Hi everyone! I am wondering how much of the CBH is computer based? What type of classes do the students take Freshman year before they begin their project? Are they mostly comp science/programing? Also, is a 32 4.15 gpa too low to be accepted into this program? For a finance major is this worth applying and potentially being apart of or is it possible to find research within the business school?
- CBH is a programming based research program.
- The students take their normal classes plus one CBH class each semester freshman year. My son, a Chemical Engineering major, is taking OChem, Calc3, ChemE Calculations, and CBH.
- I believe your stats are in the average range for this years incoming class.
- Yes and yes, although I have no direct knowledge of the School of Business. I am sure more will chime in who have direct SoB information.
Good luck, no matter which path you choose.
Roll Tide!!
Tune into the CBH Live presentations , see my thread featuring the link. Tomorrow is the last day.
Link to other thread: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-alabama/1837238-computer-based-honors-program-presentations-live.html#latest
Definitely try to watch!
They learn to program in Fortran and I think C++. Yes, you can probably find research opportunities outside of CBH, but CBH is an amazing program for students who want to pursue research.
@southernbound18 I just checked the schedule and there are presentationa today in Operations Management, Accounting, and Economics. I know they’re not Finance specifically, but they could give you an idea of the business research CBH students get involved in. The majority of people in the program are in Engineering disciplines, but we always have ~5 business school students a class.
It is definitely possible to find research outside CBH. The main benefits of CBH are having a community of like-minded people, as well as being prepared to handle the coding, project management, and professionalism of research. I could have found my research project anyway, but the skills I learned in CBH have allowed me to go above and beyond the professor’s expectations.
The freshman year CBH class is an accelerated intro to computers and programming. When my D was a freshman, I believe the languages were Fortran in the fall and C++ in the spring. There is a programming project at the end of each semester. In subsequent years I think the focus of the class is more on project management, presentation and the like, although I’m not positive because my D has never said much about it. The actual classroom portion after freshman year is just an hour a week.
My daughter is an Economics/Finance/Math major and is in her 4th year of CBH. She did all of her research projects in Economics. There is a list of potential CBH projects each semester, but there were never any economics or finance projects on the list, so she had to find her own. To do that she contacted the head of the Economics Department as well as individual professors; her projects came from the contact with individual professors. She worked with one prof sophomore year and another prof both junior and senior years. Each of her 3 projects lasted 2 semesters. I think some students have a different project each semester, and others have worked on a single project (or related projects) over multiple years.
I think you can definitely find research outside of CBH. As I mentioned, my daughter pretty much had to find her own CBH projects; I’m sure she could have found projects the same way if she wasn’t in CBH.
As for stats, I think yours are good enough to be considered. The average ACT for students in the program is higher than yours, but I don’t think decisions are made on stats alone. If you do apply, don’t give up if you are not invited to finalist weekend. There are a lot of students who get into the program from the waiting list. My daughter was accepted from the waiting list (she interviewed and was accepted during her Bama Bound), and I know of at least 7 others who came off the waiting list her year. Those are just the ones I know of - there could be (and probably are) more.
Thank you everyone for all the info! Roll Tide!