<p>Hey everyone, so I'm a direct admit into Foster for next fall and I'm coming in with over 85 credits because of Running Start. I was originally planning to major in finance but after looking over the requirements I believe I could easily fit in the extra 36 credits to get my accounting degree too.</p>
<p>Would this be beneficial to me as a student trying to get into corporate finance after graduation, or is there a better way to use my credits for this?</p>
<p>I’d say when you come in with extra credits, you might as well double major. You have so much time, and they allow a lot of overlap. You’ll still probably graduate before your class.</p>
<p>Sounds cool.</p>
<p>Wow awesome with how many credits you’ll have! I’m a DA too and I’m starting to consider a double major in Finance as well, but I’ll have to look into how beneficial it would be and if I can manage it. I won’t have as many credits because I’m an AP student and a lot of the credits aren’t very significant, such as 5 elective credits here and there.</p>
<p>Well the nice thing about these credits is I don’t have to take either econ courses or calculus (I’ve heard that with the large amount of people in these classes that grading can be tough and influence gpa because of this). </p>
<p>Also, with most of my pre reqs done I’ll be able to jump into the higher classes that are actually business related earlier. My only worry with this is that I’ll end up with a bunch of sophomores and juniors and not get to know the other freshman!</p>
<p>Just make sure you (1) take Business Econ and not the Econ from the College of A&S, also (2) take more Math than you think you need if you wanna do well at Finance.</p>
<p>I am an Accounting/Finance double option in Foster, so I thought I would weigh in.</p>
<p>In response to what XaviFM said about taking business econ (B ECON), instead of ECON: You CAN take ECON 300 and 301, they are equivalents to B ECON 300 and 301 at Foster. I took ECON 300 and 301 before I was accepted into the business major and lecturers I had for those classes were excellent and I learned a lot, so I just wanted to say that that is allowed. Since you are a direct admit, however, you probably wouldn’t have any reason to take ECON 300 and 301 since you are already in and could just take B ECON.</p>
<p>Also, the Foster school is a BIG stickler on 180 credits. They want you to graduate as close to 180 credits as possible, and they don’t make exceptions if you come in with a lot of running start credits. They won’t approve a second option if they think it will take you too far over 180 credits, so keep that in mind. The best thing is to talk to a Foster school advisor as soon as possible to find out what is and what is not possible. There is however an exception to the 180 credit “rule” so to speak: if you are an Accounting option and you plan to sit for the CPA exam (to become a certified public accountant) you may petition to take 225 credits, because 225 credits are required to become a CPA. You have to be serious about taking the CPA exam and write a statement on why you should be allowed to stay in Foster to take more credits, because for every person that stays over 180, there is a Foster applicant who won’t be able to enter, due to space constraints. Having a CPA license is a great asset and show that you are basically an accounting expert, but becoming licensed is a lot of work (extra credits, the exam, and approximately 2 years of accounting work experience). So if you are considering a double option in Accounting, I would suggest that you start looking into it. </p>
<p>You certainly don’t have to do it, but I just bring it up because IF your aspirations take you pretty far over 180 credits that is the only way to really make it happen. And if you can fit in both Accounting & Finance without going over 180, it is still something to think about, because depending on what exactly you want to do, being a CPA could show employers that you have an in-depth knowledge of accounting and financial reporting.</p>
<p>If you are sure about Finance and not 100% about Accounting, another great second option would be Information Systems. If you are at all technical you may like it a lot, and my I S professor is always talking about how essential being able to use and code within various programs is for finance options. So you may want to take both I S 300 and an accounting class before you make up your mind.</p>
<p>Let me know if you have any questions I could help you with! Good luck on starting at UW. If you are at all unsure about business or finance, don’t be hesitant to explore around the rest of the university. Foster is great, but just make sure as much as you can that this is right for you. You don’t want to get to senior year and suddenly realize that your big dream in life is to be an aerospace engineer! :)</p>
<p>^ that was incredibly helpful for me haha thank you!!!</p>
<p>I have been planning on an Accounting major and wondering if it would be necessary for me to even be a double major. If Finance requires a great deal of math courses, I’d rather just stick with accounting and focus on getting my CPA.
What kind of courses did you take your freshman year? My A&O session is one for Direct Admits so I’m sure I will get help from the advisors but I just want an idea. I should have calculus and possibly micro and/or macro credits from AP but I won’t know until I get my scores back in July…which is after my A&O date. So what should I do?</p>
<p>Thanks for the response sarsarhanhan, it was really helpful. My 1st question that comes up is will they make me graduate early then? With 85 credits coming in as a freshman, I thought I’d graduate around 250-265 credits but now I’m concerned… Secondly, will having taken econ 200 and econ 201 at a CC through running start hurt me in B econ 300/Econ 300? I’m not confident my level of instruction at a CC is on par with UW and I’m a little concerned I’ll be playing catch up in this class?</p>
<p>^^TAKE BUS ECON 300^^</p>
<p>If you take the social science econ, you might be lost. But your math skills are far more important than the stuff you would have learned in 200/201</p>
<p>EricJPrice: I took Econ 300/301 so I can’t exactly speak to what B Econ is like, but if they are similar (as they should be since they are equivalents), then XaviFM is correct that your math skills will be more important than your recall of Econ 200/201. For Econ 300, knowledge of calculus derivatives comes in very handy. Econ 300 was very math-y in my opinion, but my instructor reviewed the calculus the first class to help refresh everything. It was very abstract/technical compared to Econ 200, so I wouldn’t really worry about how much you know of the Econ 200 curriculum as long as you have just a general sense of economic models and whatnot, + solid experience working with derivatives. Econ 301 was more algebra based than calculus, and a lot less abstract, so remembering Econ 201 was more helpful. Econ 301/B Econ 301 is an elective for the Finance major, so its avoidable (unlike B Econ 300), but I enjoyed it a lot more than Econ 300, so if you are at all inclined, check it out!</p>
<p>As far as the credit thing, you should schedule an appointment with a Foster advisor as early on as you can, because they are the ones who will ultimately decide how many credits you get to do. When you go in, know what your priorities are as far as what you want to accomplish (i.e. if you could only do one thing, you really want it to be finance), so if they don’t say yes to everything you want, you can tell them what is most important to you and go from there. I don’t think they would let anyone go up to 250-265 credits, but that’s just my opinion based on what they have said when I have spoken to them. You won’t know til you talk to them. The advisors are very nice and helpful, but there is more demand for spots in Foster than there is supply, so they are trying to get people graduated in a timely fashion.</p>
<p>ghuskies: Finance doesn’t really require a lot of math courses if you don’t want it to. The Math 124/Math 112 Foster requirement covers enough math for the majority of Finance courses. Yes there will be math in every finance course, but it’s not going to be some crazy kind of vector calculus in almost all circumstances. So don’t be deterred by the math: if you have a solid grasp of algebra and some exposure to calculus (Math 112/124 is fine), you should be able to do the math in Finance. The UW finance program is not very rigorous quantitatively compared to other programs, so I’ve heard.</p>
<p>If the CPA is your goal and you decide you really just want to focus on Accounting without a second option doing the Masters in Professional Accounting (MPAcc) program could be a good option. But you’re very early on, so just take the upper division business core courses when you get there and see if a second option doesn’t strike your fancy. The majority of Accounting majors either do 2 options (accounting + something else) or the MPAcc program to satisfy the 225 credit requirement for the CPA.</p>
<p>I wasn’t pre-business/direct admit at all when I entered UW, so I didn’t take any Foster pre-reqs til a few quarters later. But if you are pretty sure you will get your AP credits and you have sophomore standing (45+ credits coming in), you could try to get into Acctg 215, QMeth 201, and/or Mgmt 200. If you don’t have sophomore standing, but are still sure about the AP credits, then maybe just find some classes that interest you for Areas of Knowledge. All business majors must have at least 90 non-business credits, so it doesn’t have to be all business from the get go. If you are feeling pretty unsure about any of your AP tests, then you might consider registering for those classes at A&O. You can always change your schedule later once you get your results, and those classes are going to be harder to get into later than some random elective.</p>
<p>Thanks! I will just play it safe and switch out of the classes if I do get credit. How does changing classes work? Should I just worry about that when I get to A&O?</p>
<p>Thanks again SarSarhanhan. So ultimately I should just sit down with a foster adivsor asap and figure it out. </p>
<p>On a different note, I was wondering if I could do finance/accounting and MPAcc as well? Do I have to apply to the MPAcc program or are all foster undergraduates open to take it?</p>
<p>Oh and one quick edit, I wouldn’t be taking anywhere close to 250-265 credits at UW. Instead I’d probably take close to 180 at the UW but I was including my transfer/running start credits in that total number.</p>
<p>ghuskies: At A&O they will show you how you register using the online system and from then all the way through a couple of weeks into autumn quarter you can basically mess around with your schedule all you want. It’s all online, so you can add/drop classes anytime you want (until the quarter starts, then there are some rules to doing that). Just know as the summer goes on more freshman will go to A&O and register so available spots will progressively fill up.</p>
<p>EricJPrice: I don’t think there’s any reason why you couldn’t do both as long as you have a solid reason for doing MPAcc (so if you will already have 225 credits, then it should be a reason other than fulfilling the 225-requirement). MPAcc lets you specialize in audit or tax, so if you have an interest in one of those you could definitely still benefit from the program. You do have to apply to MPAcc and it is competitive. I am not quite sure how competitive, because I haven’t applied/looked into it much and don’t think I will end up doing it. And I figured the 250-265 credits included your running start credits. Otherwise that’s like 6 years of UW undergrad. Haha.</p>
<p>University of Washington knows that even through the people that do the rankings only count the time you actually spent on campus against the school for their graduation rate, they start the clock ticking right away. There was an article in the Daily not too long ago about this. But there is no possible way that a person seeking their first degree is allowed to take more than 240 credits total, including the AP transferred in.</p>
<p>Ooh okay thanks SarSarHanHan. I think I will go ahead and sign up for the classes then and just change them when I get my AP scores back. I can always take them 2nd quarter anyway</p>
<p>Well I’m still a little confused about what they’ll do? I have 85 credits coming in so would they cut me off after 2 years (90ish more credits) and make me graduate with that year? I feel like they are almost screwing me out of a 4 year experience by forcing me to leave after 2 years?</p>
<p>As long as you go talk to the advisers about what classes you’re planning on taking, you can definitely spend four years here.</p>
<p>What UW doesn’t want is people taking all these random classes for 4 years … not have a major (or switch, or don’t even take classes towards your major) … stay for another 3 years … then maybe graduate.</p>
<p>It’s kind of a pain to go talk to advisers about your graduation plan, but totally doable. Look at what you want to major in. What do you have to take to graduate? Plot those classes based on prereqs and other factors (you want to take a language? etc) onto a spreadsheet, bring it into the advisers, and you will be out of the advising session in less than 10 minutes. (In my friends’ experiences anyway … coming in with 90 credits)</p>
<p>Okay thanks speedsolver that seems to make more sense. It seems like overall they’re willing to work with me to tailor my education to my needs/situation so I’ll just talk it out with them come this July.</p>
<p>I have one more question for you experienced students…sorry to hijack your thread kind of, OP. </p>
<p>Do you recommend a FIG? I’ve heard good things and bad things like the extra class being full of busy, although easy, work such as reflections.</p>