With the in-depth application of digital technologies such as big data, artificial intelligence, mobile Internet and cloud computing in the business field, the traditional business talent training system faces new challenges. In recent years, Soochow University Business School has promoted the construction of new business education, accelerated the cultivation of shortage talents, comprehensively implemented the fundamental task of establishing moral education, based on the needs of talents in the era of digital economy, and actively created a new business talent cultivation model to accelerate the construction of a high-quality business education system, so as to contribute to the high-quality development of the university and the realisation of the Chinese-style modernization.

Cultivating Composite Talents as the Cultivation Goal

With the rapid development of emerging technologies and the ever-changing business environment, the School of Business has gained a deep insight into the market's urgent demand for complex and innovative business talents. To this end, the School of Business has established the strategic direction of interdisciplinary cross-fertilisation of ‘Business+Engineering’, breaking down the barriers of traditional disciplines, and cultivating composite talents who have mastered the core theories and practices of business as well as proficient in the cutting-edge technologies and development laws of engineering.

The College actively builds an interdisciplinary cooperation platform, joining hands with the School of Computer Science and Technology, the School of Future Science and Engineering, and the School of Nano Science and Technology to design and implement a series of dual-degree talent cultivation programmes. Starting from 2022, the College will take the lead in launching the ‘Finance + Computing’ Dual Degree Programme in the university. The programme integrates the economic analysis ability of finance and the data processing technology of computer science to cultivate students' comprehensive competitiveness in the field of financial technology. Subsequently, the College has successfully applied for the ‘Accounting + Artificial Intelligence’ Dual Degree Programme and the ‘Business Administration + Nanomaterials and Technology’ Dual Degree Programme, which further broaden the boundary of the integration of business and engineering disciplines. At the same time, the College has established the Digital Economy Major, focusing on the business changes in the digital economy era and cultivating leading talents who can lead the future business trends.

Education and Teaching Reform as a Driving Force for Innovation

The college insists on education and teaching reform as an innovative driving force to comprehensively improve the quality of talent cultivation, and has successively been approved the key topic of Jiangsu Province Higher Education Teaching Reform Research ‘Exploration and Practice of Cultivation of Composite Top Innovative Talents for Dual Bachelor's Degree’, and the provincial key cultivation topic of Jiangsu Higher Education New Liberal Arts Research and Reform Practice. The key provincial cultivation project of research and reform practice of new liberal arts in Jiangsu universities is ‘Exploration and Practice of New Business Curriculum System Construction of “One Longitudinal and Four Dimensional”’. Meanwhile, aiming at the cultivation of composite talents, the college continuously strengthens the construction of grassroots teaching organisations and teaching teams. The ‘Big Data-based Business Decision-making and Analysis Teaching Team’ has been awarded the Excellent Teaching Team of ‘Green and Blue Project’ of Jiangsu Universities. The ‘Virtual Teaching and Research Room of Business Decision Making and Analysis Courses (Group) Based on Big Data’ was approved to be the construction point of Class A Virtual Teaching and Research Room at school level.

Professional Collaborative Courses as Content Support

In order to achieve the cultivation goal of composite talents, the College has innovatively designed and constructed a series of interdisciplinary integration courses on the basis of carefully planning the traditional professional core course system, so as to build a comprehensive and in-depth knowledge system for students, which has achieved good results. ‘Virtual Simulation Experiment of Intelligent Recommendation Based on Big Data’ ’Entrepreneurship 101: Who Are Your Customers?’ have been approved as national first-class undergraduate courses and first-class undergraduate courses in Jiangsu Province.

Courses such as ‘Financial Big Data’ and ‘Big Data Quantitative Investment’ closely combine the wisdom of finance and the power of big data technology, so that students can learn to mine the financial value in the massive data, master quantitative investment strategies, and provide technical support and decision-making basis for the efficient operation of the financial market. technical support and decision-making basis for the efficient operation of the financial market. The ‘Blockchain Finance’ course guides students to explore the innovative application of blockchain technology in the financial field, and cultivates students' keen insight in the frontier of financial technology. In the field of finance and accounting, courses such as ‘Big Data in Finance’, ‘Big Data Auditing’ and ‘Integration of Industry and Finance’ teach students the traditional skills of financial analysis and auditing while integrating advanced methods of big data processing and analysis. While teaching students the traditional skills of financial analysis and auditing, courses such as ‘Big Data’, ‘Big Data Auditing’ and ‘Business-Finance Integration’ incorporate the advanced methods of big data processing and analysis, so that students can efficiently deal with complex financial data and improve the accuracy and efficiency of auditing.

The setting and implementation of integrated courses enable the dual-degree programme to truly achieve the cultivation goal of ‘1+1＞2’. Students not only master the core courses of the two major directions, but also achieve the deep integration and sublimation of knowledge, skills and way of thinking in interdisciplinary learning and practice, laying a solid foundation for their future career.

Supported by new integrated teaching materials

In order to improve the quality of teaching courses, the College attaches great importance to the construction of teaching materials, ‘Auditing’ was approved by the Jiangsu Province, ‘14th Five-Year Plan’ undergraduate general higher education provincial planning materials (currently applying for the national ‘14th Five-Year Plan’ planning materials). At the same time, Tsinghua University Press and other publishers work together to promote the construction of new liberal arts textbooks. Among them, the cutting-edge teaching materials such as ‘Big Data Auditing’, ‘Big Data Application in Finance and Taxation’, ‘Intelligent Finance’, ‘Big Data and Business Intelligence’ and ‘Python Based Digital Image Processing and Machine Vision’ have been formally entered into the compilation and publication process. The series of textbooks closely match the cultivation needs of the dual-degree programme, incorporate new scientific research results and industry practices, and strive to provide students with a practical knowledge system. In order to promote the construction of new teaching materials, 1-2 of the above teaching materials will be presented in the form of digital teaching materials, which will provide students with a richer, more vivid and convenient learning experience, and make the acquisition and understanding of knowledge more intuitive and efficient.

Practical Support by Industry-University Cooperation and Collaborative Parenting

In order to achieve the goal of cultivating complex talents, the college has established in-depth cooperation with many famous enterprises in the industry, and jointly opened a new chapter of industry-academia cooperation and collaborative education. In recent years, the College has successfully won the approval of ‘Optimisation and Practice of Business Intelligence-based Cultivation Programme for Business Administration’, ‘’Accounting + Artificial Intelligence‘ Dual Degree Programme Curriculum System Construction’, ‘Finance + Artificial Intelligence’, ‘Finance + Artificial Intelligence’, and ‘Business Intelligence’. ‘‘Finance+Computer’ Dual Degree Cross-Degree Talent Cultivation Exploration and other national-level industry-university co-operation collaborative education projects.

At the same time, the college makes full use of the advantages of its own research platforms, such as Jiangsu New Era Private Economy Research Institute and Jiangsu Modern Finance Research Base, to provide students with abundant innovation and entrepreneurship resources and practice opportunities. In addition, the strategic decision of the financial authority of Jiangsu Province, the education authority of Jiangsu Province and Soochow University to jointly build a high-level first-class business school has injected a strong impetus for the cultivation of innovative talents in the College.

Nurturing Support by Student Development Support Centre

In terms of talent cultivation, the College has set up the Student Development Support Centre based on the ‘one-stop’ community, and constructed the five major workshops, namely ‘correct heart, correct ambition, correct learning, correct ability and correct behaviour’ with ‘correct spirit’ as the core. The Centre has established a five-workshop linkage system with the core of ‘Nurturing the Spirit’ to help students' high-quality development in a comprehensive way. In the past three years, the School of Business has won 86 awards in the ‘Three Competitions’. Among them, it won 6 national awards in China International Student Innovation Competition, including 1 gold award, 1 silver award, 2 bronze awards and 2 third prizes; 2 national awards and 16 provincial awards in Challenge Cup National Extracurricular Scholarly and Technological Work Competition for College Students and China College Students' Entrepreneurship Plan Competition. In other competitions, students won a total of 298 awards, including 112 national awards, including the first prize in the national final of ‘Ke Yun Cup’ National Student Accounting Vocational Ability Competition and the first prize in the National Enterprise Competition Simulation Competition, etc. In addition, in recent years, students have also won awards from the United States, the United States and China. In addition, in recent years, students have also won the special prize in the Mathematical Modelling Competition for American Students and the national champion of MODEL APEC Competition.

(Zhou Zhongsheng Feng Bo Huang Xiaohui)

China Education News, 25 October 2024, page 10