<p>Hey guys,</p>
<p>I'm applying to transfer in to the Honors College at the University of South Carolina and I've got three essays (one more currently in the works) that I would love some feedback on.</p>
<p>If you would like to help I would really appreciate it!</p>
<p>Here’s one of the essays with the prompt</p>
<p>A. You’re in charge of the curriculum in the Honors College for next fall. An incredibly wealthy donor would like to fund any course you desire, taught by anyone (the instructor must be alive). Please describe the course you envision in as much detail as possible </p>
<p>Attending the University of South Carolina has been a lifelong dream of mine. Almost thirty years ago my parents studied pharmacy at USC and since then have continually pushed me towards higher education with some bias towards attending South Carolina. As owners of a successful independent pharmacy in our small town they would defend to the death the value of the education that they received. But in hindsight it is easier for them to see some of the opportunities that they missed out on that could have benefited the way they run their business. Even though they bought an existing business and did not start their pharmacy from the ground up they had no idea of how to run a successful business when they just started out. As a student in the Darla Moore School of Business I am extremely interested in hearing from those who started from the ground up and created extremely successful companies only just a few years out of college and what they would have done differently with all of the knowledge that they now possess. </p>
<p>In 1999 Ric Elias and Dan Feldstein founded Red F, the precursor to Red Ventures, an American marketing and consulting firm, just outside of Charlotte. Starting with $2,000,000 of start up money the company did not ride the bust of the dot-com bubble well and was losing almost $250,000 a month. After a decade of restructuring, expanding, and making key business deals with national companies such as DirecTV and SiriusXM the company has been rated by Inc. Magazine as the number one marketing and advertising firm as well as one of the best places to work, and one of the fastest growing companies in the country. </p>
<p>So if I could have any course I could imagine taught by an instructor I could hire it would be a course on the trials and tribulations of starting a firm, not necessarily an advertising firm, right out of college taught by Ric Elias and Dan Feldstein. My parents have always told me that when they bought Bowman Drug in 1997 they had virtually no idea what a business plan was, how to make the best possible hiring decisions, or how to successfully write a payroll. Since then they have figured out the basics but now are focusing on how to reach untapped customers while still offering competitive prices and creating an environment that their employees thrive in and their customers reap the benefits. Ric Elias and Dan Feldstein are corporate giants in their field and struggled with the same problems my parents encountered and have gone above and beyond to create a company that is extremely successful where their employees enjoy working. </p>
<p>The class would detail the basics from writing a business plan, hiring the best employees, and even keeping a balanced check book with focus on corporate culture, the area that Red Ventures has succeeded the most in outside of its earning reports. At Red Ventures employees work in small groups that all have equal say in decisions that focus on promoting new ideas and innovation. The majority of their employees come in with no prior extensive training in their fields but are talented people that are trained to become experts in their new fields. Red Ventures does all of this while keeping a casual environment dressed in shorts and flip-flops. Employees that are happy and enjoy going to work everyday are going to be more productive than almost any other job. </p>
<p>Dan Feldstein and Ric Elias would tell the class how they saw a need that needed to be filled, an advertising firm that focused on drawing customers through the internet, and how they took the initial steps to start their company. As a semester-long project that would be graded as the final exam, students would create an imaginary business in a small group with a business plan, with mock products and expansions, a detailed description of corporate culture, and a paper on how they can make this business happen straight out of college.</p>
<p>Independent businesses are the backbone of our economy and bright students are the ones with the next big ideas but more than often these dreams fail to pan out because they don’t know how to get a business up and running. FINA-222 would give students with dreams of enterprise the outlet and the necessary connections along with the education of starting the next big business.</p>
<p>i’ll help.</p>