I Heart Our Business School

I was perusing links at some point in time last Thursday or Friday, and I stumbled upon the fact that our undergraduate business program, the very shiny Mendoza College of Business, was ranked third in the nation. I immediately thought, "Wow, great for them. Their 'A+' rating for job placement and median starting salary of 47,500 must be pretty sweet, despite the fact that median starting salary is the lowest in the top seven for some reason."

But then I started to really think about it. I realized I knew a lot of people in the business school, and while there certainly were some bright, creative people involved that would go on to great things, I just continued to think to myself of the general consensus of the business school on campus. We acknowledge what they're doing as somewhat-difficult and worthy, but it harkens upon The Observer letters from last spring semester when the Viewpoint section was actually entertaining, as the different majors blasted each other back and forth about which was more worthy or difficult. The one comment that stuck in my head regarded something about business majors and being monkeys trained to use Excel. That brings us upon today's Jockular:

(A little small, I know. Lean forward in your desk chair. It's readable.)



Apparently the consistently funny comic in the paper remembed the same letter as I did, because they ring up what most people think about the business major: Yeah, I could do that. Not that it wouldn't be hard, not that I wouldn't have to struggle, not that intelligent people don't do it, but that if it came down to it, I could probably be a business major. Hell, my A- in Business Calc freshman year is one of the better grades I've gotten -- and yeah, you must consider that I'm a little slow and suck at school -- but I feel like if every class I took somehow revolved around those concepts and the ones covered in my Advanced Accountancy class in high school, I'd survive just fine.

When I consider other majors, I generally rank them like this:

1) Sciences - Orgo, Biochem, anything test that Sean starts studying for two weeks before. I'm pretty sure there's no way I could handle the labs and chemical equations. I would fail miserably.

1A) Engineering - I feel like this incorporates enough programming that I could be alright, but the math gets pretty intense. I have a glass ceiling I hit on math, and I figure that would come into play in the engineering department. Plus, MacKrell studies all the time and is a generally intelligent guy, and he struggles, so I'd have difficulty maintaing a level of discipline with my need for "watching TV" and "surfing the web for random links such as the one you're about to get to".

2) Everything else, with neither Business nor Arts and Letters really transcending above the other. I'm lumping Graphic Design, although it has the obvious prerequisite of being talented at art in it, FTT and Pychology all in here. Basically, I feel the sciences and engineering are really difficult, but if need be, I could do any of the other majors - save for Graphic Design - with little work.

And now, as you formulate your strongly worded IM's, because I know the comments feature doesn't exist to you people, I'll leave you with this wonderful video of what the Business School produces, along with Every Day Should Be Saturday's beautiful commentary and BlueGraySky's sad acknowledgment.

(Barcus messaged me as I put the finishing touches on this piece, and from his position outside of both Business and Arts & Letters, I valued his insight. Sean said he might comment later, but is still going through the shakes caused by Sopranos withdrawal. Anyway, Barcus's quote, which I enjoy thoroughly:

"I think its one reason why America's economy is being surpassed by foreign countries' economies. if the third best the USA can do, in terms of pumping out business students, is a group of kids who spend as much time at the Fev and "hanging out" at the library as they do actually studying, then I think we ought to try socialism."

*

Some more bullet points to close out this afternoon:

* We watched the Grey's from Sunday night, and wow, did the month off just kill the momentum it had. Still an enjoyable forty-two minutes of television, but it just was missing sometihng. (Meredith crying?) I'm sure it'll gain back all lost steam before the finale, but I just wonder what the ratings were like.

(I wondered so much I found the answer. Apparently, still great. Interesting to see if that holds.)
Have a great Tuesday, folks. One more day of classes as things just are not slowing down around here.

* Reviews on this premature day of M:I:3 seem to be slanted towards the "Yeah, it could have been better, but it didn't suck". Considering this is Summer Movie Season and not Oscar Season, I'm still all the way in.

* Anthony Fasano is going to be huge in Dallas, Jason Witten or no Jason Witten. I really wish he had stayed around another year, though, both to boost his draft stock even more and because no matter how many people say "Oh, we're fine at tight end", I always like to have a proven guy as opposed to the one "that will fit perfectly". Best wishes to MoSto in Tampa, and it's amazing how far he fell. I think he'll prove a lot of people wrong if he plays like he did from the Michigan State game on last season.

* We're one win from The Black Mamba tonight from The Battle of Los Angeles, and Bill Simmons waxes poetic about it today. I can't wait to just thoroughly enjoy the hell out of the Game Five tonights, between the Youth Revival in Chicago, Kobe vs. Nash, J-Kidd attempting to destroy Anthony Johnson and what will be a really exciting Spurs/Kings game....that's on NBATV.

Tomorrow night: LeBron vs. Gilbert, Round Five. Do yourself a favor and take a break from your partying -- you can keep drinking, just take a break from the dancing and general celebrating the end of classes -- to watch some of this. The fine folks at FreeDarko have drawn a comparison that LeBron is the Vengeful Father of the Israelites and Gilbert is like Jesus in an analysis I couldn't possibly describe here.

Happy Tuesday.