I'm just a confused college kid....

[ScoobyDooo]

So i came to this forum seeking unbiased advice b/c i honestly dont know where else to find it. I'm a sophomore at Penn State University (main campus) and I'm looking to get into the business world. At this point I believe that I am most interested in finance but I have a problem....my 3.1 gpa won't allow me to become a finance major at PSU. It would however get me into accounting.

Onto the question...if I wanted to set myself up for the highest possibility of being successful in the world of finance, would I be better off transferring to West Virginia University so that I could major in finance or should I stay at PSU (much better reputation for academics) and major in accounting? I plan on going to grad school either way...My understanding is that a Penn State business degree carries a fair amount of weight, whereas WVU doesnt have nearly as good of a reputation. I'm just not that sure how important the undergrad stuff is if you plan on going to grad school anyway...and I do want to get into finance, not so much accounting. Soo...what do you guys think?

All opinions are appreciated

[PRE]

1. Penn St. business degree doesn't carry a lot of weight.
2. Why are you planning to go to graduate school?

3. I don't think it's worth the transfer to switch from accounting to finance. If you are absolutely unable to get into finance (and you should really try everything you can...I mean everything), I would begin pursuing the CFA Level 1 exam at the end of my senior year to show an interest.

[ScoobyDooo]

well yeah i know theres definitely a lot better business schools than PSU...but i thought it was pretty good compared to most?

"August 17, 2007) – Penn State's Smeal College of Business is ranked 10th among public business schools and 18th overall, unchanged from last year, in this year's U.S. News & World Report rankings of undergraduate business programs."

does that mean anything? i'm not gonna pretend to know a whole lot about the subject b/c i honestly dont and thats my fault.

As far as graduate school goes, I just heard that it was a good thing to do to make yourself stand out from the rest of the pack.

I'm really new to the business field and I've just recently switched into the college of business...i need to do a lot of research i still dont know how everything works. I found a few articles though in this forum about the differences between accounting and finance and those have been helpful.

[PRE]

Sorry, I wasn't trying to diminish the value of PSU. I just wanted to make sure that you weren't getting your hopes up. It's true that it stacks up with the best public schools out there, but the problem is most companies prefer private over state schools due to the overall better quality of eduation.

My advice remains with accounting vs. finance. If you use up all of your means in trying to get into finance, I would pursue the CFA. Transfering schools just isn't worth it. Also, I would begin reading about investing on your own ASAP with the books suggest by the posters in this forum (read the sticky).

Graduate schools is a very bad decision IMO. MBA's typically only add worth if theyre from a top 10 business school, and you certaintly won't be able to get into one of those right out of school.

[ScoobyDooo]

no offense taken. i see what you meant and realize thats it's not one of the very best. i have other reasons though for thinking about transfering but i was just a bit worried that the qaulity of education at WVU would be so much lower still that it could possibly really hurt my future career. I'm not sure how big the difference is though and just how big of an effect it may have.

[jumbojacks]

Even better qualified Cal and Stanford grads get looked over by Wharton grads on the west coast for i-banking positions. They're both feeder schools, but nearly as strong as the Ivy's.

[ScoobyDooo]

yes well lets not worry about the ivy's. they cost a lot of moniez are hard to get into and dont usually have very good football teams/parties

[APXG]

just stay at penn state, raise your gpa as much as you still can (should be easy if you're past the 1st 2 years of random bs classes. before you graduate, study finance 5 hours per day, breeze thru the cfa type independent exams when you're eligible to take them, and apply for jobs -- your lack of finance degree will be compensated by tremendous knowledge of finance in interviews and backed by the cfa crap people like to see. if you don't get any offers you like, go to grad school, get a 4.0 in finance to fully erase your weak undergrad credentials, and combined with knowledge you'll get a better job than you can currently dream of.

if youre too lazy to do any of that and instead you just wanna play football and drink budweiser everyday like most americans, then just study accounting, make 50k per year, and be happy. finance jobs in usa will be much tougher to get in 2-3 years anyway(and they're already a huge glut), so you may as well forget about them right now if you're gonna be mediocre.

the best option of all would be moving to china with whatever degree you get, but that likely also doesn't apply if you are a typical american and want to continue being one.

[ScoobyDooo]

50k per year? god i hope thats just for the first few years when youre starting out...

[ScoobyDooo]

lol poker is looking better and better