USC Marshall - Finance questions?

<p>I am a prospective freshman looking at quant finance/econ programs, and noticed that USC's program offers a BS in business administration, as opposed to the BA that I think most schools offer. I also took a look at a sample course schedule (<a href="http://students.marshall.usc.edu/undergrad/files/2012/05/BUAD-Marshall-curriculum-map-catalog-2012.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://students.marshall.usc.edu/undergrad/files/2012/05/BUAD-Marshall-curriculum-map-catalog-2012.pdf&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p>

<p>I have a few questions about the program then
- How well recruited is it for IB? VC?
- What typical careers do students go to?
- Is the free space enough to take an engineering minor (CS, specifically)?
- How is the OCR scene?</p>

<p>Thanks!</p>

<ol>
<li>USC is a semi-target, recruited quite well by IB but primarily for west coast(LA/SF) and Asia offices. There is also recruiting here for a lot of asset management, wealth management/private banking, and some S&T. USC is actually doing much better each year in this department. They have a NYC IB trip each fall that people go on and it is possible to go to NYC but much harder than if you were to go into a business program on the east coast so keep that in mind. Definitely join the TIS club which organizes all of the IB info session panels and has a IB mentor program.</li>
<li>Typical careers? IB, hedge/pe, S&T, wealth mgmt/private banking, corp finance are typical.</li>
<li>Coming in as a freshman yes there is free space and if you want to do financial engineering then you definitely should do it. There is a joint business/cs program available but you are technically a viterbi student and not marshall so you miss out on access to a lot of marshall recruiting/networking events so I’d suggest business with cs minor. For your upper level business do the valuations and investments classes for sure and then consider the derivatives, fixed income, or applied practicum in investment mgmt 2 course sequence.</li>
<li>OCR scene: Most of the banks/funds all do recruiting through OCR. It is pretty structured just like at any other business school with on-campus 1st round and 2nd round at firm office. All BB come here as well as a lot of boutiques and mid-market.</li>
</ol>

<p>If you decide not to do a cs minor, consider an accounting double major which is very popular for people chasing after IB. It is easy to do both since the lower level classes are the same. Our accounting major is one of the top programs in the country.</p>