School/Major Advice...Help please?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Michigan State University
1

<p>Hi there!
I am stuck on a question and would like some of you guys to weigh in on this/
I'm currently a freshman commuting at a small (albeit not bad), but not very well-known 4-year university and I'm getting straight A's. (I'm not trying to brag at all, intro gen. ed courses are not rocket science, and this also is not harvard, so calm down! ;).
Anyway, my question is this. I'm thinking about transferring to michigan state. The two considerations are 1) post-graduate job placement, and potentially 2) law school.
Would I be better off with
A) A top gpa from a small, relatively unknown 4-year university? or
B) A decent GPA (NOT BAD) but like a a 3.3-3.5 from MSU. At MSU I would look to get accepted into BROAD college of business hopefully.</p>

<p>One hand I've been told "stay where your at, get high grades, and you'll be golden"
And one the other hand I've been told "The career opportunites will be better with msu degree/better alumni network/job placement, etc."
Another issue is whether to major in communications where I will get a very high gpa, or be a business (finance)major (where I could do fine but not AS well) because more likely to find a job? Keep in mind, I am weak at math, but am also a very hard worker, so take that information for what its worth. Would a lower gpa with the harder major hurt law school chances. Law school is an option but BY NO MEANS am I deadset on it, especially if I can get a good career started with an undergrad degree.</p>

<p>I guess I'm curious what the DIFFERENCES will be in opportunites here? MSU vs lesser known school? GPA? business vs communications? Any help would be greatly appreciated! I know theres a LOT of information here and I'm sorry to bother everybody, but theres a lot of well-informed people on here and I would LOVE some opinions on these questions I'm raising. Thank you all in advance for responses.</p>

2

<p>Any thoughts? I really would like to hear some opinions! :)</p>

3

<p>This MSU board doesn’t seem to get a lot of traffic. You may want to re-post your question on one of the more general forums (College Search and Selection, maybe?). You may not get answers specific to MSU but you will likely hear opinions on the merits of attending a lesser known school with higher grades vs. a more well-known school with lower grades (although you may find you get just as good grades at MSU as you are currently getting.</p>

4

<p>studmuffin: i’m in the same dilemma. MSU for business or the smaller school i’m at for business?</p>

5

<p>Wdaveo: Thanks for the tip, however from other threads it seems like there a are quite a few regulars who are well-informed on the matters I’m asking about. Examples from what i’ve read would be romanpigseyes and fa-la-lena, kind of hoping they would weigh in.</p>

<p>Msufanx23: Glad to hear I’m not the only one with this issue. Have you heard any interesting opinions on this? Which way are you leaning?</p>

<p>More opinions would be appreciated, there have been plenty of views but feel free to chime in, all thoughts are welcomed and appreciated!! :)</p>

6

<p>Q: Would I be better off with a top gpa from a small, relatively unknown 4-year university? or a 3.3-3.5 GPA from MSU?</p>

<p>A: Just because you are at MSU doesn’t mean your GPA will drop from 3.9 or 4.0 to 3.3-3.5. You could maintain just as high grades at MSU…it might be slightly more challenging, but as long as you maintain a 3.5 cumulative GPA pretty much all career options are available to you. The Broad business school, while highly respected, is not excessively challenging by any means. My friends in Broad tend to have higher GPAs than most (accounting is probably the hardest major in Broad). If you really are sure your GPA will drop to 3.3-3.5 going to MSU then maybe it might be worth it to get the top GPA/stay at your current university. But if you are up for the challenge, go with MSU. Broad really has a great networking outreach -the MSU student finance and supply chain associations (among others) are super active, the Lear center (Broad career services) is great in getting students jobs, more than half of the job opportunities at our many career fairs are targeted towards broad business majors etc. </p>

<p>Q: majoring in communications vs. business</p>

<p>A: Definitely business, no question about it. You learn way more tangible skills in business, and broad business courses require you to be able to communicate. Plus, business fields are WAY more marketable overall= $$$. Communications would be good only if you went into the IT/technology side of communication. Otherwise generally a comm degree is considered a blow-off, too general for any particular career field (don’t get me wrong, many comm majors end up very successful, but the math doesn’t lie…their average starting salaries are substantially lower).</p>

<p>Another thing - you say you are relatively bad at math. Finance can be pretty numbers heavy. Just keep in mind that there are a lot of variety of business majors in Broad…general management, human resource management, marketing, and supply chain management among them (all with varying degrees of math associated with each). As a business major, you are required to take a long list of business core classes and you might find out that one of the other majors are better suited to your skillset. For the record, undergraduate supply chain management at MSU is ranked #1 in the country. If you are unfamiliar with it, it is a worthwhile program to look into. </p>

<p>Q: Would a lower gpa with the harder major hurt law school chances </p>

<p>A: Law school admissions depend on a lot more than just your GPA. Yeah, a substantially lower GPA might hurt your chances at the top law schools…but it depends on what quality of law school you want to get into in the first place. The Ivy league caliber law schools are going to require 3.7+ GPA minimum with an excellent LSAT, recommendations, and essay. If you are looking for top 30 ranked law schools, 3.5+ GPA and so on and so forth. The GPA isn’t an end-all. If your choice is 3.5 at MSU with a broad business degree vs. 3.8 at X college with a communications degree, I’d go with the business degree at MSU. But if you know your LSAT scores are going to be really mediocre, then the GPA becomes more important. Just have to weigh costs and benefits…hard to say one is better than the other objectively </p>

<p>This is coming from an international relations/economics senior who knows a lot about jobs/business, so take the information for what it’s worth… :P</p>

7

<p>studmuffin: I’m leaning towards staying at my school because I would like to go into accounting and my current school also has a decent accounting program. I also figured I’d be saving money by staying.</p>

<p>fa-la-la-la: Would it be smarter for me to stay at my current school and maintain between a 3.2-3.5 gpa in accounting or go to MSU and possibly never get the required 3.5 for accounting?</p>

8

<p>Msufanx, I’ve seen some previous posts of you and if I remember correctly you are at GVSU and thinking about MSU. Couple of things to think about:

  1. MSU does have a good accounting program but it is tough to get into the program (3.5)
  2. GVSU has a good accounting program which has AACSB International accrediation
  3. MSU has a great program for accounting, the main difference between GVSU and MSU would be in Big 4 accounting recruiting, MSU has the edge there
  4. GVSU focuses on the Grand Rapids market, and more mid sized firms. Of course you can still get into the Detroit market as well. MSU focuses on the Detroit market but sends a few people elsewhere
  5. If you really like MSU, you could always go there for a M.A.C. As for me, I’m heading to UT Knoxville next year. I liked GVSU a lot, but the Big 4 loves big colleges like MSU and UT Knoxville. They do recruit at GVSU, but they recruit more at UT Knoxville and MSU.</p>
9

<p>Thanks gvnee89 it’s good to hear advice from fellow GVSU accounting students. I understand where you’re coming from. I have no problem working in mid size firms as long as I can get a job after graduation. Also what would you recommend for me if I was hoping to brand off into forensic accounting?</p>

10

<p>msufanx23, if you are not certain you will have the 3.5 to get into the program at MSU you might as well just stick to your current university. It’d really stink to transfer and then discover that you can’t get into the major you want (especially if you are deadset on accounting). Gvnee89 gives good advice.</p>

11

<p>Msufanx - forensic accounting requires previous auditing/accounting experience. I don’t know how much experience but if I had to guess probably at least being a senior at an accounting firm. It takes about 3 years or so to be a senior at a firm, so after that you can become a forensic accountant.</p>

12

<p>Fa-la-lena, I just want to say that your response was wonderful and incredibly thorough. I really appreciate it.
One thing I am curious about, though, is the job prospects with a BA from Broad (excluding account.) Take a supply chain management graduate from. Would that person basically need to get an MBA in order to get a decent salary out of school or could he reasonably land something good right out of school? (generally speaking, because I know all situations are different.)</p>

13

<p>Studmuffin - supply chain management has probably the best placement of grads in the business college (and definitely in the top tier of undergraduate majors at MSU). My one friend who is graduating with me in May is a supply chain major and he is going to be making 65K starting salary as an international business consultant (according to him this is a salary on the lower end starting wise for the industry). Granted, he has a 3.7 GPA, is super smart/sociable and is also a double major in international relations so that might have helped his chances too). I’ve not heard anything bad about supply chain as a program at MSU at all. </p>

<p>At MSU it is relatively common knowledge that there are 2 majors that you are practically guaranteed a well-paying job in after graduation (no masters education necessary): these are supply chain management and packaging. If you have decent grades, social skills, at least one internship completed in undergrad and attend a couple company presentations or job fairs, you should have no problem finding a job making 50K minimum a year. MSU is one of the top schools for recruiting of these majors and thus the number of companies hiring specifically for supply chain/packaging majors at MSU is rather large.</p>

<p>Finance majors also have pretty good starting salaries coming out of undergrad (quite a few finance recruiters come to MSU too). The other business programs aren’t as well known but there are still opportunities out there to get a good starting salary in these as well without MBAs. Also, quite a few of the companies recruiting for Broad undergrads provide partial funding for masters degrees.</p>

14

<p>fa-la-la-lena: thanks
gvnee89: thanks I understand, but stop me if I’m wrong (I don’t know much about forensic accounting), but I’m sure I researched and found online that if you go to master’s program with schooling in forensic accounting and then get your C.F.A you’re certified to become a forensic accountant?</p>

15

<p>That may be the case msufanx, but I do know that you need prior audit experience to be a forensic accountant. You may need to be certified as well, but I remember talking to a forensic accountant and he said to start out as an auditor and then move into forensic accounting later.</p>