Scheduling Classes at Tech

<p>I was wondering if anyone was aware of any historically easy courses at GA Tech?</p>

<p>I ask not because I plan on going the easy route, it's really the opposite. For one, it's my first year, so I don't want to overload my schedule and set myself up for failure. I want to build up some experience and acclimate to college life before taking on more challenging work. Secondly, and maybe more importantly, I want to keep the HOPE and Zell Miller Scholarships. For those who don't know, HOPE and Zell are state lottery funded scholarships that pay full tuition for Georgia Residents, provided you're college GPA doesn't fall below a 3.0. I'm really counting on these two scholarships to pay for my schooling, since it would be next to impossible for my family to afford Tech completely out of pocket.</p>

<p>I plan to major in either Business (with a possible double-major in Economics as well) or Industrial Engineering. Any thoughts?</p>

<p>Hello, I am a new transfer at Tech, but I am very experience in college. I have a masters degree in economics. I am going to tech because I am changing careers for business/econ to math/computer science. </p>

<p>As far as scheduling classes goes, for a freshman you will be taking the standard first year classes. For example (and I am not to familiar what the required first year classes are since it has been a long time since I had to take them) you will take English I, go ahead and take a history or social science, and by all means get one of the maths out of the way.</p>

<p>Really the difficulty is going to be introduced in how many classes you take. I personally believe that anyone that is admitted to tech is a great student. So you can handle just about any class they have available to you. The question is can you manage your time efficiently enough. If you only took two classes then you probably would get higher grades than if you took 5 classes. So my advice would be to take the minimum you can and still be full time, 12-13 hours.</p>

<p>Also, I have never understood why someone would go to tech for business or any social science. When I was at FASET and they called for the liberal arts school and business schools to leave the auditorium for advisement I bet half the room stood up. You are at one of the best engineering / STEM schools in the world. Ga Tech is not one of the best business / liberal arts schools. The only reason I can see why a student in liberal arts or business would go to Tech is for the name recognition. I just don’t get it. </p>

<p>Go for the Industrial Engineering!! But above all, do some soul searching and see what it is that you really enjoy.</p>

<p>Sorry to Highjack your thread Joel but I can’t let @homeSickFungus go without a reply. If you ask Bud Peterson he will tell you that the Ivan Allen School of Liberal Arts is truly unique. It is a great combination of traditional liberal arts with technology.
In my D’s case she didn’t feel like UGA was a good fit, she is very good at STEM subjects -but did not want to be an engineer. She enjoys being with smart kids, likes technology and loves the urban campus. It was a very good fit for her. Oh yes -and it is tuition free (Zell Miller). I think that sometimes having an experience that you can afford and enjoy rather than going for the best in a ranking. </p>

<p>@ Veruca Thank you for your post! My D originally planned to study in the Ivan Allen college of liberal arts, but changed to BME just before FASET, in part due to the mindset stated above. She is very likely to change back, but is taking a schedule that will allow her to go either way. She did not even apply to UGA because it was such a bad fit. Tech is a great fit for her for all the reasons you stated. Also, those in liberal arts/business are more likely to keep the Zell/hope. 40% of freshman lose it.</p>

<p>@joel96 We went to the BME advisement session and they said " don’t accept your non STEM AP credits and take those at Tech to help with your GPA" We’re not doing that.</p>

<p>^ Thanks for the input guys.</p>

<p>One of the things I’ve been considering is job prospects after graduation. I love finance and economics. My dream job would be something in the financial sector (private equity, consulting, trading, etc.). One of my concerns about the IE major is that it may set me on a different course career-wise. Would a finance sector company really hire an IE major over a Finance, Business, or Econ major?</p>

<p>Also, Tech offers a BS in Industrial Engineering with a concentration in Financial Systems. At the risk of sounding ignorant, what is that? It sounds like applied math-meets-finance, which would be great, but I could be wrong.</p>

<p>Does this help? <a href=“http://www.catalog.gatech.edu/colleges/coe/isye/ugrad/bsie/bsie-efs.php”>http://www.catalog.gatech.edu/colleges/coe/isye/ugrad/bsie/bsie-efs.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>I’ve actually been obsessing with the course catalogs for a while now. ;)</p>

<p>@Stilltay‌ : That advice about the AP credit is so dumb. Grading in intro. science courses at many selective colleges (especially in physics and math courses at schools like NC State, VT, and Georgia Tech) is such that AP credit will give an advantage, but will not guarantee much. Many intro. Science courses at places like Tech are designed with the fact in mind that maybe 50% of the students either have AP credit or at least took the AP equivalent of the course, so they make those classes hard enough to even give those students a nice little run for the money and perhaps even the playing field a bit. If person who places out of calc. 2 goes to calc. 3, the instructor of calc. 3 is not necessarily taking into account the level at which calc. 2 was taught or how many AP students they typically cater to, they are just simply teaching multivariable calculus. They certainly expect students to have command of the per-requisites, but perhaps not at the level at which they are taught or assessed by instructors teaching them. There is much less of a “must make sure students are prepared for advanced courses” or “must weed students out” mentality. I mean curves set to 2.0-2.6 (as are some calc. 1/2 and physics 1/2 sections are) is unusually low for a student body as strong as Tech’s to be explained away by “well, the students just don’t know how to learn”. Those courses are being made far more difficult than normal. Retaking biology or chemistry over there on the other hand, is a different story (though the multiple choice style of chemistry 1211/1212 may hurt more than help some students, even those with AP credit. Same goes for biololgy). in general, the latter 2 intro. courses at Tech seem relatively standard in comparison to AP with some differences, but not ones making them significantly more intensive than the AP/IB version. AP versions of Physics and Calc. don’t really come close however. </p>

<p>@Joel96‌ If you want to work in finance then you have a few good options. My first undergrad was in finance, and I worked in banking for several years before getting a masters in econ. If you want to work in banking, especially at the local and regional level, then get a degree in finance or economics. Economics really won’t prepare you for what you will be doing in banking nearly as much as finance will. If you want to work in in consulting or something like an analyst for a big firm then you want to study a lot of math. An applied math degree with some sort of minor in finance would be more suited. If you want to work as a trader then you just want sales experience. A lot of it is just who you know really. I loved finance when I was working on my first undergrad. When I started actually working in the field I hated it. But that was just my experience.</p>

<p>^ That’s helpful, thanks. So for an analytic/finance-type job, how would a BSBA - Finance from Tech compare to IE? I’d assume a business degree from Tech would be math-intensive by nature (it is Tech after all), but would IE be better for something along those lines?</p>

<p>If you want to be an analyst, like someone who works on wallstreet for the big investment firms, then I would suggest a minor or even a major in mathematics. If you didn’t want to do that, then a degree in physics would probably be better IMHO than IE. A lot of people that end up on wallstreet in big firms come from extremely analytic backgrounds such as physics. But, IE is also a very analytic field. The key is to become exposed to as much upper level math as possible. Knowing how to solve problems and building up an appropriate set of tools is important, but in a more general sense, learning math changes the way you think about the world and problems. You should also take a lot of stats and prepare yourself for graduate school. Graduate school is really where you will learn the finance. People who have a background in mathematics usually do really well in graduate school. I had an undergrad in finance. I went to graduate school for economics and struggled b/c I didn’t have the mathematical exposure. It is much easier to learn math in undergrad and then economics / finance in graduate school compared to the other way around.</p>

<p>You really think Tech is not a good business school? Do you realize that it is ranked in the top 40 undergrad business schools? </p>

<p>@Russelm0704: Always keep in mind the ridiculous people you could be talking to. Some only view “good” as like 25 or higher. It’s depressing, but true. With that said, it is pretty damned good and the courses from my understanding are very unique and build exposure to relevant problems geared toward more Tech oriented fields, just as majors like International Affairs/Studies over there are much more interesting for the same reason. </p>