Tepper School of Business

I think the most important thing is you are surrounded by really smart and down to earth people who are willing to cooperate and help each other. Class sizes are really small and professors are amazingly accessible by providing multiple emails, phone numbers and office hours. The workload is really tough and conditions are harsh, maybe throughout the years you sometimes even regret your decision however you know that you are spending your 4 years at the right place and you are doing the right thing if you are going to college for knowledge and personal growth.

Give more attention to students not trying to engage in finance. Also, give students skills that they can use to get a job. A lot of the teaching is wonderfully complex and in depth but as a senior I know an enormous amount about strategy but am not that well equipped to execute on data mining and market research that my first job will demand, far before i work my way up into a corner office where I can make sweeping strategic decisions for multinationals. Teach us research-oriented skills earlier.

The Tepper school of Business is very quantitatively driven. In that sense, no matter if you end up tracking in a more qualitative concentration, you will have received, from core required courses, a very strong foundation in analytical problem solving.

Grading is extremely harsh in some classes, which means GPA's may be lower then other schools even though students in CMU's program know the material better.

What makes Tepper unique is the caliber of student, the diversity of student interest (in Tepper and beyond), and the absolutely grueling standards that professors impose. Despite that, students are always willing to collaborate throughout the heavily case based curriculum and are never cut throat. Tepper students can out analyze anyone and critical thinking becomes a reflex, even more than a skill by the end of 4 years.

The program should be more rigorous and should emphasize the quantitative components of the curriculum more, especially the significance of some of them in a broader context.

The program is small and more quantitatively focused than other business programs.

While I had the opportunity to study abroad during my time in Tepper, I know many other business students who never seriously considered participating in international exchange. I believe my business program can encourage studying abroad much more since I gained immense value from my time abroad.

I would say what makes it unique is the fact that it makes students have a broad understanding of business as a whole before they become specialized. Often, I see a lot of students at other schools already pursuing a specific industry before they have a general understanding of business. In addition, at our school we are all required to get an additional minor or major. I think this makes us think past just the business program and ensures that we become more well rounded.

One thing that would make Tepper stronger is improving the Accounting offerings. At the undergrad level, there are very few accounting classes available, and I have heard feedback that this is a weakness for graduates at times. The other improvement comes in terms of alumni and recruiting. Since CMU is such a quantitative school, a lot of the alumni are in more of Sales and Trading type roles, and a lot of employers come to recruit for more quantitative positions. This results in a weak alumni base in other fields such as Investment Banking, and thus makes employment and connections in this area much more difficult to come by.

The business program requires all students to take classes in each field of business before choosing a concentration that the student delves further into (for example, required introductory courses like marketing, finance, accounting, management information systems, etc.). The program also does an excellent job in working with the career development center to prepare its students in finding an internship or a full-time job. In particular, Tepper hosts "Wednesday Night Insights," which invites speakers and representatives of different companies to speak each week about a certain business track.

Though there are many opportunities to explore different fields, I feel that the school does not push students to fully examine their career paths and discern if they are following it for the right reasons.

The small size allows for a more personal learning atmosphere, allowing for students to build professional networks with both faculty and students.

We are very quantitatively based, and because the entire university has such an emphasis and culture of technology, most students can step out into a job with more tech savvy than the average student, which makes them better equipped for high performance and often impresses managers whose other reports do not have the same knowledge or ability.