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September 7, 2004
Undergraduate Transfer Students Bring Fresh Perspectives to McCombs

Around four hundred undergraduates at the McCombs School of Business, or approximately one in ten members of the The University of Texas at Austin's BBA student body, are transfer students.

Simply by getting into McCombs, most transfer students have already demonstrated that they have a lot of initiative: the school's admissions requirements, extremely challenging for any prospective student, are especially tough for those applying from other institutions.

Still, even focused individuals need a little motivation sometimes, says Sam Laine, a junior PPA and president of the Business Transfer Student Association (BTSA).

On Sept. 2, the BTSA held a start-of-the-semester mixer for new transfer students. According to Laine, the evening had two goals. In the first place, organizers wanted transfers to see some of the extracurricular opportunities available to them.

“It is incredibly easy to develop tunnel vision on the academic side of our education as ‘business professionals’,” he said. “However, organizations play a critical role in our education in life.” Representatives from many student organizations were on hand to meet the transfers, and to try to turn them into new members.

The mixer's second goal was more general. “The business school is a beast when you first get here,” said Laine. “The amount of resources, class assignments and new professors—all put together, these create an environment that few transfers have ever experienced.”

Laine knows whereof he speaks, having himself transferred into McCombs from Austin Community College. He founded the BTSA last fall in order to help future transfers as they transition into McCombs.

“The event served as a reminder,” he continued, “that the business school, though it might be rough, is not bent on crushing its students—although around finals some might think otherwise—but rather, on developing what is best in us through a challenging environment and rigorous curriculum.”

To remind students of that, the evening featured a motivational address from Lynda Cleveland, a lecturer in the Department of Management Science and Information Systems, who spoke about what transfers should expect from the Business School and from themselves as BBA students. She assured students that McCombs could offer them an excellent education, but encouraged them not to neglect their own role in the process.

“Everyone was smart enough to get in here,” she said. “What you do with it is up to you.”

Laine said that transfer students have the good attitudes and unique backgrounds Cleveland considers so important.

“As any company realizes, new blood means new processes and new ideas. Transfer students come from diverse backgrounds, academically and socially. And if you’ve seen the GPA it takes to transfer into the business school, you would know that, in order to gain entrance here, their performance is above average,” he said. “So where does that leave us? With about four hundred highly motivated individuals who are eager to be involved, and who bring a fresh new perspective to the McCombs School of Business.”

For general media information on the McCombs School, contact the director of communications, David Wenger (512-471-3314).