The Best B-Schools ——New York University

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PROGRAM BASICS
New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, The Undergraduate College

40 West Fourth Street
Tisch Hall, Suite 600
New York , New York 10012

Web site
http://www.stern.nyu.edu/undergraduate


Program telephone number:
(212) 998-4500

  
Private Institution

  AACSB accredited:
Yes





Year in which the undergraduate business program was founded:
1900

  Institution:
Four Year

  Business program:
Four Year

Degrees offered:

Degree/Program Name:
BS, Business
BS, Business & Political Economy

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The students here are motivated and compassionate. The university as a whole may have developed a reputation, in years past, for its lack of community, but the business school's administration fosters a tight-knit community that promotes collaborative learning.

It is too competitive for a healthy learning environment. A rigid grading system takes motivation away from students.

The social impact core (especially the ethics program) is outstanding and helps Stern students become more well-rounded. Stern students are taught how to think with a business mind without losing their creativity.

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Stern drives home the meaning of teamwork, and uses its extended alumni network as well as outside relationships with various firms to do its best to place students in top jobs, both in terms of pay and reputation. Although most students are focused on investment banking opportunities, Stern is in the process of introducing other alternatives and bringing forth those opportunities to its students.

The business program here is unique because of the level of competition and atmosphere. Stern students tend to want to enter the business world as soon as they possibly can, and the attitude shows in class. Students learn early on via curved grading that performance in the real world, at least in a financial sense, is completely relative to your competitors. At the same time, I personally liked the ethics core at the school which rears its head at times when students often don't want to hear it. Perhaps, it was in part a reflection of the recession but the same callous capitalists with whom I was in class freshmen year had a very sophisticated sense and control over the topic of ethics by senior year. The same students who were only worried about making money four years ago were making arguments for economic intervention.

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Our classes, curriculum, and professors teach us to think, not merely regurgitate information and cases. Also, Stern has incorporated such a global focus in its curriculum that each and every student graduating from Stern is prepared to deal with the constantly changing and globalizing business environment of today and tomorrow. In addition, our location in New York allows our professors to integrate business professionals into the classroom, and our students to integrate part- and full-time jobs at major firms while still in school.

Stern does an excellent job of preparing us to enter the work force. By introducing us to employers early on, we are all comfortable speaking to professionals and succeeding in the work place. The rigorous academic expectations have allowed me to prepare my technical skills for entering a career in investment banking. During my summer internship, I felt more prepared than other colleagues as an undergraduate business NYU major. NYU has done an excellent job not only teaching us the school work, but how to navigate in a professional space and how to build a network. From the multitude of team projects, we have learned to work with each other and build relations with our colleagues.

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The comprehensive business core curriculum makes Stern unique. You cannot graduate with a degree without having taken a finance, accounting, marketing, operations management, or communication class, among many others. Many Stern students gain valuable skills outside their comfort zone throughout the four years at Stern.

NYU Stern is a unique program because it meshes together academic and professional life at a very early stage. We learn just as much in the classroom in a given week as we do through our internships. With such a diverse student body, we see globalization and its effects first hand. Programs such as study abroad and the trip all students take in their junior year to study a corporation in a foreign market help us constantly look at the movement of various industries on a global level.

Our business program is very heavily skewed towards finance and to some extent, accounting. As such, I believe Stern gives students great preparation for finding a job and equipping them with relevant knowledge, but only if the students plan on entering the finance field.

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Stern gives immediate exposure to Wall Street as many of the professors work out in big New York firms as well as teach and make a sincere effort to share their experiences.

It is a very diverse school ethnically and culturally, with many international students as well. Many of my fellow students speak multiple languages and come from different cultural backgrounds, which I have learned a lot from throughout my college experience. In addition, NYU's location in the business capital of the world has provided me many unique opportunities. It has provided me with an advantage of exploring different fields within business during the school year. I was able to feel confident in my decision to pursue accounting based on my internships in other fields. I also had the opportunity to visit businesses and meet with business leaders on school field trips and through school clubs.

It is right in NYC, the heart of the business world in America. This incredible location is why I don't think the school does enough to help find jobs for graduating seniors. I have several friends with phenomenal GPAs who are still jobless, and it is really inexcusable for NYU not to do more to place them.

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Group projects are integrated into our curriculum, helping us build teamwork skills and exposing us to complicated business case studies. Through the International Studies Program, all Stern juniors travel to a foreign country for a company visit. I visited Hungary in the spring of 2009 while taking a semester-long course examining the banking industry and overall business practices in Hungary. My group and I examined the specific issues that a growing Hungarian bank faced, and we played the role of outside consultants by presenting solutions and strategies for continued growth.

I think Stern is unique because it is competitive, but it encourages networking and building comaraderie. Everyone works really hard, but I feel that Stern really rewards us for it in the amazing opportunities such as the ISP program where all the juniors get to go on a trip to a country we study and visit a business we learn about and experience so many different things. There are so many interntaional programs that help you experience so many different places and cultures. The professors are awesome and try to keep students engaged with great discussion and guest speakers and trips to different locations. I am pretty shy, so the great networking opportunities here that Stern organizes such as parties and dinners and events were important to me as well.

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Aside from the incredible amount of diversity among both students and faculty, I think the most unique aspect of Stern is its location and the opportunities that this location provides for its students. Not only do we gain incredible life experience and maturity (it takes a strong person to have the guts to move alone to New York City at the age of 17 or 18 and be able to handle it), but we also gain access to some of the world's greatest business minds as lecturers, guests, and (especially) professors - access, which we might not have had if NYU weren't located in such a central location to the business world. We are able to walk around the city and actually see some of the world's largest business headquarters in operation, which is incredibly cool. In addition, these business headquarters are all within a stone's throw from home, which provides an incredible range and caliber of internship and job opportunities and makes the interviewing process much easier.

Being in New York City is an amazing experience and gives you unparalleled exposure to all the major financial services firms. I've worked at so many different internships at different companies and that puts me so much farther ahead than students, from other top-notch business schools, who have the academic knowledge but not nearly the quality or quantity of work experience we do.

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A major feature that makes Stern stand out is the international studies program in which a class will analyze an international company for a semester and then visit grounds, interview top executives and craft a proposal for a better strategic positioning for the firm. This was a major learning experience for me at Stern. I also would have to say that I have never been taught by any TA and that all my professors were extremely accomplished, constantly in the news, and had a ton to offer me in sage advice.

Although I know that our curriculum is great, I can't provide anything but anecdotal evidence suggesting it is better than any other school's curriculum (although I believe it is.) But there are many things that our school does that other school's simply can't do as a function of location. NYU really takes advantage of being in New York City through social events, cultural events, hiring practices, etc. Beyond the great time in New York, NYU is also a particularly international school. I studied abroad twice and went on a free trip to Hong Kong, and nearly free trips to Greece and Rome. A friend of mine studied abroad for three semesters straight. I also love the new NYU Stern undergraduate building, which is beautiful. That more or less fixed my only previous criticism of the school.