We have all heard the stigma around business students and their easy classes and coloring pages for homework every night. As a business student at Stevens, more specifically an Accounting and Analytics major, that stereotype could not be further from the truth. Let me be the first to say, the “analytics” or “technology” slapped on at the end of the business titles does not make anyone respect your major any more than an average business major. Despite this, the education you’re getting at Stevens is elite compared to other schools.
Throughout the first two semesters, you are going to hear all of your STEM friends talking about MA 125 and MA 126 (and other math courses that I don’t know), but you are going to have to take MA 117 and 119 taught by Paul Schwartz. He is easily one of the easiest professors I have ever had. Unless math is something you severely struggle with, I wouldn’t waste my time stressing over the class. Attendance isn’t mandatory, and all of the lectures are recorded and posted later. Even if they weren’t, the content is very basic— while I hear everyone else talking about vectors and matrices, I’m busy learning about derivatives (which is exactly what you should have learned in high school calculus). And I didn’t even have to take MA 117 (the easier of the two) so yes, derivatives were the harder of the two. However, go to the class before an exam; the review is almost identical to the actual exam.
No matter what your major is, you’re going to have to take HASS 103 and 105. Even though they might seem like a huge waste of time as a STEM student, they are still important classes that teach a lot of valuable concepts. HASS 103 is pretty straightforward with a pretty set-in-stone curriculum, but I would personally recommend Dr.Catalina Florina Florescu; compared to most of my friends, I had a breeze in HASS 103. In HASS 105, though, the professor gets to choose what topic they teach over the semester. So, when looking at RateMyProfessor, (I know you are) don’t just focus on their rating as a teacher but also on the topic they are teaching. I have John Horgan, and I have only great things to say about him as a professor, but his topic of choice is “The Mind Body Problem” which is interesting in theory, but fully not my thing. While I have that topic, I have friends with topics like “Utopia and Dystopia” or “Monster vs. Child” (where I’m pretty sure they just watch horror movies??). So, I would recommend looking into those topics when choosing your professor.
As for business classes, I was pretty fond of all my professors both semesters. When it comes to the more technology-based classes like MIS and CS, try and get Kevin Ryan as a professor. While his work isn’t necessarily easy, his class is engaging, which makes learning the content easy. For MIS 201,where Kevin Ryan isn’t a choice, you should go for Cherif Amirat. The content is the same for both professors, but he just makes it feel easier (and his exams are take-home exams). For business-specific classes, like BT 244,,BT 100, and BT 243, I had a fine experience with my professors. The professors I had for those classes were good, but the things that made me struggle in each were almost opposite of each other. For microeconomics, I had Mario Gonzalez, and despite the fact that I was successful in his class, he wasn’t the most straightforward teacher, whereas Richard Anderson, whom I have for macroeconomics, lectures almost too much and gives too much unnecessary detail. Both of these facts made it rather hard to take notes.
The classes you are taking are important, of course, but I could really only recommend getting involved in as many clubs as you can on campus (business clubs could only help you), but getting a variety of experience and leadership positions will only make you look better on your resume later on. Obviously, every major is going to stress about resumes because we’re all trying to get a job here, but the basis of business is just NETWORKING NETWORKING NETWORKING! So make sure to build that resume, which just involves joining any clubs that pique your interest, applying to internships, and looking for research opportunities.
As I write this, I realize I might be in the minority at this school (well, I know I am) with few business majors, and even fewer accounting majors. Tips from an engineering or computer science major would most definitely reach a broader audience at this school, but it’s important that the business majors get their recognition too.
