ND Admissions LIVE: Mendoza College of Business

Thanks Jim, my name is Andy Middlebourne and I'm the new assistant Dean for undergraduate studies where I'm the Dean's designee for all academic matters for undergraduate students here at Mendoza and also lead the Office of Academic Advisors here in Mendoza. For undergraduate students I'm a Notre Dame undergrad myself. I actually had a degree in history and then came back to my back to Mendoza.

For my Masters degree in nonprofit administration, currently working on a doctorate in education through Vanderbilt University.

Let's go to Sean.

Thank you, my name is Sean Ford. I am from Tinley Park, IL, which is a Southside suburb of Chicago. I'm a junior business analytics major with an energy studies minor and I currently live in Fisher Hall.

And.

Let's see fun fact about me was in the marching band. It's lots of fun, highly recommended, will hopefully talk about this some more later, but I'll differ over to test for now.

Hi everyone, my name is Tess guys Hauser. I'm a senior finance major and constitutional studies minor from Reading PA UM on campus. I'm involved in the business Honors program as a mentor and in the Deloitte Scholars Program, which we can talk about. If you have any questions.

I will, I'm done here, so sorry about that.

She's here, Jim.

Yes, so I'm here and hopefully you can hear me. We've had some little technical difficulties Lisa Hemming had been at Notre Dame now for 15 years and academic advising for five. It's my most favorite job of the poor that I've had on campus and I love working with our students. So are my biggest advice is when you're on campus, seek advice of advisors so I'll let it go. And I'm from Milwaukee, WI at a big marathoner and Salem.

Alright.

All right, back to you, Jim.

Jim, I think it might not be visible to you, Sean and test. Do you see the.

Yes.

The new slides. OK, great thank you.

We are we are Jim Yep.

So Jim, I'm going to take the first question, actually. We've had a few about AP and I IB credit. Just want to confirm that we do take AP and IB credit and the best way to look at the scores that you need for acceptance of that credit is on thefirstyear.nd.edu website. There's a list under academics that show the scores that are required for those exams. Again, that's first year DOT.

Nd.edu

Jim maybe this for you. We've got a few questions about the business honors program and how the Honors courses might differ from the regular business score.

So I can speak to my role in the Honors program as a mentor. So there are undergraduate fellows and graduate fellows, and a key aspect of the program is this sort of mentorship. So I have a group of five men tease who I have to meet with twice a semester and that part of the program is really all about.

Developing Notre Dame graduates who will go into business with a different perspective on life. Uhm and so.

Because I'm a senior mentoring UM sophomore students, I have to sort of take my experience as a Notre Dame student and apply that to their current experience. And I can sort of do what I can to connect them with the right resources within Mendoza outside of the Business School. But from what I've seen, this is the first year that it's sort of been going on and everyone that is a part of it is really passionate.

About everything they do, UM, the colloquium. They are really wonderful opportunities to actually see current business professionals in action. Talking about what their job is, what their life outside of their job is like. So you really get one on one time with really cool people. And I really I don't have any bad words to say about the honors program because I've loved my experience with it so far.

Thanks Tess, I'll clarify a couple of the questions we've had about business owners just to to drive this home. Students apply for the business owners program.

Before their sophomore years, so sophomores start the business honors program you will. You will apply for that program towards the end of your your first year here.

Honors program courses do not begin until you're a sophomore. Jim, do you know about the percentage at the moment of sophomores that were accepted into the program?

Aurora number.

I know the number is 71, that's how many are in the program.

Alright, I'm going to pivot the question to Sean here. Sean, can you talk about the class sizes of your Mendoza classes?

Yeah, absolutely and just wanna make sure everyone can hear me.

Fantastic, great. So most Mendoza classes tend to be about 20 to 30 people. You'll find that there is some like random classes that tend to be super big like business law tends to be in a very large lecture hall, something like about 100 people was my class for my particular section, but generally the classes tend to be pretty small and especially as you get into your major level classes such as data analytics for Python or our coding classes like this. Statistical inference for business class that Jim mentioned earlier.

They tend to be a little bit smaller and they tend to be a lot more workshop settings, so you have smaller student to teacher ratios and a lot more one on one time with people who can help you through the material because it tends to get harder as you get through college, and that makes sense, so the classes tend to get a little bit smaller as you go starting about 20 to 30 people, I'd say is a good baseline.

Tess, here's a question for you. Maybe talk about the internships and kind of how you go about finding them and and options available and the experience.

Sure, so I might be kind of a unique case. I'm actually going to law school next year, so I haven't really had the typical finance major internship path that a lot of my peers have had. But when I was so, I transferred to Notre Dame my sophomore year, and I chose finance and one of the first places I went to when I was first considering career opportunities. Was the Career Center. They have a really wonderful group of people who.

Are well connected and have the real-world experience too.

Point you in the right direction and give you the kind of discernment advice that, especially at a young age you don't really have an idea of where you want to go. Uhm, so my experience my sophomore year, I actually applied for an internship with the Supreme Court.

It was cancelled because of COVID and the same thing happened the next summer, but a lot of my peers, especially in finance.

Path towards an internship is very well supported in the Notre Dame community. We have SIBC that gets you really well connected to different companies. When you're part of that club.

The Career Center again, obviously very well connected. You go to them and they can provide you with the resources to get the internships that you're really looking for. UM, and then also.

Sort of just connecting during the career fair and during different events that clubs have. The clubs here are really good at throwing events with different companies, especially like if you're really interested in consulting. They have a consulting connect week if you're really interested in finance, they have a Wall Street club where you get one on one time with recruiters from banks on Wall Street, so there's definitely a lot of options and avenues for you to explore all of the different opportunities that you could have.

As you're looking forward to your professional career, eventually.

Thanks to us anything there done that Sean in the internship wrong?

Yeah, absolutely. And just to throw a shout out to consultant connect as well. I was a part of that for awhile. There's a case chain that ran for about two months and got to run a bunch of cases and it helped a lot with my internship search. I'm a consulting hopeful and interned with McKinsey and Company last summer and I would attribute that to consulting connect, so I definitely corroborate that we have some incredible clubs here and great programs like the building Bridges mentorship program of which time imenti and they had events where they invited firms like.

Need to come to a coffee and donut session just to get to know some people or for example, the first Gen ND. So my first generation college student.

They'll hold like an hour before the actual career fair opens up the 1st 10 students can come in and just say hi really quick and maybe get to know some of the employers just to maybe get a quick look at something they haven't seen before and it helps me a lot in the career fair search. And it's something I'm really, really grateful for, and so I'd absolutely agree that tests everything you said is correct. It's a very, very well supported endeavor just to find internships.

Thanks, Sean, I'll take this question about the transfer process into Mendoza from another Notre Dame College. So if you come into Notre Dame as a member of the College of Science or College of Arts and Letters or the College of Engineering, there's a 2 rounds of applications in your first year that you can apply to Mendoza and be accepted to start as a sophomore. So all that information will be shared with students in this in the fall of their first year.

With applications decisions made in the spring so that you can transfer in as a as a sophomore, Jim have a couple questions about research opportunities for Mendoza students.

Thanks Jim, I just want to make clear to everybody that Notre Dame has a very robust Career Center that assists all students and those students or non Mendoza students. They leverage our alumni in industries. They leverage our alumni club so there's a fully functioning and very robust Career Center available to all named students. Question for Sean. I'll let you start and then pivot to test.

Talk a little bit about Mendoza or business focused student clubs and activities.

Yeah, absolutely. So the big one is CBD. That student International Business Council and we actually just started off our All Council meeting a couple days ago and the cases are starting to come up. So what you do with that is you get yourself on a case for CBD. You go into one of the branches of consulting, finance, their social impacts cases as well, and you'll go through with a team and work on some case from a real employer. And at the end of that couple weeks session or couple months session you'll present information that you've compiled to that employer.

And hopefully provide a really, really good case to them. There's also, I think, test mentioned before the Wall Street Club, where I believe it's a real portfolio with real money that you can manage, which is exciting. I would definitely be very excited about that. I haven't done one of those personally, but.

I have some my old roommates my my friends in Fisher Hall that have really, really loved it and I think those are all the ones that I can speak to. Maybe tests, you might have a little bit more experience with this.

Sure, so like Sean said, SIBC is a big one, especially for the first couple years. It's a great way to get experience making slides and getting used to presenting.

Especially when you're sort of getting into that process where you're going to eventually have to start doing interviews and you're gonna work on more cases. UM, so getting that experience is really valuable, and it's a great way to connect with recruiters and just make connections in the business world that you're interested in. So I sophomore year did a project with SIBC for the Orlando Magic and it was wonderful. It was so much fun and it it's a really great way to to connect with people in Mendoza that maybe are outside of your major.

But you have similar interests and the other thing about all of the clubs and Mendoza is that they're not.

They're not closed off, they're very open. Anyone to make it in Mendoza can join, UM, like you don't have to be a finance major major to join investment club or join Wall Street Club. It's very much open to everyone and you can participate as much or as little as you want to come. It's really all what you make of it. I can speak to the investment club, similar to Wall Street you. It's all stock pitches, so you pick a stock, analyze it.

And then pitch it to the portfolio, UM, and then they talk about it and you're either approved or you're not approved. And that's really great experience. I had a really good experience just learning.

The different sort of in's and outs of analyzing stocks that I hadn't really had experience in before that. So it is like very real-world professional experience. That's valuable when you get out when you get out when you graduate.

So I'm trying to think of the other clubs that I've worked with. I mean another program that's similar to a club would be like Deloitte scholars, so Notre Dame has the, UM, Notre Dame, Deloitte Center for Ethical Leadership, and there's a program in there called Deutsch Scholars. It's a group of maybe 15 kids and you all meet once a week. Do a reading and a lot of times we meet with faculty members who are either publishing really interesting research related to business.

Or have just been working on a project for a long time. We had a speaker last semester who was doing a study in Africa on sort of the the role of marketing in small economies and up and coming economies UM, and so it's really cool to sort of get that kind of experience and to connect in a more intimate setting with people in Mendoza that you haven't really met before.

Thanks Sean and test just a note to people listening. We're putting some links in the chat for some of the things we're referencing, so please take a look at the chat if you want to link to some of these things. I have a couple questions about.

Business courses in first year that students typically take, I believe, two to three business courses in their first year. They declare their majors at the end of first year, so kind of March, April of first year. Students will declare their majors so that they can register for sophomore year courses with their major on their record. Jim, could you talk a little bit about some of the Mendoza centers and institutes and?

Maybe some of the minors available from those.

Thanks Jim, wanna try to get to as many questions as we can. I appreciate you sending those questions in.

Just wanna elaborate that a student can do a double major. We have many that do double majors in economics in applied and computational math and statistics. As long as your plan of study can accommodate the double majors, we will definitely let students do that. And many, many students do. Sean and Tess. I'm going to kind of do rapid fire questions if you could. We'll start with Sean and then test for each of these questions and just give your kind of quick.

The answer to some of these questions.

How does how do? How do ethics get woven into the mendozae courses here?

So, so you haven't business ethics course that you are required to take and sounds like you might be expanding to for honors business students, which is great, but you have that business ethics course and then also ethics are actually woven into a lot of the other classes that you'll take, such as even a business of energy class that I'm taking. We have an ethics section and especially in accountancy. That's a big one where ethics takes a front seat.

Yeah, I would second everything that Sean said in the honors program. Why business is the sort of ethics course and a lot of it isn't just business focused, so in why business we go through different readings. More philosophically focused readings on what is honorable, honorable business. What is ethics? Why is it important for us to be ethical in business? What does that even mean? UM and so.

Considering those questions is something that comes up not just in those classes, but in my private equity course, we spent an entire lesson on private equity in the real world and where it went wrong and where it's went well and and so learning about that is definitely a priority. And in Mendoza, and definitely informed, I think by the the Catholic tradition of the university.

Thanks next question, is there a specific laptop?

Apple or windows? What do most students use?

I would say it's a pretty broad mix. I see a lot of Mac books around, but I'm a personal HP lover. I love my spectre, it's got a really cool rose gold finish that's just me, but most all of the laptops that you can get they will if they run. R, Python, tableau, at least for Prince Analytics. Major like me, that's great, but I think you really can't go wrong. It's just a matter of personal preference and.

System, like the closed system Mac versus open or Open system HP. I'm very very HP. Love HP.

Yeah, I agree with all that. I have a Mac, but even if you run into a situation where maybe Mac doesn't support what you need to do, there are plenty of places available. With computers. There's the business library in the actual College of business. There's also the Hessburg library, so you're not really confined by the computer that you buy the laptop that you choose.

Next question.

Port for students who are struggling in a course.

What what sort of support is available for those students?

There is a lot of support. There are a lot of different ways to get it as well. Professors are always very, very helpful. I had an accounting professor at her name is Janet USSA. She was always super super willing to help with any question that students had. No matter how trivial it might have seemed to them. There's also a I believe in Saint Liam's which is our University Health center. There are counselors to talk to as well. If it gets very, very difficult. They're also your rectors.

Your ears with your assistant rectors. Those are your hall directors of people in charge of you. While you're here, your R as well, peers. Peers are always very willing to help, and that's one thing I think I love about Mendoza as well. Is that it's not quite the cut through competitive Business School that some people might have a conception of of business schools, generally, Mendoza I think is a great job of making it very collaborative and the students in Mendoza also just make it that much more enjoyable and supportive throughout your time.

Yeah, I agree with all that.

And I'll also add we we do have some tutoring available for our principles courses through our departments.

We we definitely care about our students. As a member of our advising team here, our job is to help students succeed and to make good choices on on how they can do that.

Do a couple last questions. I think I see one here about accepted students weekend. There will be a major resource fair at that weekend. You're also able to go on individual department websites to review major information.

And.

Jim, I see we have about 5 minutes left. I will. I'll answer this quick question. We do not have a foreign language requirement for business majors, and Jim anything you want to mention to finish us off.

Yeah Sean or Tess students holding a part time job to have you or any of your friends had time for part time jobs.

I have yes, so I don't know if this counts, but I'm I've been at EA now for a year and a half up for one of my favorite courses of all time in Mendoza. UM, it's definitely doable. Uhm, I was taking eight courses last semester while teeing and mentoring in the Honors program and.

It's a grind, but you can do it and there are plenty of people that of my peers who I know have held part time jobs and done really well with their coursework.

Yeah, absolutely. And beyond part time jobs as well. Volunteer work is fantastic. There's a program that I did through the Notre Dame marching Band called Band Link where you would go into South Bend and teach the kids like K through eight I believe how to play instruments and this was during semesters. I was taking a million credits doing a bunch of clubs and it's just a great way to get involved and it's 100% doable. Like test said it is a grind but that's part of the satisfaction from it. Is you work hard to do good and.

Makes it feel good too, so I would say definitely part time job and volunteer work especially is a great way to spend your time.

Thanks for mentioning service, Sean. I I've often said that to people that if if you do not like helping others you should not come to Notre Dame. That's kind of just in our blood. Here is is is service.

To make one final comment that the recording to the session is linked in the chat for those who might have missed some of the recording, and Jim, I'll turn it over for a final words from you.