Are you having trouble deciding what classes you’re going to take next year? Whether you are a freshman, sophomore, or junior, it is important to explore all of your options. Madison Consolidated High School’s business department has many options that will help prepare you for any major or career.

The business classes here vary from Personal Finance to Interdisciplinary Cooperative Education (I.C.E.). Personal finance is a great course that helps students with their own personal financial responsibility and decision making. I.C.E. (pronounce eye-see-ē) is a program where students can leave school early and go to work. It helps students by making the transition between school life and the world by blending meaningful employment experiences with a related study.

Many of the business classes offer dual credit, which is an amazing opportunity that can earn students high school and college credit. It is a great option to get ahead in college work before graduation. These courses include marketing, entrepreneurship, law, and administration, and management.

“Everyone is going to work for or own a business and be a consumer who manages money. We teach very practical courses that are applicable to any career. Business is the number one college major, so dual credit courses really help those kids interested in making a career in some type of business field,” said MCHS Business teacher Charlotte Gibson.

For the past five years, Mrs. Gibson had been the only business teacher at Madison until this year. “Everyone else in the department had retired. Since we at least had one teacher, I say we were in a recession instead of just a depression where there was no one. Now that we have added Mr. (Mark) McFarland, we are on the road to recovery (having more than just one teacher).”

Mr. McFarland also is the boys’ basketball head coach.

MCHS junior Ariel Hall is an active participant in the business classes.

“I started taking business classes because the whole idea of business had always interested me, and I really wanted to understand how it worked and everything that goes into it,” Hall said. “The business classes at Madison are beneficial to any career. Not only do I personally find them the most interesting, but I also find them the most useful for the future.”