Beth McCain
Assistant Teaching Professor Beth McCain has guided hundreds of Elon University students through global study, but Fall 2025 brings her most ambitious venture yet: leading the inaugural Love School of Business Semester in Singapore.
For McCain, who retires at the end of 2025, launching the program is both a professional capstone and a personal milestone.
“Singapore is Southeast Asia’s business hub,” McCain said. “Our students will live at the center of a dynamic, multicultural economy, gaining insights they simply cannot replicate on campus.”
Those insights begin in the classroom, where coursework in finance and management interweaves with weekly site visits and guest lectures. McCain is lining up sessions with technology start-ups, global logistics firms and sustainability leaders whose headquarters cluster along the island-state’s waterfront.
Every student will complete a for-credit internship tailored to individual interests. Roles might range from market-research projects with a consumer-goods company to data-visualization work for a fintech accelerator.
“Choosing the LSB Semester in Singapore was a no‑brainer,” said Takoda Moore ’27, a financial technology major in the 3+1 program. “It brings Elon’s mentoring culture together with international faculty, places us in one of the world’s most dynamic business hubs and lets us earn real‑world experience through an overseas internship.”
McCain will help students translate those projects into compelling career narratives, ensuring their lessons endure long after their return to Elon University.
The program extends beyond Singapore’s borders. Long weekends in Kuala Lumpur and Malacca reveal Malaysia’s evolving financial sector and layered colonial history, while a ferry ride to Batam, Indonesia, showcases the region’s industrial trade networks. A day visit to nearby Pulau Ubin offers quieter lessons in ecological stewardship and personal reflection.
“These short journeys stitch classroom learning to the wider tapestry of Southeast Asian culture and commerce,” McCain said.
McCain’s hopes for the first cohort are ambitious: master new knowledge, thrive in internships, form relationships that span continents, and return to campus eager to share what was learned.
“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime adventure,” she said, “and a fitting finale to my time at Elon University.”
It’s a once-in-a-lifetime adventure.