<p>Did any one else who got into the School of Hospitality Administration get a phone call from Dean Stamas last night? Just curious. I like the attention BU has given me but Cornell’s program is much better known. Tough choice…</p>
<p>SHA is a young college; it was made a separate school not too many years ago. It has two advantages. First, it is small and that means you get personal attention. Second, it's in Boston and the opportunities for internships and work while you are physically in Boston are excellent.</p>
<p>Cornell is the name in the field but I have no idea how much that matters in the hospitality industry. Hospitality is one of those areas where there wasn't much competition for prestige. Other schools - a bunch, really - have recognized there's been this gap and they are filling it.</p>
<p>As a SHA major, I can give you tons of info on the school and explain to you exactly why it is better than Cornell's. Cornell has a long tradition and heritage at their hotel school. Yes, they have been very successful for many years. So many students misconstrue older for better. SHA is young but is right on par with Cornell. </p>
<p>Let me explain some of the best parts of SHA. Sorry if this is long-winded but I love my school here at BU and want to let people know all about it:</p>
<p>-Smallest college in BU with under 400 students. This allows you to have a tight-knit community with personalized attention and small classes. Registration is a breeze and much of the hassle of having a large student body is completely bypassed by going through four years in a small college within BU. It is so small that each student has a personal mailbox! I know almost my entire junior class and am friendly with every single professor in SHA (only 6!). In comparison, Cornell's hotel school is much larger and there is far less personalized attention and interaction.</p>
<p>-SHA's building is the nicest and newest on campus. To allow us to grow, they built us this awesome building that just screams hospitality. The lobby is made like a hotel lobby and it has everything we could possibly need. A 100 seat auditorium, computer lab, study rooms, boardroom, and state of the art classrooms. </p>
<p>-Cornell focuses most of their study on general academics and far too little on what is important to hotel students: hotel management courses! BU's curriculum is great in that it combines general requirements (writing, social sciences, economics, history, etc.) with the specialized hospitality courses (hospitality marketing, HR, IT, accounting, finance, food and beverage management, etc.) Also, there are tons of electives that you can tailor to your interests. I love sales so I took hospitality sales, PR and advertising, event management, and a few more. </p>
<p>-The top hotel companies are always coming to recruit at BU because they respect the name and know that they will be meeting some of the brightest students. Keep in mind, Cornell is in Ithaca. What else is in Ithaca? Nothing. Very few hotels or hotel companies want to venture out into upstate NY to recruit. That is where our location gives us a HUGE advantage. SHA majors are more benefited by their location than arguably any other major at BU. There are hundreds of hotels at BU for your to network with. I met with and received job offers from Ritz-Carlton, Marriott, Starwood, and the New York Palace Hotel, where I will be doing a marketing internship this summer. Cornell can't compare with the number of on-campus recruiters. </p>
<p>I'm sure I could think of many more reasons why BU beats out Cornell, but I don't want to make this too long. Hope this gives you a good preview of what SHA is like. I'd be happy to let you know more if you have any questions.</p>
<p>thanks for such an in depth response. i have to agree that boston is a much better location for such a program for work during the school year and that is something i've been thinking about Boston, I worked at olives over the summer and have lots of connections in the city. but from what i've heard, the corporate recruiting at cornell is unparalleled. they head out to ithaca quite often and all the big companies are there. the hotel school at cornell also has a smaller class size of about 200 per year plus the unrivaled alumni network. no doubt bu has a great program, thats why i considered it over others but with age comes wisdom and i think cornell has that down. i guess i'm just thinking out loud. thanks for your input.</p>
<p>Oh no no, SHA has about 375 TOTAL students while Cornell has about 800, or 200 per class as you said. We are far smaller and more personal at less than half their size. My class has about 70 students. And I don't see how corporate recruiting can be any better. We have sent students to the management training programs of every major company and private conversations with many executives have shown me that they are shying more and more away from Cornell grads because of their decreasing focus on the technical aspects on hospitality. Keep in mind, BU's hospitality program has been around a very long time, it just used to be a part of the school of management. But as you said, both are great programs and have their pros and cons. You really can't go wrong either way. Good luck with your decision.</p>
<p>How competitive is the School of Hospitality Management at BU as a transfer student?</p>
<p>Wow this is really helpful. But is BU hard to get into though?</p>
<p>This thread was 2 years ago 
But it is still VERY helpful (for me at least) I am currently accepted as a SMG student and thinking about switching to SHA. I heard SMG has the nicest building in campus and is one of the best programs in BU.
This Friday I will visit and make my decision. The thing is I want to take classes ( or even minor/ duel degree) in Communication. Is this possible for me to do so if I am a SHA student?
I would like to ask current SHA students some questions about the curriculum:
- What general study classes do I have to take in my Freshman year?
- Do I still have to take another language even though I am an international student? (I don’t want to mess up my GPA with language class
)
Thx so much!</p>
<p>Another language question I can’t find the answer to on the site … can you place out of the language requirement with SAT scores or AP scores?</p>
<p>I hope I can take my own laguage … Otherwise I may have to try my best in either French or Chinese. My friends said these are not too hard and they could tutor me if I need help. Thx for your help :)</p>
<p>I am enrolling into BU SHA this Fall 2010 and am wondering if we need to take general classes (non-related to hospitality management) for the first 2 years of college? Or do we zoom straight into hospitality management-related classes? Also, do we take our classes straight in the new SHA building or do we go to the College of Arts & Science building first for the first 2 years of college?</p>
<p>I’m an international student and am hence very unfamiliar with the US education system, would appreciate it a lot if someone can enlighten me! :)</p>
<p>Hi fantasist, I think I can answer some of your questions.
First of all, we do have to take liberal arts courses in CAS. But it all depends on your plan and credits that you can finish these requirements in 1 or two years.
In the first semester, you are required to take 2 hospitality-related classes which are Into to Hospitality (in SHA) and Computer Science 101 ( designed for SHA students only in CAS). For the rest of Freshman year, you will take classes in CAS to fulfill your liberal arts requirement ( 1 applied math, WR 100 and WR 150, 1 stat class, micro and macro econ, 1 natural science and 1 social science.) You cannot take more than 8 classes in the first year so it probably takes until the first semester of sophomore year to finish all these courses. You can always take summer school to accelerate your studying plan thou.
But in general, in the first two years, you will take many classes in the CAS building and some in SHA building
Since you are international ( so am I 
), you do not have to take Language classes ( you can if you want thou…).
I will be attending SHA next fall as well. So if you have any question, just send me a message and I will try my best to answer.
Gluk. Hahaha</p>
<p>Thanks Liridori for the reply! Just wanna verify something, you said that we can’t take more than 8 classes in the 1st yr but you’ve listed 8 liberal arts requirement ( 1 applied math, WR 100 and WR 150, 1 stat class, micro and macro econ, 1 natural science and 1 social science). Doesn’t that mean you can take 1 year at the maximum to finish the liberal arts requirement? By the way, why can’t we take more than 8 courses in the first year? :|</p>
<p>Since you are required to take Intro to Hospitality and Computer Science in the first semester of Freshman year, you cannot finish all the requirements. However, do not forget your AP/IB credits and summer school.
And the school only allow Freshman to take 18 credits each semester ( 4 classes 4 credits each and 1 activity that account for the last 2 credits. You dont have to take these 2-credit classes thou.)The reason is they don’t want students to overload with work and start failing. I think it is a pretty good idea since we are very new to the whole college experience. After your Freshman year, you can take more classes but it all depends on your GPA. You can find more information in the web. Or you can wait until orientation to ask our academic adviser. Her name is Abbi. Since SHA is relatively small, it has only 1 adviser. But Abbi is really sweet and helpful.</p>
<p>Liridori: Haha yup, I understand now after seeing Abby during Orientation. Anyway, where r u staying at? I’m not taking Computer Science this sem ><</p>