<p>I just finished my freshman year at a small public college in southwest Missouri. I'm majoring in finance and I have a 4.0 GPA. I know that I will graduate debt-free. </p>
<p>I have a few concerns about my college. 1. There are very few people (that I've met) who actually care about learning anything. 2. It isn't AACSB-accredited. 3. It doesn't offer Arabic. </p>
<p>I just expected that people would be more competitive with their grades. After all, they're competing for jobs. I also feel like my classes are easier than the ones I took in high school. </p>
<p>My college is accredited by the Association of Collegiate Business Schools and Programs. Does anyone know anything about it? Will it affect how future employers view me? </p>
<p>Since I was 14, I have wanted to learn Arabic. My college doesn't offer it. I bought Alif Baa and I'm trying to teach myself, but it's really difficult. </p>
<p>My parents and I made a deal: I can graduate debt-free with a BSBA in finance and a minor in accounting and I can spent a year and a half in Middle East. Hopefully, I can get a job (preferably in D.C.) and save up so I can attend graduate school. I would like to go to Fletcher at Tufts.</p>
<p>Does this sound better than transferring to the University of Missouri or Grinnell College and being who knows how much in debt?</p>
<p>You might post this in college majors or something for feedback. I’m not sure AACSB matters too much for undergrad as long as your college is Regionally Accredited. </p>
<p>As for transferring, it sounds like a good idea in your case if you can make the money work out. Clearly you have well defined valid reasons. </p>
<p>Instead of wondering about the money, run the NPC and see what it looks like for those colleges. the NPC is meant for freshmen but it should give you a good idea. </p>
<p>You’d have to have some Arabic down because they don’t offer it as a beginner course, but they do offer it as an advanced beginner.</p>
<p>My friend taught herself German in a matter of a couple of months, and basically she practices every day with different apps for vocabulary and grammar as well as listens to German programming and talks to actual German people quite a bit. If you did that, you’d be able to get at least to advanced beginner. You also could see if a local community college or state school offers Arabic in the summer and take a course.</p>
<p>Don’t take on debt. Just don’t do it. There’s no guarantee that you will be any happier at any other schools. You seem like you’ve got a pretty good situation now. And also, the less debt you have, the more options you have after you graduate.</p>
<p>University of Missouri lists it cost as about $23K/year and some of that is padded with the 3K personal expenses and transportation. So you could get by on even less. I’m guessing you got a sizeable scholarship to go to your current school, and now you understand why. Its to attract students that wouldn’t normally enroll. </p>
<p>If most kids are just marking time and don’t care about what they learn, do you think that future employers are unaware of that? That they haven’t hired grads in the past and been disappointed with their performance? If I were you I’d go to the career center and find out who recruits on campus, find out where grads from the recent classes have been hired. And if they can’t/won’t tell you that, there’s a message too. </p>
<p>Whether you stay at this school or go somewhere else, you should know that in business a real key to getting a good start out of college is to have held some internships in college. That is something you could be working on now.</p>
<p>Given your interest in Fletcher you ought to be talking with them regarding how your plans stack up with what they look for in candidates. Their website lists numerous sessions across the country where you can meet with a rep, as well as online sessions. Talk about your plans, your degree, what you’d be doing that time in the Middle East (your current plan) and ask them where that would put you in the applicant pool. I honestly have no idea what they look for, but I do know that for places like MBA programs they look for work experience that demonstrates responsibility and achievement.</p>
<p>Mikemac: I stopped by the career center last week and asked to see a list of employers that normally hired graduates and I was told that I couldn’t access it. </p>
<p>However, my friend, who is in charge of maintaining the university’s website, was able to email it to me. </p>
<p>Seriously, there were only 12 business majors who graduated in May 2013. There are 5,500 students at my university. Only 2 out of the 12 had “real” jobs and those were working as tellers at a local bank. </p>
<p>I’m actually working on getting a summer job at a bank as a teller and I will be taking summer classes.</p>
<p>I plan to either intern somewhere next summer or attend an intensive summer Arabic program at UT- Austin. </p>
Given what you say about your fellow students and how easy your classes are, its not a surprise that employers have caught on.</p>
<p>I don’t want to say its impossible to build a good career starting from your current college. But it sure doesn’t sound like it gets a lot of love from employers, either. If I were in your shoes I’d seriously consider looking into a different college, provided it didn’t mean taking on a huge amount of debt.</p>
<p>Do not get a job as a teller. It’s not viewed well by employers with regards to finance. Get an internship in pwm. If I were you, I’d do my best to transfer to the most prestigious school possible. Finance is the one area where prestige matters more than the price if loans are an option. Nobody will take you seriously if you stay at the college you’re currently at. </p>
<p>I don’t understand why you aren’t spending some of this 1-1/2 years in the middle east money on getting into a better college now. It seems the free price is a little too high in your case. A little debt for you is worth it. There is a huge difference in a little debt vs a ton of debt. What do the numbers look like?</p>
<p>nickxx: My parents don’t see the value in me getting an unpaid internship. I work on campus during the school year, but my parents think I can handle two online summer courses and working 40 hours a week. I’m also applying to Subway and a local grocery store. </p>
<p>I told them last night that I’m still going to apply to transfer to the University of Missouri (I plan to major in finance and minor in strategic studies) and to Grinnell College (I plan to double major in economics and global development studies.)</p>
<p>BrownParent: My current college is a member of ISEP and I could spend a year at the American University of Sharjah while paying my current college’s tuition.</p>
<p>If I transfer to Mizzou, I probably would be $30,000 in debt. That’s if I get no financial aid and my parents don’t help. If I transfer to Grinnell, who knows how much debt I’ll be in. My parents just got divorced and my mom makes less than $50,000 a year. My dad hasn’t offered to pay. I probably would get some financial aid, but I know my mom would say I’m making a terrible decision if I take on more than $10,000.</p>
<p>By the way, my mom is a professor at my current college and she graduated from it too. </p>
<p>HelloImChelsea: This is your future. Nobody should be making decisions about what college you can go to or what job you can have. There are plenty of internships that are paid, but even if they’re unpaid it’s still well worth it compared to working at subway or as a teller. My best advice would be to do your own research on what type of finance career you’d like to land out of college, find out what it takes to get there, then plan accordingly. I’d recommend WallstreetOasis as a great place to start. </p>
<p>It certainly appears that you have well though out reasons for wanting to transfer out of your current school.</p>
<p>As previous posters have stated, finance is an extremely prestige-driven field, however, neither Mizzou or Grinnell will help you get your foot into that field. Grinnell itself costs approximately $56,617 annually and most schools have little to no aid for transfers.</p>
<p>I am not a business major myself therefore I am unsure of how the lack of AACBS accreditation will be viewed by employers. I would recommend doing some individual research on this topic.</p>
<p>Since Arabic is not offered at your current school, would you be able to take summer classes at a community college or elsewhere? There are some great Summer Intensive Arabic programs to learn the language, I had several friends spend their summer at Middlebury’s Summer Language schools. They all highly recommend the Arabic language program. there is also a possibility that you can get the tuition funded by your home institution. I would also do some research into applying for the Boren Scholarship and the Critical Language Scholarship by the State Department. Both of these are tremendous opportunities that would provide you with funded Arabic language immersion abroad.</p>
<p>Since you are interested in attending graduate school, I would highly recommend avoiding undergraduate debt at almost all costs. You will find exceptional students at TOP graduate school programs who did not attend prestigious or well-known undergraduate institutions. You still have a shot at programs such as Fletcher, however, you will have to take advantage of all of the opportunities at your current school and become a STAR. Programs like Fletcher are looking for the best regardless of their academic upbringing. Additionally, alot of professional degrees place an emphasis on gaining work experience prior to graduate school, in this case the name of your undergraduate school would mean even less.</p>
<p>Feel free to pm me if you have any other questions. I am a rising senior looking to pursue similar graduate school aspirations.</p>
<p>dyiu13: I don’t think there are any American universities in Qatar, but several American universities like Carnegie Mellon and Texas A&M have campuses there. </p>
<p>There are thousands of paid internships in finance/banking every summer. I would recommend one of those.</p>
<p>Finance is not as prestige-based as many would have you believe. However, you do need to get a solid education. My B-I-L got his BS in Finance from a small state school and his MS from Arizona. He has been employed since day 1 after graduation.</p>
<p>I am a big fan of graduating with little or no debt, but the college has to offer the courses you wish to study. An alternative for you would be to take the Arabic from another school (summers or distance ed). </p>
<p>Cheap college is not always a value anymore than paying for prestige is a value-based decision. </p>