For Biz Econ majors / Acct minors - my 2 cents

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - Los Angeles
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<p>I figured I’d write this as I’ve now graduated and perhaps someone could gain some insight from my experiences over the past 4 years… please take everything here with a grain of salt. This is meant to be a reflection and what I would say if you asked me for my opinion and will probably differ among other students. </p>

<p>Personal gripes
Personally, I hated the econ department. The teachers, in my opinion, were subpar and most of the learning was forced to be done on my own, simply to pass. I often found myself not understanding the underlying concepts, but merely getting a feel for examples and the basics so I could regurgitate it come test time. I found the acct department to be the polar opposite of the econ department, probably because it is run by Anderson and not the school itself. No complaints with the Acct dept. </p>

<p>Administration/Getting help:
Never used anybody in any form of administration other than Rachel Saar at Anderson. She is probably the nicest person on that campus. Go to her… talk to her… she will help you leaps and bounds. Went to a few people for help a few times in the counseling office (Honors Counseling), most had no idea what I was talking about with regards to a graduation requirement. Went to the Econ department and found Julie Plotkin to be an absolute *****. Honestly, I’ve found most of the administration at UCLA to be the quintessential definition of an overpaid government cubicle dweller – people who don’t really care for their job, put in their 8 hours, and hate the fact that “customer interaction” is a part of their job description. </p>

<p>Fellow Students/Nature of the major
I didn't find the nature of the major to be extremely "cut throat" or anything else, but didn't find the students to be extremely friendly either. Seemed to me to be a somewhat polarized student body where you have the die hard students and then those who are there to live it up at college and experience freedom. Personally, I found it annoying as hell to hear the constant jargon of various languages around me - very awkward when you have five conversations going on around you and you can't understand what anyone is discussing (for what it's worth they were probably making fun of me)</p>

<p>Jobs/Internships:
I worked summers and off & on during my sophomore/junior year at a company in East LA doing bookkeeping. I got the job because my father worked for the company for 25+ years. </p>

<p>I got an internship at a smaller sized (50 people, 8 partners) public CPA firm my senior year. I got the internship because my neighbor is a partner at the firm. </p>

<p>From that internship, I was offered a full time position which I’m slated to start in a few weeks. I will be paid $25/hour, full benefits, matching 401(k), and other small perks. When it’s all said and done, with the “mandatory overtime”, I should make around 60k my first year. </p>

<p>Classes – GE’s/Univ Reqs:
Took Spanish 3 P/NP to get rid of that – taught by TA’s so teachers change often
Notable classes that I would recommend:
English with Steinberg
Geo 5 with Gillespie
Anything Astro with Brix (not sure if he is still teaching undergrads, but he’s very nice)
Anything A&O Sci with Lew (super easy/structured classes/grading)
*Note I’m recommending these because they are best of breed – easy as hell, require little work, halfway interesting</p>

<p>**I took a cluster – good lord that was a giant waste of time. I took the 60’s one and it was incredibly boring and focused on uninteresting material and dynamics. I might, MIGHT, rethink this since clusters are now worth 6 units/quarter, but when I took it they were only 5 units, yeah forget that. </p>

<p>AS ALWAYS – CHECK BRUINWALK FOR YOUR PROFESSORS</p>

<p>Classes – Econ dept
Econ 1, 2, 11 – SPROUL – Lots of people hate Sproul. I don’t know why. Sproul is super easy. He dumbs down everything into these little graphs with easy to memorize stories. You really just have to identify the correlating story on the exams, redo the graphs, and you will get the right answers. All classes podcasted with video. I got an A in every class.</p>

<p>Econ 41 – ROJAS – The orange book sucks. Rojas is very theoretical with his presentations. Overall I relied a lot on my AP Stats knowledge (got a 5) to get by. Got an A</p>

<p>Econ 101 – SNIDER – Snider was terrible. Read the bruinwalk reviews. Really struggled and fell victim to the fact that he basically recycled an old midterm that I didn’t get my hands on but many others did. I got a C (and was thankful for it)</p>

<p>Econ 102 – KANG – He was a new instructor/TA/pHD student… I don’t know what he was. He was really smart, really into the stuff (he worked at one of the FED branches), etc… I just didn’t fare too well with the material and the calculus. </p>

<p>Econ 103 – BUCHINSKY – Really theoretical. Open note/book midterm and final. I relied a lot on my AP stats knowledge like in 41. I got an A</p>

<p>Econ 106T – BOARD – Really boring, stupid class. The labs were ok since he brought in some really successful alumni to speak to us (venture capitalists, CEO’s, etc). ****ed about my grade. Had to do a group project on a company and examine its current faults and what it can do to turn around. We did so, and 2 months after our project, our company did EXACTLY WHAT WE SAID and the stock jumped 25% in 2 weeks. Still got a B. Still bitter.</p>

<p>Econ 106G – MEYER TER VEHN – Too theoretical. Difficult final, easy midterm. Did alright. Class is relatively intuitive and not too bad. Got a B</p>

<p>Econ 121 – OZLER – Ozler is a **<strong><em>, dyke, *</em></strong>, (insert other demeaning female adjective here). I got a C</p>

<p>Econ 122 – BURNSTEIN – Nice guy, somewhat tough accent. Pretty easy curve in my opinion. Got a B</p>

<p>Econ 150 – BOGNAR – Class wasn’t really hard, just was uninteresting. Hence I got a B. Could have done better, but wasn’t really into the class.</p>

<p>Classes – Acct Dept
Mgmt 1A, 1B, 120A, 122 – LITT – Litt is very easy. He has tons of stories, many of which take up too much time, but overall I find him effective. His tests are very predictable and are all based upon his “library” of excel sheets where he simply changes the numbers. I got all A’s</p>

<p>Mgmt 108 – GUERIN – Guerin is pretty easy, just nitpicky for details since she’s a lawyer. Got an A.</p>

<p>Mgmt 123 – GARDNER – This class drove me to hate audit. Gardner has stupid pneumonic memory devices for everything. Good lord this class was boring as hell. I often left early and just studied the hell out of the reader. Got an A.</p>

<p>Mgmt 120B, 124, 127A, 127B – KLEIN – Klein is probably the best teacher in the department. He has interesting stories, concise examples, etc… Note his tests are extremely hard but extremely fair. They really test your knowledge and make sure you know not only how to regurgitate the date/information, but to really apply it through the different financial statements. I got 2 A’s and 2 B’s</p>

<p>Mgmt 130A – SHEPHERD – Shepherd is a terrible teacher. He should keep his day job as a bond fund manager down in Orange County. Slides from the book, can’t explain, tests have problems that we never went over nor where shown how to do via examples. Got a B</p>

<p>Mgmt 180 Real Estate – KARLAN – Only went to 3 classes out of 20. Midterm/final is open computer/book/note. Still relatively difficult. Lectures podcasted with video. Got an A.</p>

<p>Parting thoughts
Glad to be done. Can't wait to start working. Plan on getting my CPA soon. Maybe CEO 10k/day and a trophy wife are in my future.</p>

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<p>Thanks for the really detailed description of the bizecon major binks. I’m attending UCLA this fall as a pre-econ major. I’m thinking about changing to the bizecon major as it seems to be more highly regarded. Do you think there is a huge difference in the general perspective of both majors such that I should switch to bizecon? Also, I’m planning to do a second major in political science. Does bizecon have more courses (such as the extra accounting courses) compared to econs that makes it more rigorous so that I won’t be able to double major? Thanks a lot for your advice! (sorry about bombarding you with questions!)</p>

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<p>If you could go back would you still do BizEcon or possibly another major and minor?</p>

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<p>Do you think you could’ve managed to get a similar internship if your neighbor wasn’t involved with a firm? As in, do you think UCLA gives you enough resources for you to track down decent internships that could later on lead to permanent positions?</p>

<p>Btw, thanks for the interesting and insightful post; my soon-to-be Biz econ friend was delighted by this and I personally wish other majors could make similar threads like yours.</p>

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<p>I think there is a slight difference in prestige given to BizEcon over just straight Econ. However, this difference isn’t that large and will make no difference once you are out of school. From what I’ve learned and experienced, the school name/major/etc gets you foot in the door and your resume read for you first decent internship/job. After said internship, it’s all about the resume (work experience) and networking (if you hadn’t already networked like I did to get my job). PoliSci/Econ double major is actually very common, so I don’t think the class load will be too rigorous whatsoever, and yes, the BizEcon major does have a few extra classes. They slightly altered the requirements after I was in the major but I believe it is roughly an extra 4 classes overall for BizEcon (but, you get 2 less econ and substitute with 6 acct classes). </p>

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<p>If I could go back, I would have probably chosen a different school. Well, not really, because UCLA was the best for the money and 50k/year for school wasn’t exactly feasible or reasonable (like 30k/year is anyways). Wouldn’t have changed majors because I’ve always liked accounting. To be fair, I’ve always had a pessimistic view towards school. It’s total crap. I learned very little and spent a ton to get a piece of paper that proves to society I can jump over an arbitrarily created hurdle that will allegedly “lead to a better life”.</p>

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<p>I definitely think I could have gotten a similar internship, it just would have been harder and required alot more effort on my part. UCLA definitely gives alot of resources, many career fairs and business oriented items, I just never really took advantage of them because I commuted from sophomore to senior year and driving over an hour one way to network from 6-9pm just wasn’t really realistic. </p>

<p>As for the permanent position, you earn that. I can tell you for a fact I earned my spot against all odds. The HR lady at the firm isn’t the fondest of me (partner neighbor basically said you are giving this kid an internship) and I only was able to work part time (other interns were slightly older and worked full time, but I still cranked out over 30% more work than the next highest person and the quality of said work improved and by the end was the best of the bunch.</p>

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<p>Do you think the Acct minor is worth it and can be completed in 2 years? I am transferring from another UC and have a few of the pre reqs done but I am a history major.</p>

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<p>That’s funny! I’m a political science major and I’m considering (I’m almost convinced) that I’m going to do business economics as a double major. I guess I’ll be seeing you around campus.</p>

<p>I forgot to thank you. I’m considering the double major and I’m sure this thread is going to help me out.</p>

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<p>You can definitely finish the accounting minor in two years and without being a bus econ major, especially with all the lower div stuff already done. I wasn’t a bus econ major–I decided that I was not impressed by the econ part of the program through my limited experience with it–but I did the acctg minor with no regrets. You’ll probably want to finish MGMT 1A, 1B, 120A, 120B as soon as possible because you must take these classes in sequence and they are pre reqs for a couple others that you may find you’ll need or want (123, 124, 126, 128).</p>

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<p>Definitely. Personally, I found that alot of the information overlapped and after the first few classes, I was able to develop an intuition and basically you can infer what is supposed to happen. However, lots of people find accounting hard, so it really just depends on how you adapt to it and what interest you have in the subject. Personally, it is one of the few academic things I enjoy so that made it easier. (I enjoy accounting/tax/investing/econ concepts, not so much calculus and specific econ models).</p>

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<p>Not impressed with the econ department before, huh? That’s the first time I’ve heard that (sorry, forum sarcasm is rather difficult). But yes, definitely finish 1a/b and 120a/b ASAP as those are the “base” requirements for the other classes in the major.</p>

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<p>Thanks Guys for the insight into the Acct minor!</p>