<p>My daughter is very interested in Alabama. She has been admitted and is in honors college and has received a nice scholarship. We are actually at the campus right now. Love it by the way!!!tomorrow we do tours/meetings. </p>
<p>She is interested in pursuing a career as a doctor. We are from the Midwest. We have heard that Bama is wooing high achieving Midwest kids to boost its ranking. But after graduation these kids can’t find jobs outside of Alabama because others are not recognizing this. I am not too worried about this because she wants to go to med school but she could change her mind. Thoughts?</p>
<p>Med Schools care primarily about students’ GPA in required courses and their MCAT scores. Students who have both of these, even those who attended “lower ranked” schools, tend to do better in terms of med school admissions. UA is also one of the few large universities which write committee letters for med school applicants, which can be very beneficial.</p>
<p>I assume you’re concerned about jobs, not medical school (for which UA shouldn’t be an issue at all). Of course there is greater name recognition of schools in your own area than there is of schools in other parts of the country, and the better reputation of a school on the rise will be known in its own area before it’s known far away. Also, employers from the midwest are more likely to interview on campus at the flagships in the midwest, simply because there’s a critical mass of students who are interested in going to companies in that area. So a student at Alabama who wants to return to the midwest may need to work a little harder to find potential jobs and set up interviews, particularly with regional firms. It’s not as much of an issue with national companies, as one region can often interview for jobs in another. To be honest, I don’t think the reach of the career center at UA has kept up with its OOS population. But if you have good grades, take advantage of your opportunities and put forth the effort to find a job, I don’t think the fact that your degree is from UA is going to be a big negative. My expectation is that my business major D would have an easier time finding a job in Chicago if she was graduating from UIUC than from UA, but who knows if she’ll even want to end up in Chicago? I’m more concerned with right now, and I’m convinced that UA is a better fit for her.</p>
<p>Much will depend on your D’s major. Seriously. If she’s an accounting major, then the Big Four recruit at Bama and she might end up anywhere. </p>
<p>If she’s an eng’g major, she could end up at Cummings Research Park, Texas, Florida or somewhere else. </p>
<p>One of the students who used to post here will be graduating in May with her degree in MIS. She’s been offered a very good job in Texas. She’s from PA.</p>
<p>As you may know, at virtually every college, about 75% of freshman premeds never end up applying to med school. Sometimes it’s because the student changes his/her mind, often it’s because of grades or MCAT score. </p>
<p>Having a “back up” career plan is always a good idea. That means having a major that translates well into another career.</p>
<p>When my son was at Bama, he chose Chemical Eng’g as his premed major just in case he changed his mind about med school. Working in that industry interested him enough that it would have been a satisfying career alternative. He’s in med school now, so it didn’t matter in the end…but it could’ve.</p>
<p>We’re from Indiana. After his freshman year, my S got an internship in a suburb of Chicago. We had no personal connections and found the opportunity through numerous and extensive internet searches. I agree that the career center hasn’t kept pace with the growth of the school and the number of OOS students, so it may take more leg work on your part to find opportunities in other areas. However the opportunities are there. Aside from internet searches, students can make connections in other areas through professional organizations, conferences, and I personally like to look at what businesses are interviewing at the colleges in the region my son wants to work in and have him contact them directly and explain that he’s VERY interested in their opportunites, but unfortunately they don’t interview at his school. You may also find that after 4 years at Bama that it becomes your D’s new home and she wants to stay there. My son’s now in his 2nd year and considering doing a co-op, he’s indicated that a benefit of doing a co-op in that area is that he might later get a job offer to stay there.</p>
<p>At the end of his business internship last summer (junior year) my son had a job offer in hand from the company, which is a large, national brand headquartered in the Midwest. </p>
<p>The job offer was for a position in Alabama with easy opportunity to subsequently transfer/be promoted to positions in all 50 states and/or numerous international destinations. The starting salary was equivalent to being offered a position at $90,000+ annually in his home town (Honolulu). </p>
<p>He declined the offer to pursue a dream in his second major (Telecommunication & Film). He’s a senior now. I’ll keep y’all posted on the outcome.</p>
<p>We are also in the process of comparing the colleges DS is accepted to, & use their career center reports which usually include data on salaries, salary by major, % employed within 6 months, % heading to grad school, etc. Some list employers as well. Others have a different section on their websites listing which employers will attend recruiting events. That helps us see if the recruiting in DS’s major is regional or national/international.</p>
<p>At Bama you will find that info for the colleges of Engineering and Business in their First Destinations report at [The</a> Career Center](<a href=“http://career.ua.edu/employers/firstDestination.cfm]The”>http://career.ua.edu/employers/firstDestination.cfm). If your student’s major is in Engineering or Business, you can take that info and compare it to other colleges to get a snapshot of career/grad school prospects at this point in time. </p>
<p>I also called Bama’s career center and spoke with a counselor there who has worked in career counseling for 30 years (at Bama and other colleges). I specifically asked about whether Engineering job offers were mainly from regional employers and for Engineering that answer is “no”. They have companies from all states attending their career events for Engineering and have actually focused on increasing national presence from employers over the last several years.</p>
<p>Hello all, THANK YOU for your posts (I could not get into app over weekend - still can not - am looking at this on my PC). First of all I am happy to report that my DD is going to Bama this fall! She is so excited and I don’t think I could have talked her out of it had I wanted to (and believe me I DID NOT want to). We both loved everything about her visit - from the college feel, dorms, meeting with profs, honors college, pre-health advisor and the tour. One big thing she did take away from her visit is that she does not HAVE to be a Biology major to do pre-med (I told her this but it takes someone else for her to listen to this). Her plan is to start in Biology with a double major in Spanish - and she may switch. I am new to all of this - she is my oldest and I am new to the site so please bear with me if I ask something that has been covered before.</p>
<p>Also Mom2collegekids, special shout out for really being an invaluable resource to us. PS: Yes, she IS a bio major right now but that may change, especially after reading what you wrote above :(.</p>
<p>for pre-med, major in tiddlywinks and take the required prereqs. except, if the medschool plan doesn’t work out, you are left with a major of tiddlywinks.</p>