Businesses make the world go round, so it’s surprising that many high schools in Ontario don’t offer the right courses to sufficiently prepare their students to study business at the post-secondary level.

As a result, students often arrive at their first university or college business classes underprepared and overwhelmed. It’s like they’ve been thrown into a hockey game without being handed a stick. They’re lost on the ice.

Meanwhile, the students who do receive a solid business education in high school often arrive at their first post-secondary business classes highly prepared, confident, and with a leg up on their peers.

This leads to a domino effect: the well-prepared students are better equipped to do well in their first post-secondary business classes, enabling them to take higher-level classes and, if they choose, major in business or business-related fields, such as finance.

By contrast, the students who arrive at college or university underprepared to handle business classes don’t do as well as they could and, as a result, may fail to qualify for higher-level classes, let alone major in business.

In the not-too-distant past, before the rise of online high school courses, many students who attended high schools in Ontario had no choice but to go with the curriculum, regardless of whether it sufficiently prepared them for further study in their field of interest. Now, however, thanks to online high school courses in Ontario, students whose high schools don’t prepare them for further study in certain fields can make up for the lack by taking courses online in nearly any field they choose.

At OES, we offer a wide range of online business and business-related courses for high school and mature students. These courses prepare them not only for further study at the post-secondary level but also for success in the business world, otherwise known as “the real world.”

If you’d like to take a more detailed look at the courses OES offers, head over to our Courses webpage where you’ll find in-depth descriptions of what you can expect from in each class. Find a Course Description, Course Outline, the Assessment and Evaluation for Student Achievement, Accommodations, and fees.

The Benefits of Taking High School Business Courses

To understand the importance of developing a solid understanding of business fundamentals by taking high school online business courses, consider the example of piano lessons.

If a student—call her Becky—takes piano lessons before she enters high school, by the time she takes her first music class, she’s already familiar, at minimum, with the fundamentals of music. Becky can, for instance:

• Read music
• Play scales and chords
• Practice efficiently

Not only that, but Becky also has:

• Solid technique
• A good ear
• An intuitive sense of rhythm
• A strong work ethic
• Discipline
• Patience

As a result, when Becky takes her first music class in high school, whether at a performing arts high school or a traditional high school, she’s already well ahead of her peers—so ahead, in fact, that she may skip a grade or two.

The point is this: taking music lessons before high school sets Becky up for success in music at the high school level and beyond.

The same is true for business.

Let’s say a high school student, Michael, takes online business courses offered by OES. By the time he takes his first business or business management course in college or university, he’s already familiar with the fundamentals of business and business management and well ahead of his peers. It’s like he has stepped onto a hockey rink equipped with a stick, full equipment, solid fundamentals, and a Gretzky-like feel for the game.

What Students Learn by Taking Online Business Courses at OES

OES courses include four online business courses:

1. BEM1O: Entrepreneurial Mindset (Grade 9)
2. BEP2O: Launching and Leading a Business (Grade 9/10)
3. BBB4M: International Business (Grade 12 University/College)
4. B0H4M: Business Leadership (Grade 12 University/College)

Learn more about all four of our business courses: what they teach students and how they prepare them for further study at the post-secondary level and beyond.

BEM1O: Entrepreneurial Mindset (Grade 9)

Students in this course are introduced to information and communication technology in a business environment and builds a foundation of digital literacy skills necessary for success in a technologically driven society.

BEM1O is made up of five units:

1. Digital Literacy
2. Technology for Productivity
3. Design Software
4. Business communications, ethics, and issues
5. Project Culminating Task

Students enrolled in BEM1O are introduced to:

• Communication terminology and technology
  1. Spreadsheet, database, website design, word processing, desktop publishing
• Effective electronic research
• Ethical, legal, and social issues
• Privacy and security issues
• The impact of information and communication technology on individuals and the environment

BEM1O prepares grade 9 to pursue further business study at the grade 12 level.

BEP2O: Launching and Leading a Business (Grade 10)

The Launching and Leading a Business online course provides OES students a comprehensive introduction to entrepreneurship and business leadership.

BEP2O comprises 4 units, followed by a final exam:

1. Business Fundamentals
2. Personal Finance
3. Functions of a Business
4. Entrepreneurship

When students take BEP2O Introduction to Launching and Leading a Business, they specifically develop an understanding of finance, functions of business, and entrepreneurship. They learn about:

• Accounting
• Communication and information technology
• Human resources
• Marketing
• Production
• Social responsibility and ethics in business

As the course is for students and mature students in grades 10, it sets them up for the two online business courses that OES offers for grade 12 students intent on going to university or college.

BBB4M: International Business (Grade 12 University/College)

BBB4M is an overview of the world of international business, including cross-border trade, markets, distribution, and business in the global economy. The course prepares grade 12 students for further business study at university or college.

BBB4M comprises 5 units and ends with a culminating activity and final exam.

1. Business, Trade, and the Economy
2. The Global Environment for Business
3. Factors Influencing Success in International Markets
4. Marketing Challenges, Approaches, and Distribution
5. Working in International Markets

Students learn about:

• International business
• Management
• Marketing

Once students have finished the course, they’re ready to pursue not only business relations but also marketing, an umbrella term that includes advertising, market research, sales, and the “four Ps”: product, price, place, and promotion.

B0H4M: Business Leadership (Grade 12 University/College)

The focus of BOH4M is on developing leadership skills to manage businesses (including small businesses) successfully. The course looks at how leaders create and manage successful companies, organizations, and the like.

BOH4M comprises 5 units and ends with a final exam.

1. Foundation of Management
2. Planning and Controlling
3. Organizing
4. Leading
5. Management Challenges

Students learn about:

• Communications skills
• Decisions making
• Managing groups and group dynamics; workplace conflict, stress, and interpersonal problems; employee motivation and satisfaction
• Planning
• Social responsibility and ethics

When grade 12 students take business leadership courses, they leave with a practical understanding of how business works. They leave prepared, in other words, to work in business or business-related fields.

Business-Related OES Online Courses

OES offers other online courses that, though not technically business courses, prepare students for further study in business at the post-secondary level. These business-related online courses are mainly in three fields:

1. Accounting
2. Economics
3. Law

OES Online Accounting Courses

We’ve chosen to differentiate accounting from math because accounting is a uniquely practical type of mathematics used in finance.

Studying accounting is a prudent move for high school students because it teaches them practical mathematical skills that are integral to running a successful business. These skills include tracking expenditures, income, profit and loss, liabilities, and assets. Accounting also gives investors, government, stakeholders, and management financial information necessary to keep businesses afloat.  Indeed, without adequate accounting, businesses can face disasters, including legal trouble.

The online accounting classes offered at OES are:

• BAF3M: Financial Accounting Fundamentals (Grade 11 University/College)
• BAT4M: Financial Accounting Principles (Grade 12 University/College)

BAF3M: Financial Accounting Fundamentals (Grade 11 University/College)

In BAF3M, students are introduced to the fundamentals of accounting, namely its procedures and principles. Students learn about:

• Processing accounts for different kinds of businesses
• Financial analysis
• Decision-making skills
• Computerized accounting
• Ethical issues in accounting

BAT4M: Financial Accounting Principles (Grade 12 University/College)

BAT4M offers a more advanced look at accounting principles. Students learn about:

• Sources of financing
• Accounting methods for assets
• Accounting for corporations and partnerships
• Financial statements for business ownership

Learning these principles prepare students for post-secondary-level accounting, business, and finance studies.

OES Online Economics Courses

Economics is the study of how nations, groups, and individuals manage resources. It also tries to explain why people act the way they do at both the micro and macro levels.

By studying economics at OES, students gain analytical, communication, numeracy, and problem-solving skills that directly apply to the three overlapping worlds of businesses, marketing, and finance.

OES offers:

1. CIA4U Economics (Grade 12 University)

CIA4U: Economics (Grade 12 University)

In this course, grade 12 students look at a variety of international economic issues, including, in particular, current Canadian economic issues, from a range of perspectives. Students look at issues pertaining to:

• Economic developments, policies, and practices
• Trade agreements
• Globalization
• Regulations
• Economic inequalities
• Public spending
• Trade agreements

Of all the business-related online courses OES offers, CIA4U is perhaps the most philosophical. It introduces students to different and sometimes competing theories thanks to which they can look at economic issues through a variety of critical lenses.

OES Online Law Courses

There are reasons law school graduates are omnipresent in the business world. Just as you can’t succeed in business without a grasp on accounting, you can’t succeed in business without a grasp on the law. Business and law are deeply intertwined.

OES offers:

1. CLU3M: Introduction to Canadian Law (Grade 11 University/College)
2. CLN4U: Canadian and International Law (Grade 12 University)

CLU3M: Introduction to Canadian Law (Grade 11 University/College)

In CLU3M, grade 11 students explore legal issues in Canada. They take a broad look at:

• Rights and freedoms
• Family law
• Employment law
• Torts
• Criminal law

The course is not only theoretical, however: students also learn to think and work like real-life lawyers. They learn how to apply legal concepts to case studies, for instance, and how to argue for new laws.

CLN4U: Canadian and International Law (Grade 12 University)

Grade 12 students planning to attend university learn in CLN4U about an array of Canadian and international legal issues and principles as they apply to:

• Religion
• Cyberspace
• Security
• Immigration
• Environmental protection
• Crimes against humanity

CLN4U, like law school, teaches students how to think like lawyers. And businesspeople who think like lawyers have an advantage over those who don’t.

The Next Generation of Entrepreneurs

OES business and business-related online courses provide students with the fundamental knowledge they need to excel not only in business courses at the post-secondary level but also in the real world—the world of business—as businesspeople, of course, but also as entrepreneurs.

It helps when entrepreneurs in the real world are imaginative, hard-working, and curious. But it’s absolutely necessary that they have a solid academic background in all things business and business-related. That’s precisely the sort of education OES offers to its students. It teaches them the rules of the game so that one day they may choose to break or even change them for good.

When you look at our students, you’re looking at the future generation of entrepreneurs.