Concentration Paper

Part 1

1 Edward Blackman
2 Highlands Ranch Colorado
3 Corbett Hall
4 Intro to Business, Business Computing Concepts, Math 117/118, Oceanography, Current World Problems and Basic Writing (Comp 150)
5 I am currently not working.
6 Ever since I was little I knew I was going to end up at Colorado State or CU Boulder. I wanted to stay in state and go to one of the larger universities in Colorado. After going on campus visits to both universities I felt I would get along with the people at Colorado State better than CU. Along with the people Colorado State has a higher ranked business school, which will help me get the kind of job I want. When everything is said and done, the reason I went to college was to get a good job and I believe Colorado State gives me a great opportunity to do that.
7 I chose business as a major because I have always been interested in it. My dad is a stock broker so before I was 15 I could tell you what a ticker symbol was, the difference between a bond and stock, and many other items that many students will be exposed to their first year in the business school. I started my own stock portfolio when I was a junior in high school, using money I made working, I was able to purchase shares in a variety of different companies. I am not saying I want to be a stock broker, but that early exposure to the business world gave me an idea of what I wanted to concentrate on in college.
8. My favorite way to spend my free time is hang out with friends.
9. I have met many students in this class, but going into the class I did not know anyone.
10. I have not met any of the faculty members in the college of business.
11. I am not interested in studying abroad. This is mainly because of the cost and the constant moving around. While studying I want to get acclimated to a place and focus on my school work.
12. Business Week- Have heard of it and read it occasionally.
Fortune- Have heard of it and read it occasionally.
Forbes- Have heard of it and read it occasionally.
The Economist- Have heard of it, but I have never read it.A
BBC- Have heard of it, but I have never read it.
Denver Post- Have heard of it and read it occasionally.
Forbes- Have heard of it, but I have never read it..
Wall Street Journal- Have heard of it and I read it frequently.
13. As of now I don't have any questions.

Part 2

1 My strengths and weaknesses are fairly straight forward. As far as subjects in school I have always been stronger at math than English. I guess this is because there is somewhat of a gray area in English. What I mean by this is, one plus one will always be two. This is a clear cut answer and when taking a math test you are either right or wrong. When it comes to English you can write a paper that you think is great, but when you give it to your professor they could tell you that it could have been written better. This is what frustrates me about English, there is always a better way to write or explain something. When it comes to the business world my strength would have to be my ability to learn topics quickly. In high school I could get away with not paying attention in class and just teaching myself the material later. This ability has helped me in school, but it has also gotten me into trouble. With my ability to grasp subjects quickly I usually wait until the last minute to do assignments. I am trying to get rid of this habit (that is why I'm typing this paper on Saturday, as apposed to Monday at 3 PM).

2. Accounting- This is the concentration I am leaning towards right now for several reasons. There is a very good future on the horizon for accountants. On the Internet there is always postings about top ten most hired majors and accounting is always on that list, if not at the top of it. Another reason that I would choose accounting is the starting salary. In the business school handout I was given at orientation, accountants have the second highest starting salary of all concentrations. The final reason I am interested in accounting is because I enjoy it. I took a few accounting classes in high school and did fairly well in them. The material came easy to me and it made the courses fun and interesting.

Management- I am currently not interested in this concentration. The main reason this concentration is unappealing to me is, it seems to broad. I could be totally off in my thinking, but doesn't a concentration in management mean you are taught how to run a company? In my opinion to be able to run a company you first need to understand how the company works. This means a student going in for an interview with a management degree can't be interviewing for anything more than a low end position in the company. Just because the student has a management degree doesn't mean hes the CEO right off the bat. They have to work your way up the corporate latter and with no specialty skills like accounting, finance, ex how is he supposed to get noticed in the company? Management holds one of the lowest salaries out of all of the concentrations and it is not hard to see why. Without anything more than a general knowledge of business why should they get paid more than someone with a special skill?

Marketing- This concentration seemed interesting to me when I was younger, but once I talked to people with a concentration in marketing I was quick to knock this concentration off my list. From what I understood many people here the word marketing and immediately think of advertising or sales. If this is true I can't understand why people would bother to get a degree in marketing. When it comes to advertising you need to be able to grab customers attention by being creative and witty. These traits can not be taught, you either have them or you don't. This is even truer when it comes to the world of sales. You can not teach someone to be a good salesman, salesman have natural charisma and the ability to connect with their prospects. Once again this is something that you either have or you don't. From what I have heard for people with a marketing degree, everyone of them thought they would be writing commercials or writing up ads for the newspaper. Once they graduated, most of them ended up doing market research and conducting tests on different parts of the population. This is something that I would absolutely hate doing, which is why I don't think my concentration will be in marketing.

Computer Information Systems- This concentration is currently third on my list. I know a good deal about business computer software, but I know very little when it comes to the internal hardware of computers. In all honesty I do not know much about what this concentration is, but I am assuming it would be dealing with the computer networks around office buildings. If this is true, than my job would consist solving problems with people's computers around the office. This could be rewarding, solving people's problems, but in the long run I don't know if I posses the skills to move up the pay scale in this particular field. As I said in my WHY Factor I am in college to make money, and even though this concentration has the highest starting salary, in the long run I feel I could make more money in a field like accounting or finance.

Finance- If for some reason I don't like accounting, my fall back is finance. This is because it seems to be the closest to being a stock broker without actually being a broker. My dad is one of the recruiting chairman for his company and he says brokerage houses target students with finance and accounting degrees. If I decide being an accountant is not for me, my second option would have to be a financial analyst. This way I could pick companies for my firm to recommend investing in without the pressure of losing someone money. Finance doesn't have a high starting salary, but with my background knowledge and work ethic I think I could fair well in this field.

Real Estate- I have no interest in this concentration for a variety of reasons. To begin with, when I think of this concentration I think of a real estate agent. In that field it is all about salesmanship and from my marketing post you know how I feel about that. Also out of all of the concentrations this one seems to have the most unstable future. Unlike accounting, where the world is always going to need someone to keep the books, real estate is a very up and down industry. When the housing market is up I image people with this degree are loving their job and can't think of anything else they would rather be doing. On the other hand, when the market is down, I bet those same people are questioning why they ever got a degree in real estate. The instability of this field really sours me on this concentration and I can't see myself making this my concentration.

As far as picking a concentration, the one thing I can ask of the guest speakers is, to let us know the ceiling for their profession and what kind of money is being made once that ceiling is reached.

Part 3

For the Jung Typology Test I scored a ENTJ.
For the Princeton Review my colors are Yellow and Blue

After taking the two quizzes I was given confidence that I am on the right path as far as careers go. My yellow personality shows that I like working and analyzing numbers. The website indicated that I should look into accounting or law (considered this) as fields to meet my interests. My blue personality shows that I need to work in a career that is focused on the future. This is right up my alley, because if I go into the field of finances and become an analyst, my entire job would be predicting the future success of companies based on their financial statements. The Princeton Review test was very informative and helpful in showing me that I have picked the right major for myself.
The Jung Typo Test determined that I am a leader. In my results it showed that I can motivate and organize people to assist me in achieving long term goals. This is exactly what I want to be doing. My goal is to become a CEO or partner for some type of financial institution and according to the test that's not as far fetched as I once thought it was. For a career choice the test recommended to become an executive of a company so that I can use my leadership skills to get the company going in the right direction. The Jung Typo test was a very beneficial one for me because it showed me that I have what it takes to become a leader in corporate America.