Indiana University Bloomington
Responses from the Student Interview
From a student who identifies as Major: Business Information Systems
Minor: Spanish
Student Self Identifies as: White Straight Female
Summary
Campus orchestra. There is an usher program at the auditorium that you do each semester. For part of my scholarship, I do research in the Marketing department at the Kelley School of Business.
Background
Gender Identity: Female
Race/Ethnicity: White
Sexual Orientation: Straight
High School Experience: Public High School in Richmond, Indiana. There were around 350 students in my class. There was a culture of going to college.
First Generation College Student: No
Major: Business Information Systems
Minor: Spanish
Extracurricular Activities: Campus orchestra. There is an usher program at the auditorium that you do each semester. For part of my scholarship, I do research in the Marketing department at the Kelley School of Business. I’m focusing on how consumer behavior changes based on out-of-stock or shelf displays in [brick and mortar] store environments.
What kind of time commitment is the orchestra?
The orchestra meets once a week for about an hour to an hour and a half. It’s technically a class but it doesn’t count toward my degree, so I consider it extracurricular.
Academic Experience
Can you describe your weekly coursework for your major?
I’m in the Kelley School of Business. The way that their degree programs set up is that everyone takes the same required classes for the first two years. During your junior year, you go through the Integrative Core Program that covers accounting, marketing, management, and basically overall business. After that, I’ll go into more of my degree focused classes. I’ve only taken about two classes that actually apply to information systems and those are in labs. We work with Excel or Access and usually the work for that requires you to work out of class on the computer to accomplish a project list. When you accomplish those, you have a completed workbook that you submit to your teacher to get graded.
Is there anything that you feel your department does especially well or especially poorly?
Kelley is one of the top public business schools and they are really well connected and work to prepare you for business environments. Some of the required classes are called Compass Classes, and during those classes you learn to build your social skills, your soft skills, build your marketability for the business world. They help us build-up LinkedIn profiles and help us prepare for interviews. Kelley provides a Career Service to practice getting interviews and most people have an internship by their junior summer.
How would you describe the learning environment? Do you think it’s particularly competitive or collaborative?
It feels competitive, but Kelley does require a lot of collaboration. Kelley is pushing teamwork. This last semester I had four or five team projects that made up over 50% of my grade. So it does require a lot of collaboration in most of the classes.
What has been your favorite class in your major?
That has been my Law class, Business in Law. It was a semester long class where we met twice a week and it was taught by a lawyer. I was never interested in law, but we studied cases and she assigned different tasks for the students. Half of the room covered the prosecution and the other half covered the defense and we looked that the patent cases, liability cases, and it was very fun because you got an idea of how it might apply to your life.
What has been your least favorite class in your major?
Microeconomics, it was one of the required courses. It was in a big lecture hall. The classes range from big lectures to like 20 people in the class. It was not just Kelley students. It was a very general class and it wasn’t taught it very well.
How accessible have your professors been?
They always provide office hours. I rarely had a professor that would say that they couldn’t meet with you outside of the office hours. They’re always there and available for you because they care about their students and want them to do well. If the professor isn’t available there are plenty of student teachers out who are able to meet for specific classes.
Do you feel that people are open to multiple schools of thought in the classroom?
Yes, I think so. I’m not one to go and share my opinion in the middle class. I have been in classes where there are definitely two opposing thoughts going on. We have very open classes.
What made you choose your major and are you happy with your choice?
I originally went to Kelley for Business Management because I thought I’d like to solve problems and I think I can deal with people. I was taking the classes like that cover all areas of business and I found that I was really enjoying my computer classes like K201: The Computer in Business and K303: Technology & Business Analysis. It was a lot more math logic based work that was involved and I looked more in that and aligned more with the information systems.
Reasons to Attend
1) Great education
2) It has two of the top schools in their focus with the Kelley School of Business and the Jacobs School of Music
3) Plenty of opportunities club wise
4) It is a big campus, but you can make it feel like a small campus. There are many people and it’s really diverse, so you’re able to meet a bunch of people and get your own small group of friends. It’s not necessary to be everywhere at once. [22% of domestic students are of color, all 50 states are represented, and 150 countries are represented.]
Reasons Not to Attend
1) It is expensive for people who are not in-state. [For 2019-2020, total costs for out of state students are $47,342.]
Around Campus
Where have you lived on and around campus?
Freshman: Forest Quadrangle in a double
Sophomore: Union Street Apartments with three roommates. It was really nice, it came with all the full amenities.
What was your favorite living situation?
I like living in an apartment and have my own room. That was really nice compared to living in a dorm.
Can you describe the level of safety you’ve experienced on and around campus?
I felt very safe. Indiana is really good at informing you of anything that ever happens near or on campus. They have a texting program setup or the calls that come in to warn you to stay inside or that this might have happened and you need to be careful.
What is your favorite off-campus restaurant?
That is a tough one because there are a lot of restaurants. I like the place called Siam House which is really good and spicy Thai food.
What is your favorite place to get away from campus?
I go to a friend’s house. She lives in Bloomington, but she doesn’t attend school.
Social Opportunities
What kind of weekend activities or nightlife do you like to participate in?
I’m not involved in any sorority or anything like that. My nightlife is me going out to grab some take out from Kirkwood and then coming back to my apartment and just having a night with a few close friends.
What have been some of your favorite times at Indiana?
The good thing about Indiana is that it has both sports and the arts. I’ve been able to see a lot of things at the auditorium that you don’t typically get to. There are a lot of opportunities to see music and live performances and that’s what I really enjoy. It also has Jacobs School of Music so you’re able to see free concerts every other night because the students have to do their performances. There are a lot of opportunities to see concerts.
How happy were you with the weekend options at Indiana?
I’m happy. It’s a really nice college town so there are plenty of things to do.
Campus Culture
How did you meet your closest friends?
They both go to my church but one of them happened to live on the same floor as me during my freshman year. I met her and then we lived together for the past year and we are going to live together next year. She is attending Jacobs School. She happened to live on the same floor and we happened to meet each other through mutual religions.
To what extent do you feel people of different races and sexual orientations mix socially?
Everyone is really open and everyone is accepting other people whatever their orientation is. I see flyers in almost every single place I go that talk about meetings or events and how everyone is welcome. People try to make it a really open campus.
Do you think people are generally happy with their choice for IU by the time they graduate school? Do you think people love IU?
I think so. I can’t say often enough that it is a great school. There’s a whole feud between Indiana and Purdue. My sister went to Purdue and whenever we’d be walking somewhere in the world and we see somebody is a from Purdue, my dad would say, “Go Boilermakers!” people would keep walking and not respond. When you see someone in an Indiana shirt and you say “Go Hoosiers!” people will say back “Go Hoosiers!” I think people are really proud of Indiana and so I think that people are happy.
Careers
Has the alumni network helped you find internships or jobs?
I know it does. All of our professors have always said there’s a lot of opportunity with networking especially when it comes to Indiana grads because they know what Indiana provides.
How helpful is the career office been?
I won’t use the career office until this coming fall. I have used them in a previous class I had. We had to do mock interviews, so I had to go there dressed in my interview outfit and I had to prepare a resume. I had a full interview for 30 minutes with one of the career advisers. She was able to provide feedback for me. They also do a lot of career fairs for students to be able to prepare for and to be able to network there too.
Have you learned any computer programs or languages through your coursework that will be helpful professionally?
Excel and Access are the only two that I have personally focused on. I’m sure that there are more classes out there especially for informatics majors that they use.