STUDENT COMMENTS
The W.P Carey School of Business has provided opportunities for me to strengthen my leadership skills and develop business skills that I will carry with me long after I leave ASU. The Rodel Scholars Program puts undergraduate students to work on one of Arizona's biggest problems: the dropout rate. Through Rodel we address this issue from a business perspective. The Pat Tillman Leadership Through Action Program helps students write their own legacy while studying the legacy of Pat! It is focused on developing knowledge and skills that help students align their passions effectively with meaningful action-oriented service work. It is real-world opportunities such as these, as well as numerous case competitions and numerous other programs and organizations that have made my college years and education so much richer! These opportunities, combined with my education at W.P. Carey, have led me to the internship of my dreams this summer at ESPN.
Initially, I was very unhappy with the business school. I felt like just a number. As you focus on your major the classes get much smaller and the subject matter becomes more engaging. One problem is that there is no reward for taking a challenging class. If the pass/system could be implemented I feel that it would help push students to take more channeling classes. Hardly any worthwhile connections were developed at ASU.
The professors at ASU are wonderful and many have an in-depth personal knowledge of the business world and experiences related to the subject matter. I also had the opportunity to take a great class with Dean Mittlestaedt during my final semester. Not many college students have this access to the Dean or the opportunity to learn from his experiences.
I feel the teaching staff and material here is giving me an edge over some of my classmates whom I graduated behind in high school. I think this is a direct reflection of teachers such as Eddie Davila, Michele Pfund, and Steven Brown, who are very committed to the success of every single one of their students, inside and outside of the classroom.
Horrible advising. Do not prepare you for classes or to graduate. Leave it entirely up to the student. Might as well get rid of advising, because it does not exist already. Very, very, very poor administrative staff. The only thing that got me a job was my accounting degree, CPA eligibility, and my finance degree. Did not interview on campus or through the school at all, made my own contacts to employers. Career services will not help you unless you are staying in Arizona to work.
The coures and assignments rely so heavily on teams that there are students riding the coattails of other students. Most professors teach out of books and provide little training or preparation for real world business environments. More training in techniques and skills such as forecasting, demand management, advanced Microsoft Excel would be valuable additions to the program. Student advisers are also worthless. They are poorly trained and have no knowledge or advice not found in the course schedules.
Class sizes in many business classes are enormous. I had many classes with over 200 students. This is a major distraction to the learning process.
Progressing in the right direction, however the quality of the students and sheer volume makes the school uncompetitive in comparison to many of the institutions it seeks to emulate. Resources are stretched, meaning large class sizes (50-plus, even in upper-division major classes), low levels of professor interaction, and nonexistent career placement services (staff of three for 7,000 students). The insitution seeks to better its academic reputation yet is under a university-wide mandate to accept as many students as possible and keep tuition at the lowest possible cost.
To give students what they think is a well-rounded education, they force students to take classes that are not directly in their degree field like marketing, supply chain management, and international business. These classes tend to be ridiculous because they are taught by uncaring professors. I think that they need to improve their program.
The college strongly emphasizes teamwork in all of its classes. This experience worries me because many students seem to suffer from social loafing and assume that other team members will complete the work. However, this does seem to separate the stronger students from the lesser students.
I have enjoyed the selection of classes in the finance curriculum although there could be more courses that focus on capital markets and in-depth corporate finance such as valuation of companies and merger-and acquisition analysis. I understand that ASU is attempting to expose its undergraduates to the investment banking industry but I feel that some courses do not focus much on this area.
ASU offers not only the academic initiative needed to propel students towards independent endeavors, it also provides the means financially, through grants and scholarships, and resources both human and nonhuman, to foster entrepreurship in business students. This is a combination of ASU organizations' help and the business school directly.
I walked out of the W. P. Carey School of Business with more than just a degree in Business Management. I learned how to work effectively in a team and on my own. I learned how to network with individuals and create lasting business relationships. I also gained a confidence level that I never thought that I could have.
Meeting the right people through my campus allowed me to secure interviews with top consulting firms—A.T. Kearney (received full-time offer) and McKinsey (still interviewing)—that normally would not recruit on campus. The career services center is making great strides in building alumni relationships, but it definitely could be better. I had to work hard to get these interviews.
Arizona State University has a beautiful self-contained main campus that allows students to walk to classes without driving from building to building. This is a huge plus for the college experience. The large student body means that each student will find a group they can connect with if they put in a small effort to reach out. The university is very aware of this and has gone to great lengths to promote student involvement. Also, the manner in which the university is run is very much like a business. This is very rare from a public university and deserves some recognition, as it has been extremely effective in growing our school and local economy.
ASU is definitely
not a party school like people believe it to be.
The only thing I think needs to be improved is the academic advising. There should be a better adviser-to-student ratio so that it is easy to contact them and they know your exact situation. There were many mixups with me. If a student takes the correct classes they should be able to graduate with a major and even two minors but advisers do not stay in touch with students to make sure they are taking the correct classes.
Students can be a bit apathetic and it has worn off on to some teachers. The coursework is usually not very challenging. If you apply yourself though and spend time getting to know the advisers and mentors on campus, you can find ample help to prepare you for life after graduation.
Arizona State University is so large that no one cares about the individual student needs. They don't care about any one student. It was hard to find the person I wanted to talk with and even harder to get time for them to do their job. I am only here because it is close to my family.
Our school is underrated in the rankings. I know everyone says that, but I have been in challenging programs throughout my life, visited other universities, and met their students. Our professors will challenge us before they inflate our grades like other universities have been known to do to make their graduates competitive in the job market and postgraduate schools. Even though they challenge us rigorously, they still maintain an open door policy and try to make available every resource possible. I feel like I stole money, getting the education and experiences I did for the low cost of in-state tuition.
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