STUDENT COMMENTS
I and most of my friends have found well-paying full-time jobs with Fortune 500 companies through the university career placement network (PantherTracs) before graduating.
Being both a Finance and Marketing major, I have found the Finance program, faculty, and classes to be extremely strong and I have been absolutely happy with my experience. On the other hand, the Marketing experience has been subpar in all of those same areas and other students have shared my same feelings.
The business school covers all aspects of the business education. We are required to take courses to make us well-rounded, and we are also taught communication and cooperation skills. There is a business floor in our freshman dorms that I was chosen to live on, which also offered more networking opportunities.
While group projects are used a lot at the University of Pittsburgh, it is not always a group effort to complete projects. On many occasions I have been in groups where group members either did minimal work or no work at all and still received the same grade (free riders). In Marketing Management, which is a required class for Marketing majors, I went as far as complaining all the way to the Dean's office. Despite what I said about three group members' lack of participation in the semester's projects, I and one other group member were forced to complete the project ourselves and the others passed the class without doing any of the project (the project was 40% of the overall grade). A lot of students at the University of Pittsburgh are getting a free ride and professors are letting it happen.
I think that the leadership and development office needs to make some changes. I feel that they could do a better job at helping students. They are understaffed and need to be more readily available to students.
There are many business clubs and organizations to become involved in. I am involved in Alpha Kappa Psi and it was very helpful both academically and socially. It is just one of the many organizations available in Pitt's College of Business Administration.
Terrible job placement efforts. Same companies for every corporate recruiting event; very little diversity.
Faculty is very approachable and challenges students to reach their full potential.
Pitt's undergraduate program does an excellent job of preparing its students for the real world. They encourage growth and leadership. If I were to graduate college and not have a job it would be no one's fault but my own.
I learned more in my first four weeks at my internship than I did in four years at Pitt. I felt the business major coursework seemed to cater specifically to management issues, which is something I have no interest in pursuing. Of all the classes I took, I believe that only two of my finance courses (investment management and futures and options) and a sales course will help me to any extent in my career.
Pitt is a very fast-growing business program. I have had the opportunity to work with individuals from other business schools throughout the country and I strongly feel that Pitt can compete with the best of them. Whereas other programs have been around for quite a long time, Pitt is relatively new and still very competitive. It seems that a lot of programs around the country have plateaued or declined, where Pitt seems to grow and bring in increasingly bright, talented students.
I was given more assistance by professors than our career services department (within the Business School) when looking for connections for job.
The major advantage of the College of Business Administrative is the numerous opportunities to develop your skills as a leader. Throughout my college career, I have had the opportunity to attend leadership trainings, strategic planning meetings, conferences, and other events to personally develop myself outside of the classroom.
Something that I have learned in college (and I'm sure you see it in every college) is that cheating is so easy. I see a handful of my peers cheating on exams all the time, which is very unfair to the students who actually try to learn course material. Other than that, Pitt is a great campus, the people are nice, and the education prepared me for my future.
In terms of the finance program, the recruiting efforts and job opportunities are regional (PNC, Mellon, etc). Currently, there is no recruitment from New York, especially in the investment banking industry. However, through alumni network and faculty network, I was able to obtain an investment banking internship, followed by a full-time offer, at Jefferies& Co. in New York City. I recently founded the Pitt Investment Banking Club in an effort to encourage Wall Street recruitment at Pitt. The club has been extremely beneficial to students currently seeking investment banking opportunities. As of now, both Citigroup and Jefferies have given corporate presentations to the Investment Banking Club.
The College of Business Administration and the University of Pittsburgh have provided me with several opportunities. I have had the chance to join a business fraternity, become an active leader in the fraternity, and network with various companies. My business school is like a home away from home where I can study, check e-mails, meet with groups, or socialize with classmates and faculty. The job fairs and internship fairs they host are the reason I was offered a job in September of my senior year. Being enrolled in Pitt's business school has made my four years of college a true joy and success.
Finance classes need to be more quantitative. Too many Arts and Sciences requirements.
The program does not have the best career development program and often the companies that come are very Pittsburgh-centric. I interned for GE, who did not recruit from Pitt, and it was hard to interview with them because there were no resources from my school to work with. Also, because the career development office is so small (two staff members and one administrative assistant), it's hard to get the one-to-one time you really need.
The faculty and advisers really care for your well-being and success and will do all they can to help. There are a ton of networking events that allow students to make connections with corporations for jobs/internships. Great atmosphere for learning.
The University of Pittsburgh CBA program is excellent overall. The classes we take provide a well-rounded business education. The only major problems I ran into were administrative, and were eventually corrected.
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