STUDENT COMMENTS
Penn State Smeal College of Business should be ranked as one of the top public business programs in the country, due to the numerous in-class and out-of-class learning opportunities inside and outside of the classroom.
By far, the best thing about Penn State's Smeal School of Business is the assistance they give you in finding an internship or job after you graduate. Penn State does the best possible job to help students find jobs after they graduate, and at excellent companies too.
Classes could be graded a little tougher, but the overall experience is excellent. Penn State gives you an excellent opportunity to succeed, but it is up to the student to seize it.
The people in career services are simply amazing. They really have their stuff together and help students out in an amazing way. I'm proud to be a part of Smeal.
All of the resources needed to succeed in business are available through the Smeal College of Business Administration if you have the initiative to take advantage of them.
Smeal's accounting program is extremely challenging and sufficiently prepares students for an accounting career. The workload, course difficulty levels, and practical application of materials learned in Smeal's accounting program seem to far exceed that of other business programs. When discussing the accounting curriculum at other business schools with peers in my intern class at PricewaterhouseCoopers, Smeal's program seemed much more challenging and other grading policies seemed more lenient. Smeal offers more courses in tax and forensic accounting, incorporates AICPA and Harvard Business School case studies, has a brand new state-of-the art facility, and very prestigious faculty members.
I have felt that the recruiting services at Penn State have been spectacular. I have felt in high demand since my junior year in the program. In addition to that, when I go in to the job market, I have met so many Penn State alumni in the companies that I have worked for. The network we build is incredible.
The brand new business building at Penn State provides students with any and everything possible to help students succeed in the most technologically advanced way to date. The new trading room is amazing!
The trading room at the Smeal College of Business is second to none. The real-life applications learned from the Nittany Lion Fund can be found at no other university.
The addition of a new business building in the past year has greatly improved the undergraduate business experience, both socially and academically. The classrooms are better-equipped with new technology, and the physical amphitheater setup allows professors to view students in the small setting. Now that business students all have their classes in a single building for the most part, they are able to connect with other classmates and professors simply by sitting in the atrium between classes.
One of the best parts about Smeal is the attention they place on internships and jobs. The number of companies who come to Penn State specifically because of their prior success with Penn State students is huge. And the alumni connections are also outstanding everywhere in the U.S.
The Smeal School of Business and the accounting program in particular have thoroughly prepared me for a full-time job at a CPA firm. Career services have helped me to recieve job offers with all the big four public accounting firms.
The Smeal School of Business in general is a great program. However, the system is flawed. Penn State has a set list of companies and firms they wish you to interview with. These given firms allow them to create the public imagethat they desire with no concern for the students' wants and desires. If you choose to look elsewhere for internships and jobs, Penn State will remove you from their career services list via e-mail. Typically you have one day to check, review, and assess this e-mail before Penn State takes their desired action.
Penn State has a great business program. I have learned a lot, networked with fellow students, teachers, and business professionals. Smeal has helped prepare me for my full-time job at PwC!
In recent years, the Smeal College has made tremendous strives toward helping prepare students to compete in the job market. Events such as "The Next CEO," dinners with top executives from Fortune 500 companies, and résumé/interview workshops with recruiters have helped students network and develop skills to become future leaders in business. The brand new trading room offers students the chance to work with financial software such as Bloomberg, FTS, and Reuters. This state-of-the-art room helps students research and analyze companies for consideration in the $4.5 million Nittany Lion Fund LLC portfolio.
Penn State's Alumni Assn. is another huge benefit of graduating from Penn State. There is a lot of loyalty among Penn State grads, and Penn State has the largest alumni association in the country. Throughout your career you will benefit because of relationships with other Penn State alumni.
Two major complaints about the Smeal College of Business. Although it is somewhat understandable to me why the school has so many requirements in the classes students must take (diverse understanding in how businesses function), I definitely felt as though I did not get to simply take classes that interested me as much as I would have liked. Also, the school does an excellent job at attracting companies to recruit here. but I think the diversity of those companies is pretty poor. For example, there are an extremely small number of retail companies at the career fairs. It seems as if most of the companies are accounting, finance, or insurance-based. Other than those two things, I have had an excellent college experience at PSU.
Finance classwork is geared more towards careers in corporate finance or sales and trading professionals. There is a lack of investment banking strategies taught, but this can be offset by extracurricular activities like clubs, as well as very strong networking links between students and professionals on Wall Street.
I am enrolled in a particularly new major in Penn State. I thought that the courses I've taken would prepare me well for career in project management but as I've searched for full-time jobs these past months, I am discouraged. It was hard trying to find a job with a major in Management Information Systems (MIS) because many companies that came to campus to recruit did not know of this major or did not offer any positions for this major. When I did find some campanies hiring MIS students, they required very technical skills that we had only learned about in class but do not have. I think the Smeal College need to improve the curriculum to fit the needs of MIS students.
Penn State really has everything and anything a student could want from a campus, you just have to be responsible enough to take advantage. They have a great internship placement program, which helped many of us get placed with jobs before we even began our senior year. I have loved every second at this school and I believe that it truly earns its nickname "Happy Valley."
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