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Author Topic: Anyone Here Have A Business Degree?
krynn
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I'm a marketing and finance student at Kennesaw State University. I could graduate in the summer of '08, but am now considering pushing that back to fall '08 to take on an internship and take a couple graduate level classes. I'm still considering it, and was wondering if it was better to finish school earlier, or go those extra 6 months and do an internship before I finish. Anyone in the business world have any thoughts?
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Architraz Warden
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I have an MBA, though I am currently not using it professionally.

I'd say go for the internship. If there is one thing that makes getting a job coming out of college easier, it's experience. Just the time spent working (and then classes afterwards to digest it some) is a bonus, but you'll create a fair number of contacts during your internship. Even if you don't wind up with the same firm after graduation, you can ask them for job leads, use their network to get an interview, etc.

For six months, I'd say it would well worth it personally.

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fugu13
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If the question is between three years plus a summer and three years plus a semester, the latter definitely.

If the question is between four years plus a summer and four years plus a semester, and you don't already have an internship, the latter very probably.

If you already have had a substantial internship, personal preference.

Internships are extremely important with a business degree. Ideally, get an internship with a company you wouldn't mind working for (a high percentage of interns are hired by the company they interned at).

Graduate classes can be fun, too.

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krynn
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Yeah, the professor of the graduate class (Global Marketing Strategies) met me in the gameroom and plays table tennis. he mentioned just getting back from japan, and i told him that i had just been to japan myself, and that i was a marketing/finance major. after losing to him in a couple games, he tells me about this course he is teaching for an MBA program and that i can take it and have it count towards my undergraduate degree. the bonus is that the class travels to japan for a week in the spring and has meetings with 5 companies there. only two i remember are panasonic and Coca-Cola.

PS: i've won a couple table tennis tournaments, and i still lost to him. His USATT ranking is about 400 higher than mine, meaning he is really good at table tennis.

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HollowEarth
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Who hires all of the people that come out of school with a business administration degree? I'm asking an honest question, since I've never understood where the thousands of these new graduates go each year.

Sorry I don't have anything helpful to add kynn.

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pH
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I'd do the internship. My internship in undergrad was a big boost to my resume, even though it was unpaid. It was at a small company, so I got a lot of responsibility and a nice title. [Smile]

-pH

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fugu13
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HollowEarth: thousands of companies.

Not that everyone gets hired, but a high percentage do.

After all, you need a lot of people all the time when:

Nearly 6 million are employed in management.

Nearly 6 million are employed in business and financial operations.

Over 23 million are employed in 'office and administrative support' (business school grads are probably moving into the former two more than the latter, though).

To give you an idea, there are more people working in management and business and financial operations than there are working in food preparation and serving, and you've probably noticed how many people it feels are working in that field (it being more public).

In terms of what industries those break up by, insurance is a big slice, health care is a big slice (particularly of management), professional/scientific/technical services is a big slice, manufacturing is a big slice, education is a big slice, and government is a big slice. But pretty much every industry requires hundres of thousands of management, business, and financial workers, the only ones not hitting a hundred thousand being agriculture, mining, utilities, and entertainment.

Statistics: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/ocwage.t03.htm

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littlemissattitude
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If you haven't had internship experience, I would definitely recommend that.

While I don't have a four-year business degree (I finally settled on anthropology instead, with a BA in what my school called Intercultural Studies), I do have a two-year degree (AS) as a paralegal. A required part of that program was an internship. The most valuable thing I got from that (I worked for a judge for a semester) is that no matter how good your classroom education is (and mine was very good), the real world is a whole 'nother thing. Nothing can substitute for real-world experience.

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HollowEarth
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I guess I didn't phase my question very well. Specifically I'm asking what's a typical first job when you graduate with a degree in business administration, since I really doubt anybody is going straight into management.
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pH
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There are plenty of entry-level management positions out there for those with interest in a career in management.

-pH

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fugu13
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Yeah, I see hundreds of openings advertised for management training programs and such in several major businesses (the rental car agencies and insurance agencies stick in my mind, particularly), and the job email lists I'm on aren't even for the business school here, they're for the school of Informatics.
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krynn
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ok i dont know if you are talking about me or not HollowEarth, but im specifically majoring in marketing and finance. there are plenty of jobs all over for both of those fields. and even the general business management majors get jobs fairly quickly. especially if you really liked operations management, those are pretty big as far as consulting firms go. all that 6-Sigma stuff and streamlining. additionally, all the IT firms are wanting those same business management skills so they can compete with other emerging one-stop-shop consulting/implementation companies.

but yeah, back on topic now. KSU is doing a Marketing trip to Orlando, Ireland, and Paris to study Disney's marketing strategies. the paid internship im considering is actually with Disney in Orlando. So if i move down there i would only be about two and a half to three hours away from my sister in miami.

If that works out, i would like to stay in the area afterwards and try to get a job with a cruiseline. That could be possible since i will have graduated by the time i finish my internship... if it all works out that way.

Ideally i would like to be able to use both majors for my career and perhaps work for the marketing department of a finance company. Who knows.

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