How come UCLA does not offer an undergraduate business degree?
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qwerty
Well-known member
Yes
panda
Well-known member
Qwerty, let me ask you an honest question. Let's say your son applied to USC Marshall School of Business as a high school senior and got it. Let's also say that your household income is right at the threshold where you will not recieve any financial aid or grants from the school. The price tag to send your son to USC for four years is $342,592. Would you send your son there? Do you feel that this is a good investment?
qwerty
Well-known member
Panda - my kids wills not be getting any financial aid. We make too much money so that is certain. It depends on the major. For either kid, I would pay a private school tuition if it was a very good/elite private school AND it was major that could generate a very good income (computer science, engineering, finance/accounting, etc). I will not send them to an any private school for a liberal arts type major. The only exceptions perhaps would be if they got into Stanford/harvard. If they wanted to be a lawyer/doctor I don’t think the undergrad is that important so ideally an in state public school for undergrad would do
If they don’t get into a very good/elite private school and they get into a good public school in CA then I would pay for any major at any UC or cal state school. I would generally not pay an out of state tuition for any run of the mill public school from another state as that would not make any sense. If they only get into run of the mill out of state public schools then they will be going the junior college route.
I teach my kids about money all of the time, they have their own bank accounts, credit cards, etc. I transfer their weekly allowance into their bank accounts. So by the time they are in high school hopefully this thought process will make sense to them.
panda
Well-known member
What if your kid got into the Ross School of Business at University of Michigan, would you send your kid there? Supposedly in the top 3 business programs for undergraduate students. Qwerty, if your son got into USC Marshall School of Business, would you send him there? (Cost of Attendance $342,592)
However...
In state MI tuition is $16,736
Out state tuition is $55,034
Back in the late 90s, when I was a undergraduate student at Ross, the In state tuition was around $5000 and out-of-state was around $15,000. Had I attended Business School in-state at Univ of Illinois, my dad would have only paid $4700 and saved $40,000. Did I receive a business education that was 300% better at Ross vs University of Illinois? Certainly not, maybe 10-20% better at most. My dad never had a father to son talk with me of how he can save $40,000 is if I studied business at a in state school. Perhaps he could of said, if you study business at U of I rather than attending Ross, I can apply that $40k towards your first real estate purchase.
Looking back, wish my dad kept that extra $40,000 sending me out of state and spent it on himself before going to heaven.
However...
In state MI tuition is $16,736
Out state tuition is $55,034
Back in the late 90s, when I was a undergraduate student at Ross, the In state tuition was around $5000 and out-of-state was around $15,000. Had I attended Business School in-state at Univ of Illinois, my dad would have only paid $4700 and saved $40,000. Did I receive a business education that was 300% better at Ross vs University of Illinois? Certainly not, maybe 10-20% better at most. My dad never had a father to son talk with me of how he can save $40,000 is if I studied business at a in state school. Perhaps he could of said, if you study business at U of I rather than attending Ross, I can apply that $40k towards your first real estate purchase.
Looking back, wish my dad kept that extra $40,000 sending me out of state and spent it on himself before going to heaven.
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qwerty
Well-known member
Not sure if you guys know how the big 4 accounting firms work, regional recruiting is very important as the top 10 accounting schools don’t provide anywhere near the quantity of employees needed on a national basis for the firms as a whole for a new starting class every year. The firms have a very high turnover rate due to the demanding hours.
The big 4 in Orange County recruit from USC, UCLA, UCI, Cal st Fullerton and others. So it’s not critical that they go to a top 5 accounting school. Going to a top 5 accounting school does virtually guarantee you getting a job at a big 4 unless your grades are subpar. Back when I was at USC it was a top 3 accounting school, the big four wouldn’t give you an interview unless you had at least a 3.5 gpa.
So to answer your question, I would pay for them to go to UT Austin for an accounting degree because it would virtually guarantee them a job assuming the grades are good. But a 3.5 at UT Austin vs 4.0 at a regional school like Fullerton, a recruiter would likely prefer the applicant from Austin because the programs are more rigorous and the competition is higher caliber. But a 4.0 at Fullerton is likely to get you a job at a big 4 as well barring significant personality issues.
qwerty
Well-known member
Yes, I would send them to Michigan for a business degree. It would be akin to sending them to USC so I would not have an issue with that. With that said; if they were getting mediocre grades at USC or Michigan I would pulll them out and have them transfer to a state school in CA. Going to a top school and getting bad grades will not result in a good paying job so no point in paying the money without the payoff of good career earnings. That happened to a friend of mine at USC. We were really good friends our freshman year but he did not get good grades. His mom was a management consultant at Anderson and said I’m not paying USC prices for you to get on academic probation. She pulled him out and sent him to a state school in Indiana. Never saw him again. He was never the type that was motivated by money or making. A lot of money, he played the guitar and wanted to do something in music. His mom probably should have known better than to send him to USC, perhaps she thought going there would change his view of things but it did not.
USC is not a target school for Wall St firms but very much so for accounting and consulting (not McKinsey but Deloitte/ Accenture etc). A USC Computer Science degree with a business minor is the highest ROI degree you can get from USC - I lack the business minor but more than made up for it as an extroverted personality espousing my leadership qualities at the engineering career fair and subsequent interviews. Sounds like this is the path MK Bruin went but veered into the investment biz. Tech Sales or being a product manager at a big tech firm is how you really harvest that credential. Accounting is only good as a career stop before law school or a top 5 MBA program or becoming the next usctrojancpa Irvine RE king. Big 4 life blows. Consulting life too.
irviniteeee
Active member
My parents grew up in OC and used to call Irvine the boonies...now look at it! Haha.Funny thing is we actually drove to Irvine to look at houses back then, and my parents commented "these new homes are nice but this is in the middle of the farm". We ended up buying a townhome in Buena Park.
momopi
Well-known member
My parents could've bought a SFR in Irvine for $140k-$170k back then, but this was when Jamboree was flanked by farms, and you could still see Disneyland fireworks from Irvine. My In-Law's had similar experience where their agent took them to Diamond Bar back in 80s, and they declined because they thought it was the pits. Instead, they bought a SFR in Lakewood.
Moving forward to 2010's, we went to Chino to look at SFR's as investment property. The place smelled of cow poop and there was flies and pigeons everywhere. We learned our lesson and bought 2 houses there - not without issues, had to pay few grand to bird proof the roof. By 2018 the dairy had moved, and the place didn't smell like cow poop anymore.
What I failed to do was to look further to Eastvale, where we could've paid less and made more.
Both myself and the wife grew up in Cerritos/Lakewood area which used to be Dutch diary lands, up until recently we still had a dairy plant in Artesia. As urban crawl moved in the cows moved from Cerritos to Chino. History repeats.
Cows mooove out as one of Chino’s last dairies closes
Geoffrey and Darlene Vanden Heuvel, one of the last dairy families, have left too.
www.dailybulletin.com
p.s. if anyone is interested in Dutch candies and groceries, visit Holland international market in Bellflower. Also, if you'd like to visit the Netherlands and spend time away from tourist trap areas, I recommend Almelo to the East. Nice and quiet, very friendly locals.
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morekaos
Well-known member
You are correct sir…used my CS background and applied it to trading and analysis but personality helped build my career. South campus UCLA was full of nerds. Personality goes a long ways…
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Hugo Township
Active member
I went to UC Berkeley and the career services were minimal. I found my internships the old fashioned way (networking).
I think Cal is a great platform with a lot of opportunities, but with very little handholding.
BTW the business courses at Berkeley were extremely easy once you got into the major (which was the hard part). My math/engineering classmates viewed them as easy As with insane grade inflation. Of course, in retrospect, those easy classes I took in accounting, finance, marketing, and entrepreneurship were actually way more useful in real life to me than the hard classes I took in abstract algebra or whatever.
panda
Well-known member
Hi Hugo. Did you attend the Haas School of Business as an undergrad at Cal?
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