I am a fourth-year at the McIntire School of Commerce, concentrating in Finance and IT, as well as doing the Business Analytics Track. I was an external transfer into the School from a community college in Virginia Beach. I found out about McIntire when I was a first-year in community college. I quickly knew I wanted to attend the School after discovering that I would be learning about all the different components of business while working with a real company during the Integrated Core Experience (ICE). Most other undergraduate business schools make you choose a major immediately and begin studying it. McIntire does quite the opposite, which was great for someone who didn’t know exactly what he wanted to study.
I had a lot of questions before applying and had to utilize many different resources (thankfully, McIntire makes them easy to find). I began by reading the website top to bottom. I read about ICE, the admission process for transfer students, faculty and staff, and all the different classes each concentration and track requires. This resulted in me having even more questions, so I scheduled a call with admissions staff. Eventually, I went on to visit UVA, tour the School, and meet with admissions staff. By the end of the process, I probably knew as much as the admissions staff themselves!
Attending McIntire has been a dream come true for me. Some days I have to pinch myself. The weekend before classes start, there is a three-day transfer orientation program designed to get all the transfer students up to speed, as well as comfortable with UVA before classes begin. This orientation is run by fourth-year students who also transferred. It’s great because you get to spend three days with people who were once in your shoes. Those same students act as mentors for the entire year to assist you whenever you need. It’s just one more thing McIntire does to help you succeed. The professors are incredibly committed to helping you succeed too. Each one is genuinely interested in assisting in any way they can. It’s no secret McIntire is a challenging school, so knowing that everyone is here to help makes it a lot easier. I was nervous that only having two years at UVA would hurt me, but in just the last year of school, I feel like I have been here all along.
