concepts. I tried to get everyone on board for the effort with a detailed plan that would document everyone's participation to meet the assignment requirements, but 3 days went by before I could get people "on board" and it was the weekend before I got everyone's material. It turned out that the others were not clear on the assignment, and I received 12 pages of facts from the book recited in informal prose and passive voice, with little real thinking. I ended up writing the paper solo to save my own grade and we lost points as a group anyway. I uploaded the assignment with 2 hours to spare and felt like an idiot for letting myself be manipulated by the others into doing most of the work.

Further notes 
Entire module on remote work needed an update, as it's not 2022 anymore
Course treatment of gender brave, but needed more integration with course concepts 
Business communication course without discussion of generations?
I understand that it's a moving target but no discussion of AI at all?

Overall, the course deals with valuable subject matter and I got an A, but as noted at the top I would try to take something else in its place. I'm happy to answer any questions about it not covered here (within the constraints of academic integrity of course).

Phillip