You don't have to have an MBA to know the value of basic business skills. Just ask Greg Shaw, 22, and the 54 other recent graduates of the Carolina Business Institute at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

These new biologists, psychologists and arts majors added the business course to their résumés before stepping out into the world. Many think it will give them a competitive edge. Some think such skills will be necessary if they want to run their own businesses at some point. And others want the confidence of knowing how to manage personal finances.

UNC's Friday Center has offered a 4 ½ -week business boot camp to nonbusiness students for 16 years. The intensive course covers basic business practices including marketing, accounting, finance and operations management.

Its latest class graduated in June.

Among them was Mr. Shaw, who received a bachelor's degree in biology.

Mr. Shaw said that in addition to helping with his personal budget, the class gave him the skills to one day manage his own medical practice. "Running a clinic is a business," he said. "You have to know what to pay people and how to buy equipment and machines."

Other schools offer similar programs, including the Tuck Business Bridge program at Dartmouth College and the Summer Institute for General Management at Stanford University.

At North Carolina State University, nonbusiness students are offered four business minors, in accounting, business administration, economics and entrepreneurship, said Steve Barr, a professor who heads the department of management, innovation and entrepreneurship.

In the past, students took such classes mainly to bolster their résumés. But the curricula have been enhanced to help with a variety of business practices, and students are gleaning practical use from such programs.

Will Aldridge, 28, a UNC psychology graduate who completed the institute in 2006, said the courses give him a competitive advantage in the workplace.

Mr. Aldridge was working as an intern at a workplace consulting firm in Atlanta when a client needed advice about the benefits of Six Sigma. It's a management program that identifies and replaces the causes of defects and errors in manufacturing and business processes.

"I told them, 'Hey, I just had a class on that,' " Mr. Aldridge said. His boss was not familiar with Six Sigma, so Mr. Aldridge used what he had learned to help the client.

Since the institute started in 1992, the curriculum has evolved to keep up with the business world, said Richard Blackburn, associate professor at the Kenan-Flagler Business School and the academic director of the Carolina Business Institute.

Some of the changes have included more focus on business ethics – because of corporate finance scandals – and team-building.

Each student is given a 4-inch binder of notes about such things as how to value capital investments and how to calculate the internal rate of return, which are needed to help decide whether an investment is valuable.

The students are also taught to read a balance sheet and how companies finance operations with stocks, bonds and loans.