Kettering University

Date: Jul 30 2007
Major: Business - Management and Administration (This Major's Salary over time)
If you have any inkling of doubt that you will do anything else in your career besides engineering then don’t come to this school. Despite having many programs by name that would seem to differentiate from the engineering field, Kettering is STRICTLY an engineering school. The business department is, for lack of a better word, a joke. The information system program teaches you how to use Microsoft Access and VB.NET—things that I learned as a sophomore in high school. The rest of the classes until your junior year are revamped Industrial Engineering courses with new names. I say with all honesty that I have not learned anything about information systems in class that I didn’t know before I enrolled. Yet, I can say the co-op experience provided new learning opportunities, but it was on-the-job learning. The finance major is consists of two basic finance courses and four accounting courses. The marketing major is also very bare. The curriculum requirements have been redone three times since I started in 2004!

This problem also trickles down into your co-op experience. 90% of the companies involved in the co-op experience at Kettering are in the automotive/manufacturing arena. Even if you are finance major you will have to have some mechanical interest in order to thrive in the co-op process. You do have the opportunity to make a lot of money if you choose to work for the right company though. You can also fluff your resume to immense proportions with the right vocabulary through the co-op. This gives you a great chance to get your missed college experience in grad school (Which is my plan).

Finally, I’ll talk about the social life at Kettering. Kettering is the place for you if you like 75 % white males. Diversity is sorely lacking. Intramural Sports and binge drinking are the totality of the typical weekend Kettering activities. Most of the students come from Michigan or Ohio, so they often go home. The campus covers about 2 blocks and is encompassed by an impoverished neighborhood and city. Enrollment has been steadily dropping since I came into Kettering and I don’t see it changing unless major renovations are made to the Kettering experience as a whole.

If you are a gear-head, nerd, or introvert, then Kettering is the place for you. You will be challenged to your breaking point in academics and social interactions but………you will end up with a good job. I WANT MY MONEY BACK!!!